New Year Ramble

Well, that's Christmas and New Year over with. I have to say that radio activity for me has been quiet over the Festive period, due to being away for a large part of it and away from the shack.

Since returning four days ago, I have had MB6IAG running on the UK Hub Net on Wires-X and have heard little or no activity. There was a net publicised on the NWIS room for New Years Eve, where stations from all over the world were invited to take part and celebrate the New Year from wherever in the World they were, in real time, but that was also under subscribed.

There was a short local net on 2m on New Years Eve, for an hour or so earlier in the evening, but I couldn't make it to the radio due to visitors.

The Gateway is running at the moment and apart from a few overs earlier, there has been nothing for at least three hours. Admittedly I haven't called either as I'm doing other things, and I suspect that is what everyone else is doing.

This all points toward a distinct lack of activity in general. Could this be a sign that the Hobby is in decline? I know of several Operators locally to me who have forsaken the hobby to pursue other interests. Propagation on HF has been poor, lack of activity on other bands and modes and general disinterest have contributed to ghostly silences of late.

I'm concerned that we will soon have no hobby, despite record numbers of Licensees, where are they all?

New Year, new objectives -  I intend to get the studying in and the Advanced exam under my belt this year. I did say the same last year but circumstances led to my time being prioritised in other directions. I also want to tackle Morse this year - its something I feel I'm missing out on at the moment, so to have that capability in the arsenal would be an advantage.

I'm looking forward to the Spring and better weather to go out portable - it's awfully chilly at the moment, so I haven't been out lately.

VoIP seems to be growing in popularity and I have plans afoot to become more involved with AllStar and EchoLink - if the inactivity on 2m and 70cm continues it will soon be the only way to talk to anyone.

Anyway, let's hope that things will improve somewhat and in the meantime, I will carry on regardless.

For now 73 de 2E0ENN