Looking Back, Looking Ahead

To mark the new year this article will look back to my activities in 2025 and my plan for 2026. It is a tradition on the blog though not one held to rigourously. It can be helpful to honestly review what was accomplished and how that compares to what was planned. 

You are free to compare what you read below to that year old plan. I will not. My aspirations tend to run ahead of accomplishments since the former is far easier than the latter; that is, words are easier than deeds, which is true of any endeavour. I should also mention that I am an eternal optimist, so these things happen.

2025 accomplishments

Despite my best efforts to be distracted by non-radio activities quite a lot got done in 2025, both with respect to the station and operating. Distraction is okay since this is a hobby not a job. There is life outside of amateur radio.

First up are the antennas. There are new ones and improvements to old ones.

• The reversible 40 meter Moxon was built, raised, fixed, raised again and finally put into service in the early fall. This is now my favourite antenna. Its performance is excellent, instant reversing between Europe and the US, and a low SWR across the band. However the Ham-M used to turn it is under-powered: I had to reposition the mast once so far. It has allow developed a fault which I'll come to a little later.
• I don't use the 30 meter delta loop often since there isn't as much casual DX available as in the past. Its intended use is therefore for DXpeditions. The antenna performs very well on long distance DX. It is all the antenna I need for 30 meters. 
• While not a new antenna, the lower 5-element 15 meter yagi of the stack is almost rotatable. The bracket and rotator are installed and working. However the antenna remained firmly attached to the tower when winter settled in. One or two warm days should see the project through.
• I did less antenna modelling than in past years, reflecting the maturity of the station. I am currently exploring various antenna models for future implementation. Anything interesting will eventually show up in an article.

Other projects were started though not completed by year end. More about those later. A large tree fell across two Beverages a week ago. Fast work with a chainsaw returned them to service in time for the Stew Perry weekend. They'll next see heavy use during the CQ 160 CW contest later in January. 

The TH6 and one direction of the 40 meter Moxon developed faults in the first week of January, just in time for NAQP CW. I hope to be able to  repair both without lowering them to the ground. That will require careful rigging and more clement weather. Maintenance in a large station never ends.

Here is a quick summary of my non-antenna projects:

• Prop pitch motor controller: As reported, it works and is in daily use. However, I have not had time to implement more features such as the all important soft rotation limits -- prop pitch motors have no mechanical limits. 
• New PC: The main station computer was upgraded to deal with increased computing demands of skimmer spots and various contesting features. My early impression is that it helped only marginally. Well, I suppose it was time to move to Windows 11 anyway, and hard drives on old PCs are always a risk. I've had a few computers fail that way. Backups are essential.
• Solid state amps: I began my transition with the purchase of an Acom 1200S. That made it easier for guest ops to navigate the station's complexity. I will continue the migration in 2026. However, both tube amps -- Acom 1500 and Drake L7 -- will stay. The 1500 continues as my daily amp of choice for its clean transmit signal and duty cycle at high power. After repairing it protection circuit glitches occurred twice, and that will require a closer look.

With respect to operating, my interests haven't changed too much: DX, contests, 6 meters, etc. There were guest ops for a few contests, one multi op in CQ WW SSB, and then my own single op contest efforts, including CQ WW CW. Let's look at this in more detail.

With regard to operating there were events worth noting since my 6 meter mid-season update. My 6 meter DXCC worked count increased by 2. I now have 149 worked and 138 confirmed on LoTW. The 3 additions for 2025 were 4U1UN, 9J2FI and C5R. More were heard but not worked, including: VK, EL, 9L, HV and ZS, and others I've previously confirmed like FK, V5, VP8 and many others. There was one notable QSO this fall with an extraordinarily strong ZL1RS (who I've worked before). I worked him again in the first week of January. DX crops up when you least expect it.

With weak hints of a second cycle peak in 2026 we can cling to hope for better DX this spring. But with the number of countries I've worked the diminishing returns are becoming brutal. I've thought about a larger antenna or a stack but I doubt it would help all that much. It's unlikely to ever happen since the cost-benefit ratio is poor. That said, perhaps I'll do it anyway, though not this year.

There is little else to say about the 6 meter season so I was able to replace a season end article with two paragraphs. 

After skipping 2024 we resumed multi-op contesting in 2025. The big event was CQ WW SSB in which we did pretty well in the M/2 category. We were not globally competitive, nor can we be. Unfortunately there is little in the way of bragging rights (or an award) for winning Canada. A second multi-op (M/S) was in the RAC Winter contest. There were just two of us, where he (VA3UMM) did SSB and I did CW.

After failing to once again break 5000 QSOs as a single op in CQ WW CW -- mostly due to poorer conditions and my mediocre 2BSIQ skills -- I have to decide whether to try again in 2026 or to increasingly focus on multi-ops. Although I believe that I can improve my score with practice and effort, I am not very motivated to try in 48 hour contests. Long duration 2BSIQ can be grueling for mere mortals such as me.

2026 plan

New construction has slowed as the station approaches its tenth anniversary. There will certainly be more antennas and improvements to existing ones, but I doubt that any future project will be at the scale of what I've already accomplished. 

Any major improvements to the antenna system will require at least one new tower. I can easily acquire and put up towers so that isn't the problem. The problem is maintenance and the march of time. Eventually my climbing days will come to an end, hopefully later rather than sooner, but the end will come. More towers and antennas will become physically difficult to manage. My current physical condition and strength are excellent, but I must plan ahead.

As mentioned earlier, antenna trouble cropped up in advance of the NAQP CW contest. These jobs have been added to my 2026 project list: TH6 and the "south" direction of the 40 meter reversible Moxon -- it works fine in the "north" direction. Both antennas are conveniently close to each other so I climbed up and had a look. 

The problems were diagnosed and can be dealt with when the weather warms. The 40 meter Moxon will have to come down for repair (again) if I don't come up with a way to access the element switch boxes from the tower. It can be done, however the rigging details are critical.

The TH6 is a continuing problem, and has often failed in wet weather. My patience with this venerable antenna is running thin. When it works it is too narrow band and lossy (due to the traps). Guest ops have difficulty with the high SWR at the upper end of the SSB segments (tuning is optimized for CW).

The present fault appears to be repairable on the tower. I'll do that when the weather cooperates even though I am planning to replace it. I am investigating designs for lightweight mono-band yagis for 20, 15 and 10 meters. All of them will be fixed south for instant switching to the multiplier rich and QSO thin south direction. 

The following is a summary of antenna projects planned for 2026. One or more may be contingent on a new tower since there is little available space on the existing ones, or side mount options where destructive interactions can be avoided.

• Rebuild the 80 meter yagi: The first steps were taken before winter set in. It can proceed in stages during the year, with completion slated for the fall. Summer is the slow season for the low bands so when the antenna has to be taken offline for a few weeks it will not be a problem.
• SSB for the 80 meter inverted vee: The antenna is pretty much unusable above 3700 kHz. A standard dipole, unlike a vertical, cannot have a low SWR from 3500 to 3800 kHz. Although solutions are straight-forward, it's lower priority than other planned projects.
• Add SSB and an efficient 160 meter mode to the 80 meter yagi: The physical rebuild of the antenna is a prerequisite for these projects. It's at high risk of being deferred to next year.
• 12/17 yagi: After installing a 30 meter antenna in 2025, resonant antennas for the remaining 12 and 17 meter WARC bands are desirable. Non-resonant antennas, with transceiver ATUs or tube amps, are how I've operated those bands until now. Since the antenna has to be rotatable there will be a challenge finding a suitable tower position for it.
• Rotating the lower 15 meter yagi: The bracket and rotator have already been installed but I couldn't finish the project before the cold weather arrived. I hope to complete it this winter if the weather cooperates. It will provide more operating agility and stacking gain into Asia and the Pacific.
• More Heliax: I have sufficient LDF5-50 on hand for new runs to the 20-15 meter tower to support more antennas. A new trench will have to be dug before or after the farming season.
• New and improved rotators: I can't escape the need for rotators so I put up with their fickleness. I recently acquired a Yaesu G2800DXA that I hope to put to good use. I also acquired a Green Heron RT21 controller and two Hy-Gain controllers that can be interfaced with a PC. I hope to have all the rotators software-controlled from both operating positions. 
• Beverage replacement study: The never ending maintenance for the Beverages is annoying even though they're easy to repair. Alternatives include BOG (Beverage on Ground) and vertical arrays. Both require pre-amps that are immune to high signal levels for compatibility with SO2R and multi-op contests. That may be difficult. The existing Beverages do very well in that respect.

Projects in the shack will be to modernize the station's capabilities and to make contest operating as easy as possible. More agility in contests and for daily operating will be welcome. It won't come cheap even though I do a lot of home brewing since major hardware will need to be purchased. I might even discard one or more home brew projects and go commercial in the interests of time.

These are the most significant items for the shack and contest operating in 2026:

• Solid state amplifier: The intent is greater agility during contests and less training for guest operators. The latter is particularly important if I follow through on hosting more multi-ops. It's a difficult choice and I am continuing to evaluate the alternatives, yet stay on budget.
• Rewrite of the antenna selection software: I've begun but it is unlikely to be done before the end of this contest season. You would think winter is the ideal time for software development inside a warm shack. Other tasks easily distract me. When it's done, each operator will have their own antenna selection window, antenna choices will be clearly displayed, and expansion and maintenance will be made easier by means of configuration files.
• More 2BSIQ: Despite saying I'd rather not do this and my plan is more focussed on multi-ops, it is an important skill to learn. I improved my desktop layout for SO2R based on a friend's advice, and now I have to schedule practice to hone my skills. Close to 90% of my contacts in the recent NAQP CW contest were done with 2BSIQ. The live training was vital but it cost me multipliers.
• Encourage new contesters: I have started to encourage younger hams to try contesting by inviting them to operate my station. CQ WW SSB and RAC Winter contests are two recent examples. Too many hams of my generation fret about the future yet do nothing about it. The candidate pool is large: there are more hams in our country that ever before, and the same is true in many other countries. Although most are drawn to other aspects of the hobby, competitiveness is inherent to the human spirit. Awareness and opportunity can unlock that potential.

As usual I am over-reaching in my annual objectives. That's okay: it's better to aim high and fall short than to achieve what comes easily.

The blog

My productivity has had a sustained pace for 13 years. I promised myself a few years ago that I would aim for about one article per week, which I managed to do again in 2025 (46 articles). With so much of my available time dedicated to the station there is always a lot of material for the blog. I will never write "fluff" just to meet my schedule. Every article should have substance and be of interest to at least some readers. When I have nothing to write, I write nothing. 

As far as topics go, it should be understood that the blog follows what I am doing and thinking, not what others want or is popular. I aim to please myself and hope that it is interesting and useful to others. I am comfortable with the mix of technical and operating articles I choose to write about.

Despite no promotion the readership appears to have grown. I say "appears" since I do not use any tracking tools. It is based on the number of article hits and referrals (net of spam and bots), and sometimes comments. The previous article about digital seems to have hit a nerve with readers. Links to it have been shared leading to discussion on other forums and bringing some of them here to comment. Rarely does an article get so much reaction.

Although it isn't my intent to be provocative on controversial topics, I wanted to make a firm statement about the issue. I expect most hams to remain entrenched in their views of FT8 and its cousins. I won't shy away from what I believe are important issues facing our hobby that ought to be addressed. We need progress and renewal, not a desperate clinging to a mythical golden age that never truly existed. It's the future that needs our attention.

The blog will continue for as long as I have the drive and there are interesting topics to write about. I don't foresee a slowdown in the near future. 

The future

This fall will mark 10 years since I moved to this QTH and started building my present station. Time flies, and it will keep flying. That raises several questions:

• How much longer will I be able to do tower work?
• Who can I get to do tower work that is economical and knowledgable? 
• When I must downsize, can I keep the station and operate remote?

Entropy never sleeps. I was deeply affected by the passing of several friends and elderly family members in 2025. None of us will live forever.

On the other hand this is an ideal time to invest more in the station. With less time ahead of me I am free to spend more as long as I set aside enough for vital matters. It is time to write my shopping list. So it isn't all bad. I am cursed with optimism.

I look forward to seeing you on the bands in 2026 and for many years to come.