Five and a half years, and some SSB.

Are you fed up of FT8?  I mean, it's a great way to make a QSO, although I feel that I was making far more interesting DX contacts during the JT65A and JT9 era.  I also had more time to do something else in between transmissions, which was very useful!

But endlessly just racking-up QSOs for the sake of it, rarely looking operators up because they come and go so fast, it's just so unrewarding!

Remember what this is?

So, with some very strong signals on 15m FT8 yesterday, I suddenly remembered there was the potential to hear a human voice, higher up on the band.

So, I twiddled the FT-450 - now reaching five-and-a-half years of faultless daily service (it reached me as an immaculate, probably never-used second hand unit) - and sent a SSB 'CQ' on 21.275MHZ with about 60W peak into my monoband vertical delta loop.

Lo and behold!  A couple of strong US stations came back to me straight away.  The details went down on my diary, ready for later logging, just like the old days (i.e., a couple of years ago!)

I have to say that having a good QSO by SSB leaves one feeling much more satisfied, having learned about a fellow ham, their location, station and little details like the weather.  It serves the imagination so much better than the mindless digital handshakes that the digimodes ultimately are.  Voice takes the mind elsewhere in a way that digital doesn't, really.

But there you go.  At least we have the choice to use digimodes or voice, and that is a valuable thing.