Starting off in amateur radio?

If you're curious about amateur radio, then now is a really good time to join-in the fun!  After a long spell of solar minimum, the Sun is once again waking up and heading towards maximum in a few years' time.

The availability of sensitive digital modes - of which there are very many more (and better) than simply FT8 - now means you can enjoy long distance contacts, even when you live in non-ideal locations and/or don't have a particularly good antenna.  It also means you don't need high power; I have always kept to no more than 30W, and usually it's more like 20W.  When 'backpack portable', I only use about 4W.

Having recently moved from an outstanding to a very average home location, I'm still finding it worth hanging on to my base transceiver, even though I have to make-do with a low, sloping delta loop which is about 30m long.  

You can achieve better results, more often with a Yagi.  But with digimodes, it is absolutely no longer necessary to have one of these antennas.  For one thing, most of us are not able to get permission for one.  Maintaining things can be a headache, especially as you get older.

 

Here's a plot of stations heard here, and stations hearing me, on three upper HF bands today.  I should point out that the time period to gather these spots was quite short - maybe only an hour or so altogether; I'm a bit busy with other things at the moment.  So this gives you a good idea of what you might achieve with pretty much the most basic set-ups imaginable.  There really is every reason to join the hobby now!

Brown=15m, red=12m, pink=10m.