I got my General license in October, and a FT-710 back in December. I have been struggling on getting the setting right on the radio to so I could get a contact on HF. I have it hooked up to a LDG Z-100A tuner, and the Antanna is a Diamond HFV-5 pentaband antanna. But the settings on the radio were not right, I could not hear anything for such a long time. Today I found the issue on the settings there. But then the radio was not putting out the full 100W of power so I could not be heard, so I tried a full reset of the radio and set the recive setting to where I could hear. And tried again, this time I was able to get the full 100W out on 40M and then I tried to make contact again from my radio. It worked, I heard them at a 57 and they also heard me at a 57. And they were up in Massachusetts, so from Maryland I was able to reach Massachusetts. Before I could only make contacts from my car with the FT-891 on the ATAS 120 antanna, but now I can say I made 2 SSB contacts from my aprtment. I am very pleased with it. So now I can start to see if I can get on HF more. And maybe not spend as much time playing with the radio to get it to work, I can get on the air, and since I been ignoring my video games for about a month and half trying to get this to work, I can maybe put some more time back in the the video games. But hay I am now on the air not only in my car but also at my home QTH.
Also recently I had my mom’s old Lafayette HA-63 radio refurbished so I can listen to short wave radio at night.
All that is left to for the radio setup at home, is a few more things I wish to 3d print for my ham station, right now I am printing something so I can stow the computer keyboard and mouse under the table the radio is on, so I can have more room on the table. Mainly so I can take notes with a pen and paper. It is easier for my to copy call signs down on paper when I hear them then to try to type them into the computer.
