Thursday, May 28th, 2026

Entering short waves
====================

Seven years  after passing  the exams  and receiving  my amateur radio
licence, I finally took the plunge into the world  of shortwave bands.
Back in the old days getting into HF either meant either being skilled
enough to build your own gear, or having a spare heap of money, 'cause
shortwave equipment was anything but cheap.

The arrival  of inexpensive  SDR radios from China  changed that, just
like various  Baofeng,  Quangsheng,  or Wouxun transceivers made usage
of VHF/UHF bands affordable about a decade before that.

As my starter rig,  I bought  a 5W  QRP transceiver,  the Xiegu G106G,
and because I do not operate from my home QTH,  also a portable JPC-12
antenna.  Since digital modes  are what interest  me the most,  I also
picked up the Xiegu DE19 data interface,  which allows the radio to be
fully controlled from a computer.  I made one voice QSO and then moved
on to what really interests me: WSPR and FT8.

I only operated from the garden of our family weekend cottage, nothing
particularly special in terms of elevation, just an ordinary location.
Even so, my WSPR transmissions on the 14 MHz band reached from Central
Europe all the way to the U.S., Japan,  Australia,  or New Zealand.[1] 
For someone who spent  fifteen years transmitting  exclusively  on VHF
and UHF (first on public bands, later on HAM bands), and whose closest
encounter with  short waves  had previously  been CB radio,  this felt
almost unbelievable.

Perhaps  I should  not have  waited  this long to get  into shortwave.
I'm  already looking  forward  to the next  opportunity  to set  up my
antenna somewhere and put the radio back on the air.

[1]  gopher://i-logout.cz/I/phlog/posts/2026-05-28_wspr_map.png
.