I hear many people every day say they can't do HF because they live in a place where they can't erect an antenna. I hear them say they live in a place with too much interference from neighbors with their plasma TVs, Air Conditioners, consumer electronic junk, and throw in power line noise too. I say it's all bunk. I live in an apartment building in a neighborhood of apartment buildings and shopping centers. I have a power line feeding my building mere feet from my window. I have a 20m dipole mounted 8 inches down from my ceiling in an almost circular pattern around my room. It does help that I'm on the third floor but you can surely see I'm not in an ideal situation.

With that being said, when you visit my page because we've made contact, you've been contacted with at most 20 watts of power. You can calculate the distance of our contact from the details page and see that yes we did just do thousands of miles with less than ideal QTH conditions much less what the atmosphere is giving us today.

I greatly appreciate every contact. I've made PSK31 and JT65 contacts to Reunion Island (off the coast of Madagascar 9783 miles), Figi (7361 miles), Tasmania (Off the coast of Australia 9740 miles), Australia several times (9783 miles), Asiatic Russia (5513 miles), European Russia (5356 miles), All over Europe, Africa, South America, Canada, Central America, Hawaii, Alaska, and WAS. I even made a JT65 contact late at night on 20 meters to a guy 4.9 miles down the road in the same town. No matter where the contact lives, I'm happy to talk to them.

Recently I've successfully made contacts via the International Space Station digipeater and find myself trying to hit it with a signal at lower and lower angles and lower and lower power.

Again, if anyone tells you that you can't make HF contacts because you live in a bad area, direct them here. I'm proof that anything is possible and truth be told.if I can do it, anyone can.

73 and thanks for visiting my Bio here at QRZ.com

Equipment for HF Operation:

Update: February 2013

I recently purchased an Elecraft KX3 to run with my Buddipole when I go hiking, camping, or just want to go spend a day in the park enjoying radio.  At first I thought with my limited 10 watts out on battery, the unit wouldn't do me much good inside my apartment with all the noise and the thick concrete walls to shoot through.  Surprisingly I've been proved wrong.  Now when you complete a contact with me, you have most likely been hit with 8-9 watts at most and on some bands such as 30 meters 4-5 watts at most.  I've hit out to about 6000 miles with 5 watts and already have a dozen European entities on the KX3 with JT65 and RTTY.  PSK31 has been limited success so far but I really haven't put too much time into it yet.  SSB has seen NA and SA contacts and stretched one out to the Azores on 6 watts which was nice.

That being said.the below FT-897 has been powered off since the UPS man handed me the KX3 kit.  I intend to purchase the 100 watt amp when it is released and maybe Summer will bring some really good DX openings.

Yaesu FT-897

AT-897Plus - A great little tuner from LDGE

20 Meter wire dipole Antenna - installed inside an apartment with a MFJ-915 Inline RF Line Isolator

(lately I've been using a Buddipole Deluxe in the living room to make contacts on 17,15,12 and 10 meters)

Yaesu CAT cable to control the FT-897 with the computer using Ham Radio Deluxe

(lately I've preferred using MixW 3.11 for PSK31 and RTTY contacts and JT65-HF for the JT65 contacts)

Signalink USB

Home brew computer running Windows 7 and I really enjoy using N3FJP's ACLog 3.2

I picked up a good deal on a Yaessu FT-101EX that works perfectly. I went on eBay and purchased an Astatic Silver Eagle mic to go along with it and have used it several times on 20m SSB Phone.

Equipment for VHF Operation:

Yaesu FT8800R

Jetstream 2m/70cm antenna mag mounted to a cookie sheet placed in the windowsill

Jetstream JTPS45 45AMP Switching Power Supply

Yaesu FT-60R for HT duties

Two Radio Shack Pro-197's for scanning

Laptop running Windows 7 for APRSIS32 duties