At the end of 2015, my wife and I decided that we no longer needed to live in a house with over 4600 square feet of space.  I also wanted to get away from stairs, which have become a greater challenge in the past year. 

We found a house under construction just 1/4 mile east of of where we had been for 15 years.  It was a bit under 1900 square feet, had a layout we really liked, and looked out on a nice pond.  We bought it and moved in March 2016.  

It took a bit of work, but I moved my ZERO FIVE 30' Flag Pole vertical and am now back on the air.  I installed 3000' of radials, and placed a HAMWARE.DE Model 615U remote antenna tuner at the base of the antenna.  I am still working out a few kinks but it is really great to be back on the air.  

My number one love in the hobby is CW rag chewing.  I also chase DX and have slowly added to my DXCC Challenge totals.  Like a number of others, the burden of paper QSLing has become too much of a challenge for me, and I will only rarely send an actual hard copy confirmation.  I do upload to LoTW often.

Among my Ham friends is Dave - N9FN. He and I have participated in a number of QSO parties in MI, OH, IL & IN.  We usually operate portable from his very nice van, put together specifically for portable operation... be it Field Day, QSO Parties, or emergency communications needs in the area.  In those states that permit it, we like to operate on county lines, and hold a number of QSO Party records.  I invite you to look at his QRZ dot com page where you will get a better idea of how we do QSO parties, and I also invite you to participate is such parties.

Another good friend is Vic - W9RGB.  Vic lives only 4 miles away and is a great sounding board when I get some crazy idea of what changes I might make in my shack.  It was Vic who kindly loaned me his K3 and P3 several years ago... which led to me to put together an Elecraft station at my QTH when I was able.  My wife Mary and I enjoy getting together with Vic and his wife Carol for dinner from time to time.  Vic is a very active CW operator, and many hams all over the world know him as a real gentleman and a great person with whom to enjoy a fine CW chat.

If you have worked Vern - W9FAM, you have worked another good friend and mentor who loves our hobby as much as anyone I know. We have been friends for more than 40 years, and Vern has been quite active for 78 plus years. He and I visit often and I help keep his fine station up to date and working so he can enjoy QRQ CW rag chews, and SSB with top quality audio. A QSO with Vern is not likely to be soon forgotten.

Very 73,

Dave - K9FN

FOC # 2001