Larry K3LT wrote:
Greetings all, and hope all is well with everyone. I'm back after my
fairly lengthy hiatus; I have moved out of the apartment I lived in for
12 years and moved down the road 3 miles East. I bought a 3-bedroom
duplex house in a very heavily CCR'd community -- but hopefully I'll
manage to get back on-the-air in some minimal way pretty soon. I need
a new HF rig for one thing -- my ancient IC-735 is pretty much toast
after over 18 years of constant service.

Ham radio on the local scene is pretty much toast as well -- club
membership is a third of what it was even 3 years ago, and between
making the move, doing my job, and dealing with some health issues, my
own participation has been virtually non-existant for more than a year.
I'm hoping that the coming of cooler weather I'll be able to do more
stuff radio-wise, perhaps get a dipole in my attic or rig a wire
vertical up the side of the house and load it with my auto-tuner.

As far as code v. no-code goes, I don't really care any more. I'm all
but done with that topic. The handwriting is on the wall, and no
matter what the FCC and the ARRL do to dumb-down the licensing
requirements, we will not see any big increases in the number of hams.
Even I now own a cell phone; so there it is. I can chat for hours free
of charge anywhere in the world after 9 PM EST and on weekends. BTW,
if anyone wants to do just that, e-mail me and we'll exchange phone
numbers. If you're on Verizon, we can chat for free 24/7!

Well, that's all for now. I'll be around.

73 de Larry, K3LT

Larry, welcome back. I've often wondered about what was keeping you,
so maybe now you'll have more time to keep us entertained.

Amateur radio is moving back to it's roots; a solitary activity in one
corner of the basement. I think the boomer influence of doing
everything in mass is starting to wash away.

As far as cell phones go, I've got one too. I'm on a dirt cheap plan,
and my anytime minutes are about zip. You never know when an emergency
will come up, though.

Stay well, Brian