Building a shortwave/HAM radio station...

At 09:24 PM 4/16/2011, you wrote: I lived in a typical Milwaukee 2-story duplex for several years, with those wonderful walk-in attics. Even tho I was on the first floor, I was able to drop a fishing sinker down the outside of the sewer vent from the attic. A little jiggling on the line got it to fall all the way through to the basement. I then pulled down a heavy duty polyester pull-string, and then some coax. I put a wire dipole up there for six meters (50Mhz) and a few 2 meter yagis and dipoles. The yagi was on a cheep TV antenna rotator. Once when I had to be in Arlington Height and Rolling Meadows, I called my wife (also licensed) on 2 meter simplex. It was choppy but perfectly copyable. Now I live in a one-story home with high ground all around me. I have a 12-foot tower on the roof with about eight feet of mast sticking out. I have 6m, 2m, and 70cm antennae up there and do alright, but definitely not spectacularly. Many of us old 6-meter fans are awaiting redemption. We have been in a long trough of low solar activity, which normally ramps up and then down again on an 11-year cycle, but this one we're going into isn't setting the ionosphere on fire yet. Not by a long shot. Six meters is often called "the magic band" because of how it sometimes acts like a local/regional band and then goes nuts and lets you chat with folks several countries away. I used to play with aurora-mode on six. Any time there's reports of strong aurora borealis up north, I'd turn my antenna north, bounce a signal off the aurora, and chat with folks almost due west of me. I've worked people in Colorado and Nevada, from SE Wisconsin, with my beam pointed north. The raspy whisper of aurora mode takes some getting used to. Someone else will have to talk about the ping jockeys that bounce a highspeed morse signal off the ion trails left by the almost continuous rain of small meteors hitting the atmosphere and burning up. I've never tried it but it's an amazing mode. Hope that whets the appetite a little.