Stop and enjoy the electrons along the way...

What use is an F-call? I'm a child of my time and my perspective is the result of input from fellow amateurs. I'm often in the group of amateurs who would rather buy than build, rather get something done, than do it yourself. The black box brigade if you like. The same is true for the antennas I use. I've been struggling with some verticals on the back of my car for months. I've got it working, mostly, but it was a lot of stuffing around. In the end, I added a black box, in the form of a tuner to make it work, sort of. The radio clubs I associate with have towers and multi-element beams, there are antenna farms, rotators, switch boxes, amplifiers and the like, all far removed from a simple set-up. Most of these are purchased and put together, rather than designed and built. During the week I spent some time with the other side of radio. A simple fishing pole with a string of wire, sitting on a groin pointed into the ocean, picking off signals left and right. Until now I've been approaching this along the lines of "get the antenna that works, make contacts, rinse and repeat". Sitting on the groin in the warm sun it occurred to me that there is nothing wrong with that idea, but that I was missing out on the journey along the way. I've been looking at my antenna problem as an annoyance, preventing me from getting on air, and while it did annoy me, it also taught me lots about vertical antenna design, about inductance, reactance, impedance and more. I like shiny new things, radios, computers, antennas and all the rest of it, but I've come to the realisation that there can also be a journey along the way. I'm not sure it's smelling roses, let's call it, enjoy the electrons. It remains to be seen if that translates into me making wacky antenna designs or not, but one thing I learned is not to be afraid of trying anymore. I'm Onno VK6FLAB