[600MRG] Why I left Ham Radio

[dickbolt at comcast.net]

I am grateful for all the great advice on getting on 600 Mtrs. I am long in the tooth, pre war baby! I got out of ham radio abt 12 yrs ago as the Internet provided all the communication & research tolls i needed. I could talk to anyone around the world at the simple pounding of the key board & now even see them real time via Skype! I even lost much of my receiving & sending from head ability in More Code. I can however fly through typed text in sending! This of course is not to useful for weak signal work on 50-1296 Mhz that I used to like so much.! I am on 50 & 144 Mhz now & 75 a bit also. I tend to stick to SSB until my code recovers fully! Took some Yingling medicine to see if it helped! Ha I bought the 746 Pro for 6 &2 meters , but still have my TS-430S that drives several of my transverters.
So, talk on packets & other strange stuff to make a contact that is not a real contact in the old days sense is a bit sacrilegious! I did do a bit of meteor scatter on 144 Mhz yrs ago however that is a bit on the edge. Not sure where I would classify moon bounce.
I was looking for an easy way to get on 600hz with some easy conversion , possibly trick way of making the 746 Pro Xmit there , which it does not now & only receives on that Freq. It seemed like a new frontier. I think many yrs ago there was a few narrow set of frequencies that were a free band with no license necessary for CW. Possibly only a rumor. I remember listening to CW in that area of frequencies with my old ARC5 receiver that tuned that low. I used to use it as a receiver IF frequency tuner which used to be in the 455 Hz as I remember. I am still interested & do have a crystal oven from 1930s with a 500 Hz crystal in it. I did not know crystals would not work in that low frequency oscillators. Possibly calibration crystal circuits will be good. I have a beat up 2nd AT-1 that might make a transmitter & save the good one.
Dick W1DGA in Western MD