The next change was the location...... Julie and I both agreed that living in downtown Toronto was nice but it was time for a change. A slower pace was very agreeable to us both, so we decided to move to the east coast of Canada. We sold our condo in Toronto and purchased a home in New Brunswick and started to pack and move. I have to be honest I have NEVER made this many decisions in a single year in my entire life.
Fast-forward to the present.....we are settled in New Brunswick and my new call is a 2 letter call VE9KK. In Ontario, 2 letter calls are very very hard to get. In New Brunswick, I had a choice of 2 letter call signs. I chose a call that had good CW qualities. I have put up an EndFed antenna the property is small and the Endfed was my desk drawer taking up space, so I decided to put it into service. I'm now in my 5th month in New Brunswick and to date, I have logged 447 contacts as VE9KK and the first months at the new QTH I was unpacking and setting the house up. My first contact was on October 13 with IU8DON and since then I have logged more contacts in two and a half months than the first 7 months of 2019 as VE3WDM, I made a total of 311 contacts so it looks like retirement is treating me well in regard to my radio hobby.
I'm Looking forward to 2020 and what are my goals.......I want to look into the CWops cw academy program as this is really the only option I have found that works and can get my code on the upswing. Get involved with the local amateur radio club in town the Moncton Amateur radio club or MAARC. I would like to explore contacting some DXpeditions both CW and FT8 and or FT4. The above goals seem like a good start for the year as I don't want to go overboard with one hopeful goal after the other.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my blog readers.
10 comments:
Mike,
I don't normally indulge in language pedantry, but it's been nearly 6 months...
Whenever you say "VE9KK, formally VE3WDM", I think you mean "formerly", as in -
formally= officially, recognised by aauthority
formerly= previously
This is a homophone error, 2 words that sound the same but have different meanings. It's quite common. In left-pondian communications, to|too|two are often confused as well.
Geoff, G8KBZ
p.s. I know the spell-checker complained about recognised, but I'm a Brit, and we tend to use -s- instead of -z-.
Geoff thanks very much for pointing that out up until you mentioned it I looked at it and saw "formerly". It is very true I have been VE9KK for almost 6 months now and it's time to remove the "formerly VE3WDM".
Thanks very much for pointing that out and Merry Christmas.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
I'm happy for you, Mike. I can imagine the varying, and sometimes conflicting, emotions related to retirement that you must have dealt with. (Note to Geoff: sorry for ending that sentence in a preposition).
We are in the mode of constantly talking about retirement and have a few things yet to take care of before calling it quits from the working world.
Your new QTH seems to have improved the enjoyment of the hobby with new and better DXing possibilities. I'm sure we'll cross paths on the air sometime!
73 and Merry Christmas,
John AE5X
Good evening John always good to hear from you, yes for sure the whole retirement thing was stressful, but I am very happy I went for it. Yes the QTH change has been a positive change. The other evening I was operating FT8 on 60m and was spotted in the Antarctica!
I am sure it's only a matter of time before we log each other.
Merry Christmas to you and your family,
Mike
VE9KK
Mike,
I suspect that the uninitiated, having clicked on "VE3WDM...", might be a little confused about landing on a oage that says, "VE9KK", so maybe leaving the comment up, suitably amended, would be a good idea. Here in UK, a move like yours would result in inserting a "Regional Secondary Locator" into the middle of my call; viz, if I moved from London back to my home country of Wales, I would identify as GW8KBZ, even if only during a day trip.
In the matter of retirement, I went through that a few years ago (/me thinks back... Ghods, it'll be 4 years come the end of next March. And I retired 3 years late, at that) Barring major changes at work (being outsourced for the second time, although I managed to get myself onto the redundancy list, and decided to retire at the same time) it was fairly painless, although a major change in lifestyle - I now find myself living in front of my computer, rather than sitting down after work.
It also meant that I'm no longer owner-with-the-bank of my house, the redundancy payment meant I could pay off the mortgage. Which is good.
And John: as I said above, I don't normally indulge in language lawyering, your mea culpa affects me just like it did Winston Churchill, "This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put".
Geoff
Good morning Geoff, yes retirement can for sure be a huge change. Outsourcing for sure something that can be worrisome and for sure when your close to retirement. It was good that you were able to take the plunge and retire.
Merry Christmas and have a great holiday over the New Year.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
And the same to you, Mike. And to all your other readers, whoever they may be.
Geoff
Merry Christmas and happy new year to you and yours Mike. I have 16 years to go before I can think of retirement. You see, I'm a pretty young HAM radio operator :-). 73, Bas
Good evening Bas, ahhhhh yes to be young again.....I decided to retire at age 59, and I was very very fortunate that I was able to do this. As always very nice to hear from you. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
Thanks Bas for the well wishes and it's always very nice to hear from you, it may sound a bit odd but that 16 years will be by in no time. I retired at 59 years old and the time that I was working just flew past. All the best in the New Year to you and your family.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
Post a Comment