Pull all the plugs out when you leave the shack. As for lightning, I'm sure most people have seen the effects of houses torn apart, trees split asunder, so a little biddy wire to earth isn't going to have much effect against a strike

Mel G0GQK

I can't really understand your problem. You see a station who responds to your call, he gives his call so you click it into the box, the same with his name, and the same with QTH.

If you respond with a macro you say Hello <NAME><CALL> in <QTH> and it appears on the screen. Perhaps the e mail will help you through the problem

Mel G0GQK

Well <CALL> should work, and ought to work because I use it all the time both in Digipan and Airlink Express. Try using it on a different macro button as a test. This might have no relevance to your problem but, let me think, is this the correct one. Start a few clicks into the page.

    <CLEARRX><TX> Hello <NAME> <CALL> in <QTH>
    nice to see you on 15 metres today.

If it doesn't work the only suggestion I can make is to remove all traces of the original download and make another. I've used both 1.7 and 2.0 and both function correctly

Mel G0GQK

You just gotta laugh, how do you disguise a 100 ft high electricity pylon ? Er.... thinks... paint it grey ?  Or pale blue like the sky is sometimes ? Incidentally that hanging off a helicopter in a metal suit isn't done in the UK. Health and Safety at Work and all that

G0GQK

This has brought out all the mathematicians ! The legs have to be 90 degrees apart, a quarter of a circle. So take a rule and measure it on paper using a quarter inch as 12 inches and you have your answer. I haven't read the answers but I'll bet a £1 to a pinch of snuff they're all different !

G0GQK

In Europe its part of the protocol when using PSK, perhaps other modes have their own protocols. Seems that many people still have a hang up about CB. I would imagine that the expression buddy has been around a long time in the US. I recall a famous song written about the 1929 Depression "buddy can you spare a dime ? " so the expression good buddy became part of the CB lingo
Incidentally one "please K" is quite sufficient.

G0GQK

It is not recommended to use any form of processing or DSP when transmitting digitally as it degrades the transmission, in plain English it produces a lousy trace on the waterfall !

G0GQK

When you play about with antenna's this happens. Sometimes I've forgotten to attach an antenna but you should have a safety rule and set the power for only a few watts, then no damage will occur.

G0GQK

If you want to be really tetchy, ask the person who keeps saying "we" who the other person is ?  The radio operators in Britain also have an irritating habit of saying there at the end of everything they say "nice to see you there" "have a dipole there" One would think as generations  change, the habits would, but they don't.

G0GQK

The radio conditions are not going to improve much in the coming couple of years and then its all downhill, as if any of us would notice. Save your money its not worth buying a new rig if the one you have is working OK. Try and improve your antenna's, the secret of getting good DX contacts is not a $3000 rig, its making or buying some top quality antenna's

G0GQK

There are few bad tranceivers these days, have a look at the comments about rigs, a good used good value rig is an Icom 718
G0GQK

Everything in the UK copies what they do in the US. Years ago there used to be two licences Class A full HF and VHF and Class B VHF. How the new variations have improved the standards is hard to define, maybe it hasn't. There are also so many different types of calls there ought to be a competiton to log them all, I counted over 42 and there are about 60,000 radio licenses, not all active

G0GQK

Radio operating can be likened to driving a car, auto, automobile, you choose. People read the Highway Code front to back before they take their driving test and never look at the book again for 50 years. When you see them doing things and not using their indicators you realise they don't know what they're for, or they've forgotten.

G0GQK

The trees won't make a scrap of difference, but nevertheless a G5RV isn't the be all and end all of wire antenna's. it sems most radio hams in the US believe this wire dipole to be the only one.
I've been using an cushcraft R5 for years and its got me around the world and it doesn't require miles of wire laid out on the ground.
I also have a DIY 40 metre self standing vertical with two raised tuned radials, its got me to the ends of the earth, what we really need is propagation. Just recently even getting to France from the UK has been difficult, that's how bad its been.

G0GQK

What would be beneficial to you is to do some Googling. There are hundreds of antenna designs on the internet, all free, all you need to do is spend a few days finding them and noting details of the specifications get some wire and go to it !

G0GQK