Last night and today I’ve been doing a little operating from the new desk. I got the PC installed so I have computer logging. The paper logbook served me well 25 years ago, but time marches on. I like the occasional additional detail recorded in the paper log, but I like the “low friction”, as they say now, of QLog. I’m still learning my way around it.
Since the second monitor was broken and returned, I decided to try operating with a single monitor. After half an hour I decided that a single, 27″ 4K monitor is enough for the time being. I’ll return both of the dual monitor mounts – they suck anyway. I also abandoned the KVM switch I planned to use. I had it in my office to share the keyboard, mouse, and monitors between my work laptop and my personal PC. I was going to install it on the operating desk in case I wanted to connect a mini PC or Raspberry Pi temporarily. I’ll just leave an empty HDMI cable and use it if and when I need it. Way less cabling, less hassle, and I’m finding out that half the stuff I was using for video won’t work with a 4K monitor at 60 Hz. So screw it! I don’t really need it anyway, I’ll just run a single DisplayPort cable from the PC and leave a spare HDMI cable connected in case I need it. Would it be nice to have two screens for logging, web browsing, and all that? Maybe, but it’s not worth the extra hassle.
I ran FT8 last night with the FT-1000 on 40 and 80 meters with moderately good results. I actually worked several European stations on 40 meters, which surprised me a little. This morning I warmed up the SB-101 and have been working POTA stations on 20 meters off and on all day. I like it. The tuning procedure is easy with the LDG switch, and most of them hear me on the first call. I have the three radios on a 4-way passive audio switch, using the SB-600 as the station speaker for everything. That works great too. Switching from one position to another only requires one button push for the speaker switch, and one turn of the antenna switch knob. I can move the desk chair left or right to be in front of whichever rig I’m using, and the desk is deep enough that I can have the keyboard, mouse, straight key (attached to the HW-16), CW paddle, and even a soldering iron on it when needed, without crowding the rigs. Aside from the all concrete environment, this is working out pretty nicely. It’s by far the best ham shack setup I’ve ever had.