I've had a lifelong interest in amateur radio. I finally got my Technician-class license in 1997 and earned my General-class license in June 2007. My callsign is KD5COL (I earned my license while I was on active duty at Fort Hood, Texas). I am not currently active on the air because I live in an apartment and it's not a good idea to set up everything right now. However, I am looking forward to when I can set up my own radio shack and start getting on the air again.

Here's what's in my "shack" inventory right now:

• ICOM IC-718: The pride and joy of my shack. A present from my wife (who is also a ham radio operator), I've only played with it since I bought it last fall. I've picked up a bit of activity, but I've not actually talked on it yet. I'm hoping to do so soon.


• Radio Shack HTX-212: My 2 meter mobile rig. It's not actually in any of my vehicles right now as I haven't had the time nor the money to get a good antenna for it and actually get it wired up correctly. But I'm hoping that will change soon.


• Yaesu (Vertex Standard) VX-110: My 2 meter handheld, also a present from my wife. Rarely used since I live so far out from a 2 meter repeater. The closest one is about 20 miles away in the next county and that's not easy to "hit" on just 5 watts of power!


• B&W AP-10 "Apartment Antenna": This is a small vertical-with-a-coil "portable" antenna I bought for use in my apartment. It actually works quite well for what it is. It will get me on the air when nothing else will.

What I'd like to eventually get is a Buddipole antenna. The Buddipole is a portable dipole system that has "plugin" coils to allow the two antennas to resonate at different frequencies. I'm particularly interested in the Buddipole Deluxe package that has everything I'll need. Since I'm pretty much limited to running "park mobile" (meaning I have to go to a park or some open space to operate), it'd be good to have an antenna system that is portable and reliable. It's spendy, but it's worth it.

I have tried to work "park mobile" already. I took some pictures with my cell phone's crappy camera and I have a photo album of the outing. I heard lots of activity on 20 and 40 meters. I could hear some stuff on 80 meters, but due to the antenna not really resonating at that frequency, I couldn't transmit.