Ham Radio In 2022

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Greetings to one and all! I hope you had a good Christmas and you are having a great new year so far.
We are enjoying one or two decent DX openings when they occur but overall the bands have been average to poor at my end. 
However I have had a few good DX contacts on HF and worked down on the lower end of HF operating on the 40m and 80m bands. 
My mobile activity has been slightly better than from the shack, mainly due to the time I get on air at home. When mobile I'm hitting the long path DX to VK and ZL on my morning work run. The other day New Zealand was booming into the van as I pulled up into the college car park. Today I worked into Brazil, Iceland and Italy using 80- 100w from the FT-857 and Maldol HFC 20m antenna. As you already know that combo has been an excellent mobile station for me and is still effective 18 years later. Lol,  the durability and robust build of both antenna and transceiver has definitely been outstanding. I have made thousands of DX /M using the same setup in many vehicles and still hammering it out in 2022. Happy DX folks let's hope this latest solar cycle starts to play nice and provides a bit more propagation real soon. 

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