I received an email last night informing me that it was finally my turn to order the KM3KM Mercury amplifier. I had been on that waiting list fourteen months. Funny how time changes things and where I thought my primary interest in radio was that long ago had moved. Or perhaps it never was what I thought anyway? I’ve never owned an HF amplifier, this would have been my first and I guess I never got comfortable with that – so I declined the opportunity.

Having cast my my lot with the QRP crowd for 30 years I’ve gained some added perspective about this facet of the hobby that many might never see. I’ve come to know the key players and how they have fun and I’ve even been saddened to see this activity decline a bit in recent years. Still, I believe this part of the hobby is as close as I can get to reliving my earliest days in amateur radio. While my head might disagree, my heart and soul still feels like those were the good old days of radio — even if they really weren’t.

Building my own gear, operating with batteries, simple equipment and wire antennas while using mostly CW has just been baked into my DNA as real radio and I can’t give it up, much as my head suggests moving along to more cutting edge aspects of ham radio.

Bottom line, no new amplifier for me and now I need to sell that matching auto-tuner. I’m a low-power HF radio enthusiast for life it seems. I’ll seek new adventures in the VHF and up world as I get deeper into my retirement. Maybe even build a 1.2Ghz ATV repeater some day. But for HF, I’ll stick with what brought me.

A dream is a wish your heart makes and my radio dreams are of QRP.