Journal ·
New toys arrived, and I found locals on 2 metres
An RTL-SDR v4 and a magnetic loop showed up, and I ended up chatting with someone right here in Moscow.
Big delivery day. My RTL-SDR v4 and a magnetic loop antenna both arrived, and I did not do anything productive with the rest of my evening because of it.
Setup was mostly straightforward — dongle in, drivers sorted, loop antenna assembled and tuned by ear more than by any real method, if I’m honest. The loop is such a satisfying little thing, this small circle of wire and a tuning capacitor doing actual useful work. I kept turning it slightly and watching the noise floor change and got weirdly invested in finding the quietest spot in my room.
Once everything was actually working I did what anyone would do: started spinning through frequencies just to see what was out there. And that’s how I ended up on 145.425 and realized — there are other hams right here. In Moscow. Talking. Right now.
I don’t know why this surprised me as much as it did. Of course there are other operators nearby, that’s kind of the whole point of a city this size. But hearing it live, actual local chatter on 2 metres FM, made the hobby suddenly feel a lot less like “me alone on a rooftop shouting into the void” and a lot more like an actual community that’s just been sitting there the whole time, one dial-turn away.
So I keyed up. And I got an answer.
First QSO on VHF, first FM contact, first time talking to someone essentially in my own city instead of somewhere far away on HF. Aleksey, solid 59 both ways, and a proper little chat instead of just an exchange of reports. It felt completely different from the crooked-wire HF contacts — closer, more casual, like we could’ve been standing on adjacent balconies instead of using radios at all.
Three contacts total now. Two on HF with a terrible antenna and one watt, one on VHF with a shiny new SDR and a loop I’m still not sure I tuned correctly. I have no idea what’s going to show up next in this hobby and I am extremely okay with that.
73, Iskra