Ham Radio – A contact sport

I’m writing this from the Dallas Fort-Worth airport (DFW). I was at a quality management meeting up the road in McKinney that ended early. I had a few hours before my flight, so I searched Google for TexasTowers location in nearby Plano. The store was just a few minutes away, so I thought I’d stop by. I had ordered on-line from TexasTowers in the past (that’s where I acquired my Icom IC-746 in 2000) and I’ve tried to stop into ham stores when in other cities, but this was my first experience inside the TexasTowers (aka Texas RF) store.

As far as walk-up ham radio stores go, TexasTowers was not the most impressive one I’ve seen. To date, I’ve been to Ham Radio Outlet (Sunnyvale, CA, Phoenix, AZ, Denver, CO), Amateur Electronic Supply (WI, FL), Radio City (MN), Amateur Radio Toy Store (IL), and probably a few that I don’t recall.

TexasTowers wasn’t at the bottom of the list (Amateur Radio Toy Store takes that honor) in terms of having a very storefront with few items on display. However, TT does have a decent web-site with fairly reasonable prices. Some folks have complained in the past about their customer service – but I’ve not had any issue. Today, on display, they had the Yaesus FT-2000 (powered up), and FT-1000D (closeout or used?), as well as a couple Icom rigs and a Kenwood TS2000 in addition to various HTs. I’ve always felt the least pressured at RadioCity and AES although the HRO stores also are a nice place to shop in-person.

Anyway, I picked up the 4th Edition of the On4un’s Low Band Dxing book. That will give me something good to read on the way home – so far, looks good.

Check out ON4UN’s excellent Low Band Dxing