[davephan]

No one mentioned a remotely controlled HF station. Today, there are many ways you can remotely control a station over the Internet. The technology is there today, that wasn’t there a decade ago for remotely controlling an HF station.

For an example of a high end remotely controlled HF station, watch the W2RE videos on Facebook and YouTube. He has a remotely controlled HF station setup with 7 towers from 150 to 200 feet tall with stacked monobanders and rotating towers. It’s one of the most powerful HF stations with his huge antennas on 22 acres of land overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Maine. He operates that remote station from New York, 500 miles away. His signal was 20 to 30 over S-9 in Minnesota when he used a kilowatt and still S-9 when using only 1 watt on SSB on 20 meters.

It can be very expensive to set up a good station on rural property somewhere, that also has decent Internet service. The new low orbiting satellite Internet service makes this more possible to do, since most rural areas have lousy Internet service. The land is cheaper in rural areas and there’s less restrictions or no restrictions to set up towers. You can drastically lower the remote HF station cost if you can share the site at another ham’s house that’s already has antennas. There are also remotely controlled stations that you can use on a pay basis, and some on a free basis. Check out remotehams.com.

I have a remotely controlled HF station in Minnesota that I use from Florida, because of the HOA rules in Florida. The antenna is isn’t very good, but it’s better than nothing. I’m thinking about relocating the remotely controlled station to a location where I could have a decent tower for a beam, elevated wire antennas for the lower bands, and a high power amplifier. The technology is there today to do all that, you just have to be able and willing to spend the money to set up a good antenna system and the remotely controlled equipment.