A setback day today, as I finally received a USB audio cable for my attempts to use fldigi with my mac laptop (one of the few SDR programs that works on macOS). I was so looking forward to CQ’ing on my available bands with CW in an automated sense, but no luck.

The USB audio cable I ordered (manufactured in Greece, no less), doesn’t seem to work. It is quite frustrating to wait forever for the requisite parts only for me to once again face the world of failure and non-support on Apple Mac computers.

The ham software world is very driven by Windows software, something hams really need to change. For the most part, most hams I talk to are using old versions of Windows, and rarely know much about computers– a direct opposite of my life. Had I the desktop software skills, I would totally try to port many of these apps available to the Mac realm.

So today has been a setback on several ham fronts: CW was a hard study today, I found the bands empty when searching, and now my foray into digital modes has been halted by technology.

But, I am not despairing (too much). Part of being a ham is persistence in the face of a problem. Trying different ways and different configurations until you get the setup right and are able to talk to others.

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