A first for me... Not sure what it's gonna mean

[W3WN]

I wasn't aware of your medical condition Kell, and I'm sorry to hear about it.

My limited understanding is that most pacemakers these days should not be affected by amateur level RF. If one is, it is most likely malfunctioning. But I am not a medical practioner or anything close to it, so don't go by my opinion. As your doctor if and when it comes to that point in time.

That aside, if you have good quality coax feeding the antenna, and the antenna is far enough away, I suspect transmitting would be unlikely to have a direct impact, as the field strength near you won't be that relatively high. Again, check with your doctor and with the manufacturer. But hell, you're a broadcast engineer (non practicing), so you already know this.

Also check into a remote-controlled rig. The TS-480S with a remote head comes to mind, as does a Ten-Tec Omni VII that can be completely controlled via it's Ethernet port, or so they tell me...

[N2CHX]

I wasn't aware of your medical condition Kell, and I'm sorry to hear about it.

My limited understanding is that most pacemakers these days should not be affected by amateur level RF. If one is, it is most likely malfunctioning. But I am not a medical practioner or anything close to it, so don't go by my opinion. As your doctor if and when it comes to that point in time.

That aside, if you have good quality coax feeding the antenna, and the antenna is far enough away, I suspect transmitting would be unlikely to have a direct impact, as the field strength near you won't be that relatively high. Again, check with your doctor and with the manufacturer. But hell, you're a broadcast engineer (non practicing), so you already know this.

Also check into a remote-controlled rig. The TS-480S with a remote head comes to mind, as does a Ten-Tec Omni VII that can be completely controlled via it's Ethernet port, or so they tell me...

Thank you. All very good thoughts and information. I never thought about a remote control rig before. It would be worth doing, for sure. Right now my setup is an RF nightmare. I'd need some help putting a better antenna together for sure. At this point I'm not up to climbing a ladder or being anywhere high up where falling would be a bad thing.


As for the engineering, yes that part of my life will most definitely be over. I've been asked to do some contract stuff on the side here and there and that would be a no-no.

The silly thing about all this is you'd never know by looking at me that I've got this effed up heart. I try to stay active and fit and I'm not fat. I'm always by far the youngest one in the cardiologist office.