so i was sitting in the shack last night just spinning the dial on 40m and not really doing anything productive, wasnt trying to work any dx or chase a contest, just kind of listening and it hit me that i havent actually had a real conversation on here in like 3 weeks. caught a bit of a net on 7.250 or somewhere around there but didnt check in, just listened. theres something kind of nice about that honestly. anyway anyone else go through phases where youre just kind of present but not really operating? feels weird to admit but sometimes i just like the noise of the band being there

yeah man totally get that. i do the same thing with 20m sometimes, just let the rx run while im doing other stuff around the house. its like background company almost. my wife thinks im weird for leaving the radio on but i dunno it just feels like somethings happening even if im not part of it

honestly i think thats half the hobby for me still being fairly new to all this. sometimes i just listen to see if i can figure out whats going on, like who's working who and what theyre running. havent gotten brave enough to call CQ on my own yet so this is kind of my version of participating i guess