Now that I also have a US call, I’m wondering what I can do with it. One legal use is Echolink on the smartphone, for example, as no transmissions are made on German soil - at least not on amateur radio bands.

One possibility, which is also a bit more Ham Radio than Echolink, is the operation of a shortwave remote station on US soil. I have therefore decided to open an account with a provider of such remote stations (which I will not name here, as I always try not to advertise), which will then give me access to a large number of Flex Radio transceivers in the USA. Operation is very simple thanks to a web interface that allows both SSB and digimode operation. All you need is a browser and (for SSB operation) ideally a headset. A first SSB contact between Connecticut and Massachusetts on 40m was made quickly and worked smoothly. I then wanted to try out FT8 or FT4 and chose a special QSO partner for this: me. After familiarising myself with the FT4/8 implementation within the web interface, I was able to work myself on 17m in FT4:

The working conditions on the US side were a Flex 6400 with a maximum of 100W and an OCF wire antenna. On the German side, a Hermes Lite 2 with 50W and an M0PLK Delta Loop Antenna was used.

While it was fun, it was quite expensive. The main problem with this type of remote operation is that every minute costs money - and not too little. Radio operation, which should actually be relaxing, turns into stress for me. But it’s still good to have this option for experiments or special skeds. Unfortunately, I can’t imagine regular operation via the commercial hire of remote stations. The cost of a single QSO is just too high for me.