NR5A:

Welcome. My Lord, our stories sound IDENTICAL. I was a Mode K/RS jockey myself. And I, too, sold my 2-meter FM gear years ago because of the junk that was going on locally.

I also use an FT-817ND for...well...everything, really...

...as well as having 2 eggbeaters.

And, with the gear I have, I'm having a blast. You shouldn't have any difficulty. either.

I have the AO-51 and AO-27 AOS frequencies stored as a memory...but I manually tune the main VFO to chase the Doppler. Works out very well. I keep one of the VFOs on 145.825 for APRS via satellite. Finally, my HOME frequency is 144.390 for terrestrial APRS.

Other than the birth of my kids, my wedding day, and the start of my career, the NEXT best day was the day my FT-817ND came. (Almost 20 years on HF doing the same-old same-old started getting boring....)

Good Luck, my friend, and we'll listen for you on the birds.

73 de KB2HSH