DX Lover

so ive been wanting to get into satellite operation for a while now and finally pulled the trigger on setting up a basic station for LEO work. running a yaesu ft-991a into a pair of crossed yagis i built from a design i found online, elevation rotor is a cheap but functional gs-232 compatible unit i grabbed used, az rotor is an old prop pitch thing that works well enough. been using gpredict for tracking and it seems fine, i can get the doppler correction working through hamlib to the rig which is cool. my issue is im not really sure im understanding how the linear transponders work in practice. like i get the theory - you transmit on the uplink frequency and listen on the downlink - but when im actually on something like FO-29 or AO-73 i feel like im constantly chasing my own signal around and everyone else sounds like theyre underwater or just totally garbled. is that just the reality of working through a linear sat or am i missing something fundamental here. ive read that you have to manually compensate for doppler on linear birds because the software only corrects one side? not sure if thats my problem or if my antennas are just not performing. az/el angles look right in gpredict at least.

2.1:1 on a homebrew dipole is honestly not bad for a first build, dont stress too much. the inverted-V configuration does affect the feedpoint impedance a bit compared to a flat-top, the angle of the legs changes things. if your legs are drooping at like 120 degrees or less you can expect the impedance to drop from that classic 73 ohm ballpark down closer to 50, which actually helps match to coax better in theory but the resonant point shifts too. the unequal leg heights probably arent your main issue, the antenna will still radiate fine just with a slightly asymmetric pattern nobody will notice on 40m. id just start lengthening or shortening the legs a few inches at a time and see where the SWR dips. also check that your SO-239 connections are clean, i once chased a weird SWR for two days and it was just a cold solder joint at the feedpoint. coax length at 47 feet shouldnt matter with RG-8X youre not dealing with significant loss there.

the rabbit hole is real, i spent about six months overthinking mine before i just started throwing stuff in a pelican case and calling it done. honestly that was the right call because you can always refine later. for what its worth i run two separate kits -- a small one thats basically grab and go for local stuff, just a handheld with a spare battery pack, a slim-jim rolled up, my ARES ID and a laminated card with the local repeater freqs and simplex channels. that kit lives by my door and weighs maybe 4 pounds. the bigger kit with the IC-7300 and a tuner and the LiFePO4 battery, that one takes more planning to deploy and i only grab it when i know im going to a real activation or something longer term. on the battery thing -- if the 891 is your main HF rig a 20-30ah lithium iron phosphate battery is way more manageable than a deep cycle and itll run that radio for a long time at reasonable power. bioenno makes decent ones, not cheap but worth it for the weight difference. and yeah document everything, laminate your frequency lists, keep a paper log in there because you cant assume any digital stuff will survive. spare coax connectors, a multimeter, some wire, fuses for your power connections -- that kind of basic stuff adds up but doesnt take much space.

so ive been doing contests for maybe 4 years now, mostly single op single radio, and ive been reading a lot about SO2R lately and honestly im not sure if its worth the complexity for someone who only does maybe 6-8 contests a year. like i get the theory — you're running on one radio and hunting mults on the other while the pile is answering you — but in practice every time i try to picture my shack setup i get a headache. right now im running an ic-7300 and just picked up a used 7610 which i was going to use as a spare but now im thinking maybe this is the universe telling me to try it. the antenna situation is the real problem though, i only have one tower and the antennas are close enough that i know ill get bleed-over. anyone actually done SO2R with antennas that arent ideally separated? and is the rate improvement even noticeable at the modest contest scores i usually put up, like im not chasing plaques here just want to improve

so a few weeks ago i worked Japan on 17 meters which was honestly kind of surreal, i wasnt even trying i just had the radio on and heard a JA station calling CQ and figured what the heck. got him on the second call which surprised me. but ever since then ive been on at similar times and the band just sounds like a empty room, maybe some static and the occasional carrier but nothing like that morning. i've been checking pskreporter and seeing some spots but nothing near me is decoding anything from that direction. my setup hasnt changed at all, still running the same dipole and about 100 watts. is this just normal variation or is something happening with the sun? i've heard about solar flux but honestly i dont fully understand how to use that info to know when to even bother trying.

yeah the UDP thing from WSJT-X to N1MM works but you'd basically have to have N1MM open all the time and like the other guy said it's just not built for day to day stuff. i tried using it as my only logger for about a month and gave up, kept having to fight with it every time i wanted to do something that wasnt a contest exchange. Log4OM is actually pretty solid for what it does, the ADIF import from WSJT-X is a little clunky but you get used to it. one thing i do is run WSJT-X with the log path pointed directly at a folder that Log4OM watches so it picks up new contacts pretty quick without me doing anything. not sure if thats documented anywhere i just stumbled on it

for masts we've been using the DX Wire fiberglass poles, the 10m ones, for a couple years now and they hold up pretty well. they're not cheap but havent had one fail yet in some pretty gnarly wind. the SOTAbeams carbon fiber ones are lighter but I'd be nervous about them in a real deployment where people are walking around and might bump into things. for a parking lot with no supports you really need guy lines no matter what you're using, we just use cheap paracord and tent stakes and it works fine. on the EFHW question — we tune ours with a 9:1 or 49:1 unun depending on the band plan and just toss the far end over whatever we can find. if there's literally nothing to attach to we've done a vertical configuration off the mast which obviously isn't ideal but it works for local and regional. what feedline are you running to the radio, because that can matter a lot for the noise floor too especially near a generator

so i was just messing around on 10 meters yesterday afternoon, not really expecting much, and all of a sudden i started hearing stations coming in from brazil, argentina, a couple from south africa i think. just absolutely blasting in, like they were next door. ive had my technician for about 8 months now and honestly i had kind of written off HF because every time i tuned around it seemed dead but this was something else entirely. i checked pskreporter after and saw my ft8 signal was being heard all over the place. someone in japan even decoded me which felt unreal. is this normal for this time of year or did something happen with the sun? i saw some people talking about solar flux being up but i dont really understand how that all works yet. like what number should i be looking for to know when to bother checking 10m?

honestly the marathon events are great for exactly this reason, low stress way to get your feet wet before something more serious comes along. bring the HT and if you have the mobile and a way to power it from your car just have it available, doesnt hurt. usually the net control or EC will have ICS-214 forms printed but i always carry a few extras in my go bag just in case, learned that from showing up to one years ago where nobody had extras and we were scrambling. main thing is just listen more than you talk until you get a feel for the flow. the phonetic alphabet and proper prowords matter a lot more in a real activation net than in casual conversation, so if youre a little rusty on that practice it in the car on the way over. youll do fine, everyone remembers being the new person and most groups are pretty patient about it.

so ive been on SSB for maybe 8 months now, mostly 40m and 20m, and i keep getting reports that my audio sounds either too bassy or kind of muffled. sometimes people say its fine but then other times someone will tell me i sound like im talking into a tin can. my mic is a heil pr-40 going into an ic-7300 so its not like im running garbage gear here. ive messed with the eq settings a bit but honestly the menu on the 7300 is kind of overwhelming and i dont really know where to start. i set the mic gain to around 50% which is what someone on youtube said but idk if thats actually right for this mic. compression is on but again i just left the default settings because touching it made things sound worse last time i tried. is there like a baseline starting point people use for this radio with an external mic? or general SSB audio tips that arent just 'read the manual' because ive tried that and the manual doesnt really explain what sounds good, just what the knobs do technically

so this has been bugging me for a couple weeks now and i finally have time to sit down and look at it. my 7300 started making this crackling/popping noise when i key up, doesn't matter what band, doesn't matter what power level. even at like 5 watts into a dummy load it does it. the RF output looks clean on the scope, SWR is fine, but there's definitely something going on internally because you can hear it through the speaker too when monitoring with the built in receiver. at first i thought it was the final PA section acting up but the power output is rock solid and consistent so i dont think thats it. my gut says its something in the audio chain or maybe the ALC circuit doing something weird. i did notice the noise is slightly worse when the mic gain is cranked up but it happens even with mic gain at zero so that rules out the mic preamp i think. has anyone seen this on a 7300 before or know what to check first? i've had the lid off and nothing looks obviously burned or bulging. caps look fine visually at least.

so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and i mostly just mess around on 2m and occasionally hit a repeater when im traveling. started thinking about upgrading to general because honestly the HF stuff looks way more interesting and i keep hearing people talk about 40m and 20m like its a whole different world. anyway i grabbed the ARRL general study guide and im going through it but some of this stuff is pretty dense. like the electrical principles section is making my head spin a little. i did okay on the tech exam just memorizing stuff but im getting the feeling the general pool is harder to just brute force memorize through. or maybe im wrong and people still just memorize it? also what HF privileges do i actually get as a general vs what extra has, i looked it up but the band chart confused me. like can i actually work most of 40m or is it just a little sliver? and is 40m a good band to start on for someone whos never really done HF

this is actually really helpful to read because i just joined ARES a few months ago and the exercises feel pretty comfortable to me so far, maybe a little too comfortable now that i think about it. hadnt really considered that real activations might be that different. is there a way to volunteer for like... smaller activations to get some experience before something big comes up? or does it just kind of happen when it happens

honestly it's not that bad once you stop trying to memorize every single thing and actually understand what the questions are getting at. the electrical theory stuff like reactance and impedance tripped me up at first but once i watched a couple youtube videos on it it clicked pretty fast. i think the hardest part for most tech upgrades is the band plan stuff and knowing what modes are allowed where, thats just pure memorization there's no shortcut. i went from 60-something percent to passing comfortably in like three weeks just doing 20-30 questions a day on ham study. the thing is after a while you start recognizing the wrong answers as much as the right ones which helps a lot. just keep grinding it, you're closer than you think. and once you get that HF priv its a whole different world, 40m alone is worth it.

oh man i remember this exact feeling. for what its worth the cheap bencher clones can sometimes have the paddle tension way off which makes the accidental double-squeeze thing worse. there should be little tension adjustment screws on the sides — try tightening them up a bit so you need more deliberate pressure to close each contact. made a huge difference for me when i figured that out, was blaming my hands for weeks before i realized the paddles were basically flopping around on their own.

yeah what he said about hamstudy is solid. i'll add though that actually understanding the basics — even just a little — makes it way easier to remember stuff versus pure memorization. like if you get why a higher SWR is bad it's easier to answer those questions than just trying to remember which letter goes with which answer. the ARRL book is good but its pretty dense, i used the Gordon West technician class book instead which felt a lot more conversational and had the questions right alongside the relevant sections. might be worth checking if your library has it before buying. six weeks is plenty of time, you got this.

you'll definitely want more power options - i learned this the hard way during a hurricane deployment couple years back. battery pack died after 3 hours and i was scrambling. now i carry multiple battery options, car adapter, and even a small solar panel. also dont forget spare fuses, they always blow at the worst time oh and duct tape. lots of duct tape. and ziplock bags to keep everything dry

Started with wire verticals as a new ham and they work great! Don't let anyone tell you that you need expensive aluminum to get on the air. Dipoles are one of the easiest antennas to build for HF radio bands and achieve top-quality performance levels. Learn the basics with wire first, then upgrade later if you want.

Rushing Pronunciation-Speaking too quickly can make phonetic words sound similar. Take your time to enunciate clearly. Also critical during contests when everyone is running fast - slow down on call signs even if you're in a hurry.

That's actually normal behavior for EFHW antennas. Without the counterpoise, the antenna essentially isn't energized - there's not enough coupling to complete the circuit. The 3-foot counterpoise you added is providing the return path. Most successful EFHW installations use a small counterpoise, typically 5% of wavelength.

As a newer ham, I learned the hard way - tried fixing what I thought was a simple audio issue on my first HF rig and ended up making it worse. Now I stick to obvious mechanical problems and leave anything involving circuit boards to the pros. ARRL offers network services to find trustworthy repair people, and certification is important because amateur radios require specialized skills.

that hollow phasey sound on SSB is almost certainly audio feedback or RF getting into the audio stage. the LM386 is notoriously easy to get oscillating or picking up garbage if the layout isnt tight. the classic fix is a 10 ohm resistor in series with pin 7 (the bypass pin) and a 0.047uf cap to ground, plus make sure you have a cap right at the supply pins of both chips, like physically right there not somewhere else on the board. also with direct conversion receivers you get both sidebands at once so SSB can sound a bit weird by nature, you kind of have to tune to one side of zero beat to minimize the other sideband. might not be a fault at all just the nature of the beast. CW sounding fine makes sense because both sidebands just give you a tone anyway so it adds rather than interferes.

Absolutely! FT8 offers operators the ability to communicate despite unfavorable conditions such as those seen during low solar activity, high RF noise, or with low transmitter power. During that same period I was seeing FT8 decodes on 15m while FT4 wasn't getting through at all. The extra 4dB sensitivity matters when propagation gets sketchy.

so i was just messing around on 10 meters yesterday afternoon, wasnt really expecting much since its been pretty quiet lately, and all of a sudden i start hearing stations from south america coming in like they were next door. worked a couple guys in brazil and one in argentina without even trying that hard, running like 50 watts into my crappy vertical. lasted maybe 2 hours before it faded back out. anyway i know we're climbing toward the solar max and the SFI has been creeping up but i wasnt expecting it to be that dramatic. anyone else notice conditions have been better than usual this past week or is it just me? also saw something about the new Icom IC-905 firmware update dropping but havent had a chance to look into what they actually changed

so ive been trying to get into CW for about three months now and i finally feel like im copying at maybe 10-12 wpm on a good day which feels like a huge win honestly. but the problem is when i transmit it sounds... off. like my dits and dahs dont sound crisp. a buddy of mine listened on the air and said it sounded mushy which is a pretty accurate description i think. im using a cheap set of iambic paddles i got off ebay and my radio is a Yaesu FT-891 with the built in keyer. ive been messing with the weight setting but i cant really tell if im making it better or worse. is this a paddle tension issue or a keyer setting issue or honestly am i just squeezing the paddles wrong. i really cant tell where the problem starts. any advice from people who have been through this would be great