Emily Johnson

Class E can be tricky! The key is getting the component values exactly right and keeping the layout tight. I'd recommend using Bill Slade's design notes and calculator spreadsheet - they're excellent resources. Also make sure your driver stage can properly switch the MOSFET with sharp rise/fall times.

If the paint interferes with grounding, you'll need to scrape a bit of the paint or powder coating off. You can also run a short grounding strap from the mount to a grounded part of the vehicle, but keep the strap as short as possible. Test your SWR before permanent installation!

i was in the exact same boat like six months ago lol. what helped me was just listening to several nets before jumping in so you get a feel for the pacing of that specific group, they all have slightly different personalities if that makes sense. some net controls are really formal and some are pretty laid back. once you actually do check in the first time it feels way less scary than you built it up to be in your head, trust me on that one

welcome to the rabbit hole haha. ok so worked vs confirmed — worked just means it's in your log, confirmed means the other station has uploaded to LoTW and there's a match, or you've exchanged paper QSLs and submitted them. only confirmed QSOs count for the actual award credit, but the ARRL lets you apply once you hit 100 confirmed so the worked number is really just your pipeline of hope the good news is your old QSOs absolutely count as long as you can get them confirmed. a lot of guys dont realize this and think they have to start fresh. dig through your old logs, get them uploaded to LoTW if they arent already, and chase confirmations on the ones that matter. some of those DX stations from years ago may already be in LoTW and you just have to sync your account as for order of operations, i'd say focus on DXCC first since it's the big one and your tribander will work fine for most of it. WAS kind of happens naturally along the way if you're on HF regularly, and WAZ is a nice project for when you're feeling like the DX is getting repetitive. they all use LoTW so it's not like you're doing double work anyway

Extra Class gets you all frequencies and modes on HF bands, including the 7.125-7.175 MHz range on 40m that's off-limits to Generals. This exclusive access gives you more room during crowded contest and DX conditions. The Extra segments are often less crowded and right where the DX stations like to hang out.

so i've been watching the solar flux index pretty closely this past month and it's been bouncing all over the place, had a few days up around 180 which got me really excited and then it just dropped off again. been on 17m and 10m mostly trying to work some new entities and honestly the openings have been kind of unpredictable. like tuesday evening i had a solid path to japan on 10m for maybe 45 minutes and then it just collapsed completely, couldnt even hear the beacon i was using as a reference anymore. curious what other folks are seeing, especially if anyone's been having luck on 12m or 15m. i feel like 15 should be better than it's been for me but maybe that's just my antenna situation. also is anyone using the DX cluster alerts for band openings or do you mostly just spin the dial and see what's there? i go back and forth on whether the cluster stuff helps or just sends me chasing signals that are already gone by the time i tune there

I'm relatively new to HF and trying to understand these propagation reports. What exactly does solar flux at 158 mean for us, and how does the sunspot number of 125 affect which bands I should focus on? Should I be avoiding certain bands during unsettled periods?

ok so i passed my technician exam like three weeks ago and ive been reading through part 97 trying to figure out what im actually allowed to do and honestly its kind of confusing. like i get that i have HF privileges on 10 meters and some other spots but the rules about what kind of emissions are allowed where are kind of hard to parse. for example i was looking at 10 meter phone and it says 28.3 to 28.5 MHz but then theres all this language about authorized emission types and i dont know if that means i can use any mode in that segment or just SSB or what. also saw something about third party traffic rules and now im worried i said something wrong when i let my non-ham friend talk into the mic at a club meetup last week. was that even legal? i dont want to get in trouble before ive even really started

the thermal angle is worth chasing before you go digging into the board. what i'd do first is just let it run until it acts up, then hit it with some freeze spray in sections — work your way around methodically rather than just blasting the whole thing. if the audio snaps back when you hit a particular area you've at least narrowed it down to a general region. could be a cold joint on the audio amp section or even something on the main board near the DSP. i had a similar intermittent on an older Kenwood years ago that drove me crazy for months, turned out to be a cracked solder joint on a filter cap that only opened up when warm. visually looked totally fine. had to reflow about a dozen joints in that area before i hit the right one. not fun but fixable. on the 7300 specifically i dont know that board well enough to point you at a specific component but there's a guy on one of the Icom groups who does board-level repair on these and posts pretty detailed teardown stuff. worth searching before you go in blind.

Ham radio operators do not use citizen band (CB) lingo. We do not use ten-codes (10-4), nor do we have "handles." We use our call signs along with our first names. Save the CB talk for CB!

okay so ive been running an inverted V dipole for 40m for about two years now, center fed with some cheapo 1:1 balun i picked up at a hamfest, apex at around 35 feet off a pushup mast and the legs drooping down at maybe 30-35 degrees. always worked fine, SWR was like 1.4:1 at resonance and i was happy with it. last week i finally got around to raising the center point, got it up to just over 50 feet now. figured it would only get better, more height is more better right. but now when i sweep it with my RigExpert the resonant point shifted up maybe 30-40 kHz and the SWR at the bottom of the band is noticeably worse, like 2.8 to 1 down around 7.050. the impedance at resonance looks different too, showing lower than the 50 ohm ballpark i was seeing before. the legs are still the same length, i didnt touch them. i did have to re-route some of the coax run because of the height change so that's different. also the angle of the legs is now shallower because they're coming off a higher point to the same ground stakes. could that be whats doing this or am i overthinking it. anyone run into this changing the angle on a drooping dipole and having it act different