Rebecca Turner

so ive been chasing FT5ZM or something similar tier rare DX for a while now and always just get buried in the wall of noise. figured id post what finally clicked for me after years of just mashing the transmit button like an idiot. the biggest thing honestly was listening way longer before i even tried to transmit. like embarrassingly long. i spent probably 20 minutes just watching where the DXpedition was actually pulling calls from, not where they SAID they were listening. because those split instructions change constantly and half the time the op is fishing a couple kHz away from what theyre announcing. once i had a feel for the pattern i started placing my call just slightly ahead of where the pileup was densest. also started using just my callsign suffix for a lot of pileups - the last two letters only. some guys hate this and think it's bad practice but on SSB it really does cut through better sometimes when everyone else is blasting their full 9-character call into a sea of noise. on CW obviously just your full call but crisp timing matters way more than power i think. on the radio side i'm running an IC-7300 into a 3-el yagi at about 40 feet, so nothing crazy, 100w. didn't upgrade the amp for this, just worked on operating technique. curious if others have found stuff that consistently works or if it's just kind of random luck no matter what you do

so i heard the Tri-County ARC is doing their annual hamfest again and i havent been in a few years. last time i went i picked up a pretty decent MFJ tuner for like 12 bucks which was a score. wondering if its worth making the drive this year, its about 90 miles for me. anybody been recently, is the swap meet still decent or has it turned into mostly vendors selling new stuff at retail prices

yeah the harmonic thing on 40 is almost definitely a grounding issue, ive seen similar stuff happen when people disturb the shielding inside the 7300. that radio is pretty sensitive to any kind of ground loop near the PA because of how the board layout is. id start by just going over every ground point you touched with a magnifying glass and a good light, cold joints near RF sections can look totally fine visually but still cause garbage like this also worth checking if the artifact tracks with your transmit frequency or stays fixed — if it moves when you change freq its almost certainly intermod or harmonic from the PA, if it stays put its probably oscillation somewhere which is a different problem. the bypass mod itself shouldnt be causing anything on 40 since youre modifying the receive path, so im guessing something incidental got disturbed during the work

the dummy load test basically confirms the RF path from the PA to the SO-239 is okay which does narrow it down to either the sensing circuit or something up the line. what does the ALC look like when you transmit into the antenna? if the ALC is going nuts but the power output is normal that would tell you something. also curious what the SWR reads on say 40m vs 2m — oh wait 7300 is HF only never mind. anyway i'd grab the service manual before doing anything else, icom service manuals are actually pretty good about showing the bridge circuitry and you should be able to trace the forward and reflected voltage sense lines with a meter without too much hassle

i did almost this exact thing last summer, had a vertical on the roof and put up a cheap 7el yagi i built from a design off the ARRL site just for one hilltop repeater. ran both into an A/B coax switch i mounted in the shack. works great, only thing i will say is make sure your feedline loss isnt eating your gains, i was running like 40 feet of RG-58 initially on the yagi which was dumb. switched to LMR-400 and it made a bigger difference than i expected on 2m. 55 miles is doable with a decent yagi if theres not a mountain in the way

yeah im going friday and saturday this year. we usually meet up at the coffee truck near the main entrance around 7ish, its become kind of an informal thing for our group. if you see a bunch of guys with nooelec sdr dongles hanging off their badges thats probably us lol. bring cash the atm lines get insane

im kind of in the same boat as you, been at it for maybe 6 weeks now. what worked for me was just picking like 5 letters and drilling those until i didnt have to think about them at all, then adding more. i use an app called morse mania on my phone which is pretty good for just random letter practice during lunch or whatever the thing nobody told me is that copying by hand is totally different from just recognizing letters in an app. like i could identify characters fine but then i tried to actually write them down while listening and it fell apart completely. so now i practice writing too which feels dumb but apparently thats just how it goes

okay so ive been checking into our local 2m net for a few months now and i think i have the basics down but theres something thats been bugging me. when the net control calls for check-ins and i give my callsign, does that count as my ID for that 10 minute window or do i still need to ID separately when i transmit later? like if net control asks me something and i just answer the question without saying my call at the end, is that a violation or just kind of frowned upon? also related — i notice some guys on the net say their call like three times when they check in and some just say it once. is one of those more correct than the other or is it just personal style? our net control is super nice but i dont want to be that guy who does everything wrong for months before someone finally tells me.

yeah 2.8 on 40 with a homebrew first attempt honestly isnt that bad lol. my first dipole was like 4.5:1 because i didnt account for velocity factor on the coax when i was doing some calculation i half understood. anyway the choke balun thing the other guy mentioned is real, i thought it was kind of voodoo at first but it genuinely made a difference on mine. also what does the SWR curve look like across the whole band? if its a clean curve thats dipping somewhere predictable you just need to trim or extend, if its weird and lumpy theres probably something else going on with common mode current or a connection issue.

I was in exactly the same spot about a year ago, just listening for like three weeks before I worked up the nerve to check in. What finally helped me was that the net control on our local net was really patient and would slow down if someone new seemed confused. I'd say just go for it — give your callsign when there's a gap after the check-in request, and if net control doesn't copy you just try again. most net controls appreciate new check-ins and will work with you.

yeah the ICS integration thing took our county like three or four years to really click. our EC basically embedded himself with emergency management for a long time, showed up to tabletop exercises even when ARES wasnt officially invited, stuff like that. now we're actually written into the county CEMP which makes a huge difference when an activation happens because we're expected to be there, not just tolerated. also side note — packet for shelter-to-EOC traffic is solid but have you guys looked at Winlink at all? we switched over and it simplified a lot of the message handling, especially for written records which the served agencies really appreciate. just something to maybe bring up with your EC if you havent already.

so i finally worked up the nerve to check into the county ARES net this morning, been listening for about three weeks just trying to get a feel for how it runs before jumping in. everything seemed fine, i gave my call when the net control asked for check-ins, got acknowledged, all good. but then later in the net when they were doing traffic i guess i keyed up at the wrong time and apparently stepped on someone? net control came back and said there was interference on frequency and i just froze up and didnt say anything because i wasnt sure if it was me or not. so my question is, if you accidentally double with someone or cause interference, whats the right thing to do? should i have just said my call and apologized right then? i felt bad sitting there not knowing if i was the one who did it. also is there like a standard way nets handle that situation, i wasnt sure if i should wait and let net control sort it out or just speak up. dont want to make things worse by talking when i shouldnt be

had the RSP1A for a while, its decent. my one gripe is SDRuno feels kinda clunky compared to SDR# but i think they've updated it a few times since i last really dug in. the hardware itself is solid tho. if you're doing HF receive the difference from the dongle is real, not just spec sheet stuff you cant actually hear

so ive been doing contests for a few years now, mostly single op stuff on 40 and 20, and i keep reading about SO2R and how it changes everything rate-wise. but every time i look into setting it up i get this sinking feeling like its gonna take me six months just to get the station wired up properly without the radios beating each other to death. my current setup is an IC-7300 as the main and i picked up a used TS-590SG last winter that i was planning to use for monitoring but never really got around to it. i've got a couple of tribanders up at different heights which should theoretically help with isolation but i honestly dont know if its enough. reading about needing bandpass filters, maybe a 2x4 antenna switch, the whole logging software integration thing with N1MM... it feels like a whole project just to get to the point where i can even try it. is it actually worth it for someone doing maybe 10-15 contests a year at the serious-but-not-crazy level? like i'm not trying to win a national plaque or anything, i just want to push my rates up and stop feeling like im leaving points on the table during the slow parts of a run. anyone gone through this and have thoughts on whether the juice is worth the squeeze

so ive been at this whole CW thing since i got my general last spring and i started at basically zero, worked up to around 5wpm using the Koch method with LCWO and that part was actually pretty smooth. got to 13wpm over the summer and now i just... cant seem to break through. every time i try to push to 14 or 15 it just turns into mush and i panic and drop back down. i practice maybe 20-30 minutes a day, sometimes less on busy days. using LCWO mostly but ive also been doing some of the W1AW code practice files which i really like because it feels more like actual operating. im copying by hand which i know some people say is wrong but it feels more natural to me. is this a normal plateau or am i doing something wrong with my practice routine? id really love to get to 20wpm eventually, maybe even get on HF CW for real. any tips from people who went through this?

went from the 7300 to the 7610 about 18 months ago and the difference in a contest environment is pretty noticeable. the dual receivers alone are worth something if you're doing SO2R lite or just want to monitor another band passively. the roofing filter situation is better but its not night and day honest. what i noticed more was the overall receiver feel during heavy QRM — things that used to blur together sort of stayed more distinct if that makes sense. the FTDX10 i borrowed from a buddy for a weekend and i wasnt blown away. its a solid radio and the 300hz roofing filter helps on CW but the menus drove me crazy coming from Icom. probably a me problem but still. if the 7610 is in your budget i'd go that route, you already know the UI and it's a real step up where it counts.

oh this is exactly what im trying to figure out right now actually. just got my general last month and ive been lurking on 40m trying to figure out the nets. i heard about the traffic nets but honestly the procedure sounds intimidating, like i dont want to mess up someone's radiogram or whatever. do the casual nets have any kind of formal check-in thing or can you just say your callsign and thats it

the fiberglass bed cover killing your ground plane explains a lot. mag mounts need a solid conductive surface under them and people underestimate how much that matters, especially on receive. glad the NMO sorted it out. i did basically the same install on a Tacoma a few years back and ran the coax through the door pillar the same way, holds up fine even after a lot of weather. one thing worth checking on those Larsen dual band whips — the 2/70 has a decent pattern on 2m but 70cm performance can be a bit meh depending on the whip length and tuning. if you ever grab an antenna analyzer and put it on there just out of curiosity id be interested what the SWR looks like on the UHF side. sometimes theyre fine, sometimes they need a bit of trimming. probably not worth worrying about unless youre noticing any range issues on 70cm.

80mw into a random wire and you worked ZL?? what band was that on, curious what the propagation was doing. ive been trying to figure out if my efhw is actually as bad as i think it is or if i just have bad luck with paths to the pacific. on the JS8Call thing i cant really help much ive only fired it up once and got confused by the interface and gave up honestly. might try again after reading this thread

so i finally did my first WWFF activation yesterday at a local nature reserve, KFF-1847 if anyone knows it, small wetlands area about 45 minutes from me. been wanting to do this for months and kept putting it off for one reason or another. brought the ft-891 and a wire dipole strung between two trees, conditions were actually pretty decent for once. the whole point was to get the 44 contacts for a full activation and i ended up with like 61 which honestly surprised me. a lot of people really do go hunting for these references i had no idea it was this popular. what i wasnt prepared for was how many people asked me to slow down on cw. i was running ssb mostly but tried a few cw contacts and yeah i need to practice more before i embarrass myself again on that. also the park ranger stopped by and was genuinely curious about what i was doing which turned into a 20 minute conversation, so thats something to factor into your time budget i guess. anyone else find that the first activation is kind of overwhelming? like i was trying to log, watch the rig, keep the antenna from sagging, and talk to the ranger all at once. gets easier i assume?

so ive been running the 7300 for about 3 years now and honestly its been a great radio, no real complaints, but ive been reading a lot about the 7610 and the dual watch thing is starting to sound really useful especially during contests when i want to keep an ear on a second frequency while im working a pileup. plus the roofing filters on the 7610 are supposed to be noticeably better right the thing is the 7300 already sounds pretty good to me and i dont do a ton of SO2R or anything serious enough to really justify the price difference. i picked up the 7300 used for like 850 and the 7610 is still sitting around 1700-1800 used depending on condition. thats a decent chunk of change for features i might not even use regularly anyone made this jump and either regretted it or felt like it was totally worth it? my main operating is casual SSB, some FT8, and maybe 2-3 contests a year. shack is pretty basic, just the radio into a LDG tuner and then out to a trapped vertical

okay so the dots and dashes thing is actually kind of a trap, a lot of people start that way and it slows them down later because you end up counting in your head instead of just hearing the letter. the koch method basically starts you with just two characters at full speed — like actual 20wpm speed — and you add more letters one at a time only when you can copy the ones you already know reliably. it sounds counterintuitive but it works way better than starting slow and speeding up later for apps lcwo.net is the one most people around here seem to use, its browser based and you can set it up for koch. also morse trainer on android is decent. the big thing is consistency, even 10 or 15 minutes a day is way more effective than cramming an hour on weekends. took me probably 4 or 5 months of daily practice to feel comfortable enough to have a slow qso, but i was pretty sporadic about it honestly so your mileage may vary

so ive been thinking about making the drive out for the big swap meet they do every year around this time, last time i went was like 3 years ago and scored a pretty decent Kenwood HF rig for way less than i expected. curious if anyone else from this area is planning to go or if theres a carpool situation happening, gas aint cheap and the drive is like 4 hours each way for me. also wondering if the flea market part is still as big as it used to be, heard some guys saying it got smaller after covid and never really bounced back fully

yeah this is pretty much exactly what happened with our group a few years back when we did a county-wide exercise. the radio side went fine, people know how to key up a mic. but the net control guy was getting flustered because incoming traffic wasnt being formatted consistently and he had to ask for repeats constantly which just slows everything down. we ended up doing a dedicated training night just on message handling, not even touching radios, just passing written traffic around a table and making sure everyone understood the forms. made a huge difference the next time we ran a sim. also worth making sure everyone has simplex freqs memorized or at least taped to their radio because yeah, the repeater going down is like the first thing that happens in any realistic scenario and if your whole group depends on it you're already behind. the ICS forms thing is real though, a lot of hams just dont interface with that world regularly enough for it to feel natural. maybe worth doing a quick 30 min review at your next club meeting before the next exercise

yeah i started with rtl dongles too and went straight to hackrf thinking id do more tx stuff but ended up mostly just listening anyway. wish id gotten the sdrplay first tbh, would have saved some money. the hackrf is neat but kinda overkill if your not doing anything fancy with it. plus the rsp1a draws way less power which is nice for portable ops