Rebecca Turner

so ive been using Log4OM for general logging for about a year now and honestly love it for day to day stuff, the integration with WSJT-X is pretty solid once you get the UDP ports sorted out and it doesnt fight you too much. but every time a contest rolls around people keep telling me to just use N1MM and i keep putting it off because learning a new piece of software right before a contest weekend sounds like a recipe for disaster last weekend was the ARRL DX CW contest and i tried to stick with Log4OM thinking it would be fine but i kept feeling like i was missing dupe checking speed and the multiplier tracking felt clunky compared to what i see guys doing in N1MM videos. i didnt lose any contacts or anything but it just felt like i was leaving efficiency on the table has anyone actually run both? like Log4OM for everything outside contests and then switch to N1MM just for contest weekends? my concern is keeping the logs synced after because i dont want duplicate entries or missing stuff when i import back into Log4OM. also does N1MM even play nice with WSJT-X if i want to do some FT8 mixed in during like a digital contest or whatever

yeah this is exactly how it hooks you, man. i remember my first portable QRP contact like it was last month and it was probably 2019. there's just something about the whole thing — the minimal gear, figuring out the antenna situation on the fly, the satisfaction when someone actually hears you running milliwatts essentially. for efficiency on a budget build, couple things that helped me a lot: first, really pay attention to your final transistor biasing if you havent already. a lot of kit builds are a little conservative there and you can sometimes squeeze out another half watt or so with some careful adjustment, though obviously watch your heat. second thing is the antenna is doing way more work than most people realize at QRP levels. ive seen guys obsess over squeezing one more watt out of their PA when if they just got their wire up another 10 feet theyd do way better. your end-fed setup sounds solid but experiment with the height and orientation when you can, makes a real difference. glad you finally got out there and did it.

Yeah your friend is technically right, the FCC doesn't actually mandate NATO phonetics specifically, you can use whatever words you want as long as they're clear. That said NATO is basically universal at this point so if you deviate from it people might just get confused, especially on HF or during contests or anything where conditions aren't great. On a local 2m repeater with decent signals most people just read their callsign straight without phonetics because honestly it usually comes through fine. Save the full phonetics for when you actually need them — bad band conditions, working someone far away, doing formal traffic, emergency stuff. On a clear local repeater chatting with regulars you already know? yeah nobody's gonna care if you skip it. Just use your judgment.

honestly same boat here, im fairly new to HF and this whole propagation thing is still kind of a mystery to me. i downloaded the HamSphere app or whatever and it shows band conditions but im not always sure im reading it right. didnt realize the K index mattered that much, i thought higher solar flux was just always better. this thread is helpful lol

yeah i was thinking about it, my club is actually doing a group carpool thing leaving from the firehouse around 6am if you want in on that. last year we got there early enough to grab decent swap table spots before the crowds showed up. bring cash, the ATM they have on site is always out by like 9. i'm hoping to find a decent used mic for my rig, the one i have now sounds like im talking through a paper bag apparently lol

lol im glad im not the only one who does this. my wife thinks im actually talking to people but half the time im just lurking. 40 and 80 both get weird and interesting after dark

so ive been licensed for about 4 years now and been mostly doing HF stuff, some FT8, occasional SSB contests, but lately ive been reading about EME and its kind of blowing my mind that people are actually bouncing signals off the moon. like the moon. i dont even know how thats real tbh. anyway i started poking around online and the equipment requirements seem... intense. i keep seeing people talk about needing massive yagi arrays or big dishes, and one guy had like 4x9el yagis on a rotor system that looked like it cost more than my car. is that really the minimum to get on 2m EME or is there a more realistic entry point for someone who doesnt have a big backyard or a second mortgage i do have a IC-9700 already so i figure thats at least something. and i can probably build a single yagi if thats enough to even hear anything. just not sure if its worth the effort if im going to be deaf to everyone else on the band. also heard JT65 is what most people use for this? or is it WSJT-X with a specific mode, im getting confused by all the different software options

honestly yeah the difference on HF is pretty noticeable, at least in my experience. direct sampling mode on the RTL-SDR v3 works but the sensitivity just isnt there — you get a lot of images and the noise floor is higher than id like. with a 30 foot random wire in a suburban environment youre already fighting your own battle so squeezing more out of the frontend makes a difference. i ran both side by side for a while before i gave the dongle to my kid. the RSP1C has better dynamic range which matters more than people think when theres strong BC stations nearby stomping on everything. SDRuno is also pretty solid once you get used to the weird layout, it actually integrates really nicely with the RSP hardware, like the band presets and the notch filters are genuinely useful not just checkboxes. that said if you havent tried putting a simple LC highpass or even just a broadcast band filter in front of the RTL-SDR in direct sampling mode you might get more out of it before spending the money. a cheap ham-it-up upconverter is another option but at that point you might as well just get the RSP.

i was in the exact same spot about two years ago and ended up just grabbing the baofeng to start and honestly dont regret it. learned a lot about programming and radio stuff in general just by messing with it. eventually got a wouxun and the difference in audio quality was pretty noticeable but the baofeng got me going and thats what mattered dual band is definitely worth having imo, 70cm repeaters are everywhere around here

yeah that ragged peak thing is pretty normal for class C especially with bipolars, the conduction angle being what it is means you're never gonna get a textbook sine before the filter. the LPF is doing the heavy lifting there. the real question is how steep your filter cutoff is and whether it's actually tuned right for 40m. a lot of homebrew LPFs get built to a standard design but the toroids dont always match their rated inductance especially if you wound them yourself on mixed cores. if you can borrow a spectrum analyzer or even just check against a nearby receiver with an attenuator you can get a rough idea of how much second and third harmonic you're putting out. regs require at least 43dB down on harmonics for that power level so as long as youre in the ballpark you're fine. the waveform before the filter really isnt the thing to obsess over for class C, that's expected.

same thing happened to me when i was learning, kept blaming my keyer and it turned out i was just squeezing the paddle way too hard. like a death grip. once i consciously relaxed my hand a lot of the timing problems just went away. took me a while to notice i was even doing it

I had the same traffic handling struggles during my first SET three years ago. The key is practicing with your local NTS nets regularly, not just waiting for the annual exercise. Once you get the message format down, it becomes second nature.

Been doing ARES for 15 years - the key is training your operators to be efficient with IDs while staying legal. Use phonetics for clarity, keep transmissions brief, and remember the call sign must be transmitted with an authorized emission, either by CW (max 20 WPM if automatic) or phone emission in English. During heavy traffic, assign tactical calls but still require proper legal ID every 10 minutes maximum.

Been a member for 30 years and honestly questioning it myself now. QST used to be must-read but with everything online these days, not sure what I'm getting for my money anymore.

Been using QRV since beta and the customized notifications for specific bands and DXCCs has been a game changer for contest prep. Set it to alert me for needed multipliers only - cuts through the noise perfectly. The Apple Watch integration is surprisingly useful too.

Understanding beats memorization every time. Ask yourself why each of these questions gave you trouble. Was it because you didn't understand the material? Was it because you didn't remember the vocabulary? When you know WHY an answer is correct, you'll never forget it and you'll be ready for the General exam too.

so i finally got activated for a real event last weekend, not just a drill. county OEM called up ARES because there was a pretty bad flooding situation in the eastern part of the county and they needed some extra communication support for the shelter coordination. i've been through maybe four or five tabletop exercises and a couple of SET events but this was the first time it was actually real and people were actually depending on us. honestly i was nervous going in. i kept second-guessing my go bag setup and wondering if i had everything. ended up on a net control position at the shelter and just worked traffic for about 6 hours straight. nothing glamorous, mostly relaying headcounts and supply requests but it felt like it actually mattered which is kind of the whole point right? one thing that caught me off guard was how much of the job is just waiting and staying ready rather than actually transmitting. i probably made maybe 30-40 contacts over those 6 hours but spent way more time just monitoring and keeping a log. my EC had told me this but i guess you dont really understand it until you're sitting there. anyway for anyone on the fence about joining ARES or RACES or whatever your local group runs — just do it. the training is worth it even if you never get activated. and the people in our group are genuinely some of the best hams ive met.

yeah i was confused about this too when i started. what i do now is just say it normal first and if the other op seems to struggle or asks me to say again i go full phonetics. works fine. one thing i did notice is on certain nets they actually require you to use phonetics for your callsign when you check in, like its in the net script or whatever. so that might vary depending on what nets you're joining. just listen to how the net control does it and follow their lead honestly

so anyway the thing that helped me most was just picking ONE award to focus on first. i tried to chase everything at once when i started and it was overwhelming. WAS is actually a really good starting point if you're in the US because honestly on FT8 you can knock it out pretty fast, states are active all the time. then once you get that under your belt the whole award mentality kind of clicks and DXCC starts making more sense. also dont stress too much about the paper cards vs electronic thing. LOTW confirmations count for ARRL awards and most people use that now. some awards still want physical QSL cards tho so it depends on which one your going after. the ARRL has a page that explains which confirmations they accept for each award and its worth bookmarking.

I went with a BuiltRight dash mount, allowing me to put the remote head and a remote speaker up there. The remote speaker was really helpful, as the radio body (and speaker) are under the passenger seat. For antennas, I started with mag mount until I was sure about placement.

Many operators crank up mic gain and processing trying to see 100W average, then wonder why their audio sounds distorted. SSB should only show about 30W average with proper mic gain - the mistake is trying for 100W on average reading meters.

okay so i just got my technician license about three weeks ago and ive been trying to use the local 2m repeater but i cant seem to get into it. i programmed the frequency in my baofeng (i know i know, everyone has opinions about baofengs) and i can hear people talking on it just fine but when i key up nobody responds and i dont see my signal making it through. someone at the club meeting mentioned i probably need a CTCSS tone but i guess i dont really understand what that is or how to find out which one to use. like is there a database for this stuff? and also do i set the tone on transmit only or on both transmit and receive? i saw something about DCS too and now im even more confused than when i started. also on a slightly different topic — i heard some guys on the repeater talking about linked systems and it sounded like they were suddenly talking to people in a totally different city. is that through the internet or is it RF the whole way? just curious how that works

might also be worth checking your power supply if you havent already. i know it sounds obvious but i chased a low power issue on a different rig for two weeks before realizing my supply was sagging under load. not saying thats definitely it but 28w is a pretty specific kind of low that can also come from the radio throttling itself if it sees voltage drop. what are you running it off of?

LoTW absolutely counts for DXCC, thats been the case for a long time now and honestly most serious DXers upload to LoTW pretty regularly these days so you'll get a lot of your credits confirmed that way without even asking for a card. the physical QSL route still matters for some of the rarer ones where the operator never bothered with LoTW but for bread and butter stuff you're fine. as for WAS vs DXCC first - i'd say just chase whatever band is open and log everything, you'll naturally work toward both at the same time. i actually knocked out WAS before i even noticed i was close because 40m is so good for domestic contacts. WAZ took me longer to wrap my head around too, the ITU vs CQ zone thing trips people up but once you just pull up a zone map it clicks pretty fast. zone 14 here in the midwest means europe is zone 14 for us to work... wait no thats not right, we're in zone 4 and europe is various zones. you'll get it when you look at the map, trust me.

Currently evaluating logging software options for my main shack setup and looking for advice on Log4OM versus N1MM Logger+ for daily HF/VHF operation. My priorities: seamless WSJT-X integration, robust LOTW/eQSL automation, and decent performance with large databases (50K+ QSOs). N1MM+ excels for contests but feels heavy for casual logging. Log4OM's interface looks modern with excellent DX cluster integration, but I'm concerned about the reported performance lags some users mention. Currently running IC-7300 with WSJT-X, JTAlert, and occasional contest participation. Anyone using Log4OM for serious digital mode work? How does the UDP integration compare to N1MM+'s implementation for FT8/FT4 auto-logging reliability?