Jennifer Adams

so ive been listening to HF for a few weeks now and everyone seems to be throwing around all these weird codes like QSL and QTH and QRM and i kind of get the gist from context but is there like a master list or something i should just memorize? i tried googling it and got a bunch of different pages with different lists and some seem way more complete than others also are there abbreviations that arent Q codes that are just as common? like i keep hearing people say 73 and i figured out thats like goodbye but then someone said 88 and i have no idea what that one means. just trying to not sound completely clueless when i finally get on the air

so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and yeah its great for working new entities and all that but honestly after a while it feels like youre just clicking a waterfall and not actually talking to anyone. i get that thats kind of the point but i started getting curious about JS8Call because people kept mentioning it in the weak signal context and i figured it was basically the same thing but with text. turns out its actually pretty different in practice. the timing structure is more relaxed, you can send longer messages, and theres this store-and-forward relay thing that i still dont fully understand but it seems like guys are using it for some kind of resilient messaging network? anyway i set it up on my IC-7300 with the usual USB audio and CAT stuff i already had running for WSJT-X and it came up pretty easy. my question is more about the activity levels though. i tune around on 40m and sometimes the JS8Call frequencies feel pretty dead compared to the FT8 circus. is it just time of day or is the mode genuinely less populated in certain regions. also curious if anyone actually has conversations on it or if its mostly just beacon-type stuff

dont worry, it took me a while to wrap my head around all of it too when i started chasing awards. so the short version — DXCC is based on ARRL's list of entities, which is not quite the same as countries. there's currently 340 or so entities and you need confirmed QSOs with 100 of them to get the basic DXCC award. Canary Islands would count as EA8 which is its own entity separate from mainland Spain, so yeah that one should be good for you. the confirmation part is the key thing though, used to be all paper QSLs but now most people use Logbook of the World which the ARRL runs. you upload your log, the other station uploads theirs, and if the details match it becomes a confirmed credit automatically. WAZ is totally different, thats a CQ magazine award for working all 40 zones as defined by the CQ zone map. and WAS is working all 50 states, which the ARRL also runs but its completely separate tracking from DXCC. so yeah you can be working toward all three at once which is kind of addicting honestly

i just did this like two months ago so pretty fresh for me lol. i used hamstudy and also watched some youtube videos when i hit stuff i didnt understand, there's a few channels that explain the electrical theory parts way better than just reading the questions. the antenna and propagation questions tripped me up at first but once it clicks it clicks. dont stress too much about fully understanding everything before the test, some of it makes more sense once you actually get on the air and start using stuff.

yeah i built almost the exact same thing last summer, same wire from home depot, similar connector setup. mine sits at about 30 feet at the feedpoint and the 2:1 point is right around 7.250 or so which covers everything i care about for phone. i wouldnt stress the high end SWR too much unless you're trying to do FT8 up near 7.074 consistently, in which case just trim a little off each leg and see where it lands. one thing i did differently was use an actual center insulator piece from a kit i had lying around, made the whole thing feel a lot more solid mechanically. your chassis connector will probably be fine but keep an eye on it after a few rain cycles, sometimes they corrode at the solder joint where you cant see it.

I'm planning the same mod on my FT-897! Some guys have done internal RTL-SDR installations with IF tap amplifier+filter boards - creates a really clean setup with no external dongles.

General rule: if your run rate drops below 60/hour and you're seeing new multipliers spotted, it's time to S&P for 15-20 minutes. The goal of Amateur Radio contesting is to contact as many stations as possible during the contest period. Points per hour matter more than holding frequency - don't get emotionally attached to "your" frequency.

The old SMSGTE service has been shut down due to spam issues. If you're trying to bridge to SMS, the new SMS gateway requires registration of phone numbers to eliminate spam. This might affect your message routing if you had SMS bridging enabled.

your list is honestly pretty solid for a first go-kit, better than mine was when i started. the thing that bit me at my first actual activation was power connectors — i had anderson powerpoles on everything but forgot a couple of the adapters i needed to daisy chain things and it was embarrassing. so i'd say make sure whatever power distribution you have in there is complete and tested, not just kind of assumed. on the antenna question, i'd say yes have at least one backup. doesn't have to be fancy, a simple random wire and a 9:1 unun takes up almost no space. the endfed is great but if something goes wrong with that feedline or the matching unit you want an option. ive been bit by that one too. and yeah keep the HT separate from the go-kit. your everyday radio should stay on you. the kit should be able to stand alone if you grab it and go without thinking. that's kind of the whole philosophy — if you have to remember to add something to it before deploying then it's not really a go-kit, it's just a pile of stuff.

i was in the exact same spot last year lol ended up getting the UV-5R because i was nervous about spending money on something i might not stick with. used it for about four months and it was fine, got me on the local repeater, talked to some people, figured out i actually liked this stuff. then i got a Kenwood TH-D74A which is like... a completely different universe, but obviously thats overkill for starting out. my point is dont overthink it, just get something and get on the air, you can always upgrade later and the baofengs hold their resale value surprisingly okay.

so the short version is there's two different things people call a band plan and they're not the same thing. the FCC part 97 rules are the actual law — those define what license class can operate where and in what modes. the arrl band plan is more like a gentlemen's agreement on top of that, where the community has sort of agreed to keep ssb in certain chunks and cw in others etc. you can technically operate ssb anywhere in your general allocation even if the arrl plan suggests otherwise, you wont get fined for it, but you might annoy people. for 40m as a general you get 7.175 to 7.300 for phone if i remember right, though double check that because i could be slightly off on the exact lower edge. the band edge thing your club guy mentioned is real though — your radio's carrier frequency needs to stay within the allocation but the sidebands of an ssb signal extend beyond that. so if you're on 7.300 usb your upper sideband is sticking out past the edge into spectrum you're not allowed in. most people suggest staying at least 3khz inside the edge to be safe, some say more.

Planning to install a multiband HF vertical on an 18-foot tripod and struggling with radial implementation. Should I install quarter-wave radials at the elevated feedpoint or does the height eliminate the need? Reading conflicting advice - some say you need LOTS of ground wires for anything more than a glorified dummy load, 60+ radials isn't going to cut it while others suggest elevated mounting changes the requirements entirely. Using a 10-40m vertical with IC-705. What's the real-world experience here?

Had similar issues with MC1350 - try adding more RF bypassing on the AGC line. I used a 10µF tantalum in parallel with the existing electrolytic and it smoothed things out considerably.

not dumb questions at all, this stuff genuinely confused me for a while too when i got back into the hobby after a long break so LoTW is the one that matters most for ARRL awards like DXCC and WAS — it's run by the ARRL and the certificates in TQSL are basically their way of verifying you are who you say you are. the setup is a little clunky the first time but once you get your certificate sorted you basically just export your log from WSJT-X as an ADIF file and then drag it into TQSL and it signs and uploads it. after that any matching contacts from the other station's upload show up as confirmed in your LoTW account. it takes a little getting used to but its pretty reliable once its going eQSL is more casual honestly. it does have an authenticity guaranteed system but most of the big awards dont accept it. i use it mostly because its easy and some guys especially in europe seem to prefer it. some people like having the little graphic cards too, its kind of fun paper cards — i still request them from rare DX or anything that feels like a real milestone. your first japan contact honestly probably warrants one. bureau is slow but free basically, direct costs a few bucks but you get it way faster. i wouldnt bother sending paper for every contact but for the ones that matter its still a nice thing to have on the wall

yeah both people have to upload to LoTW for a contact to confirm, thats the thing that trips everyone up at first. some guys upload once a month, some do it every day, and some never bother at all unfortunately. so you might be waiting a while on some of those eQSL is completely separate from LoTW, they dont talk to each other. eQSL is faster and a lot more casual — most people confirm pretty quickly there — but its not accepted for DXCC which is the big one most people care about. LoTW confirmations count for DXCC and a bunch of other ARRL awards, so thats why people bother with it even though its a bit clunky to set up as for paper cards, honestly you dont have to do it but there is something kind of nice about getting a card in the mail from a country youve never received mail from before. i still send cards for anything that feels special to me, like a new DXCC entity or a contact that was genuinely hard to pull off. for everyday FT8 contacts i dont bother sending paper the bureau thing is just a cheap way to send cards internationally without paying postage to every country yourself. your national society collects them and ships them in batches. slow but cheap

so i finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend, been wanting to try this for ages after seeing posts about it on here. picked a local nature reserve that was already in the database, KFF-something i forget the exact number offhand. brought the FT-891 and a linked dipole, set up near a picnic table which was maybe not the most adventurous spot but whatever, it worked. the problem was i had completely underestimated how long it would take to get 44 QSOs which is apparently what you need for a valid activation. i had about 3 hours and honestly thought that would be plenty. ended up with like 38 before a massive storm rolled in and i had to pack up fast. so technically a failed activation i guess but i still had so much fun and learned a ton. question is, does any of that count toward anything or do you really need to hit 44 to get it logged on wwff.cc? also is there a good way to find hunters who are specifically looking for WWFF contacts, like a spotting network or something? i used the regular pota spots app out of habit but im not sure if thats the right place for wwff

Break it into the 10 subelements (T1-T0) and tackle one per day. Focus heavily on T1 (FCC rules) and T2 (operating procedures) first since you'll see 6 questions from those areas on your 35-question exam and you need 26 correct to pass. The electronics stuff in T5-T7 looks scary but there are great explanations once you understand the basics.

yeah what he said, and honestly the arrl band plan chart on their website is a lot easier to read than some of the third party ones floating around. i spent way too long confused by a chart i found on some random site that had like six color codes and a tiny font. just go straight to the source one thing i'll add is that 40m in particular can get pretty crowded especially in the evening and there are kind of informal gentleman's agreements about certain frequencies being used for nets or dx windows and stuff. nothing official but if you plunk down on 7.200 on a weekend night you might get a friendly or not so friendly nudge