James Park

yeah the SO-239 thing is gonna be an issue, i learned that the hard way. built a 20m dipole a couple years ago and used one of those cheap connectors from a parts bag and it was corroded to basically useless by the following spring. switched to proper outdoor rated stuff and havent had a problem since. some people just make a simple wire-wound balun right at the feedpoint and skip the connector mess altogether, just solder the coax braid and center directly to the legs through a few turns on a toroid. cleaner install honestly.

okay so i finally got around to putting the FT-7900R in my F-150 and ive been chasing this annoying noise for like two weeks now. its kind of a whine that changes pitch with the engine RPM which i know usually means alternator noise but ive already run a separate ground directly to the battery negative terminal and it didnt really help much. the power leads are about 12 gauge going straight to the battery with an inline fuse, antenna is a Diamond NR770HB on a lip mount on the trunk lid — well i mean the tailgate i guess since its a truck. the noise is worse on 2m than 70cm for some reason which is kinda weird to me. i dunno if its the mount location or the coax or what. anyone dealt with something like this before

so i finally did my first activation last weekend at a state park about 45 minutes from my house, K-4577 if anyone knows it, and honestly it went way better than i thought it would. got my 10 contacts in about 35 minutes on 40m SSB which i know isnt super impressive but for a first time out im pretty happy with it. i had my KX2 and a random wire antenna i just threw up in a tree, probably 30 feet of wire and a 9:1 unun, nothing fancy. signals were decent, had a few hunters calling in from pretty far away which was cool to see. my question is about the spotting thing -- i spotted myself on the POTA app before i started and i got a pile up almost immediately which i wasnt ready for at all, kind of fumbled through it. is that normal? does everyone self spot or do some people just call CQ without spotting and wait to get picked up by a reverse beacon or something? also i noticed some activators put their frequency in the spot and some dont, whats the convention there? anyway i already have three more parks scoped out nearby so i think im hooked, just want to make sure im doing things right before i go out again

I made the mistake of using the 12V outlet on my first install and it caused all sorts of problems with voltage drop during transmission. When it transmits, your VHF radio likely draws the most power of all your marine electronics. A radio that appears to be working great when listening can fail to transmit properly if it is starved for power. Voltage should not drop below 12.6 volts.

clublog has a pretty decent interface too if you havent looked at it, and hamspots.net. i personally just keep a browser tab with DXwatch filtered to the bands im interested in and that works well enough for me. you can filter by continent, band, mode, all that. once you start actually chasing DXCC more seriously you might want the logging software integration but honestly for where you are right now dont overthink it, just get on the air and start making contacts

During the exercise, volunteers can assess equipment, modes, and skills under simulated emergency conditions and scenarios. Our group did a "fiber cut" scenario similar to what happened in Oregon - all internet and phone down, only HF and VHF/UHF working. Really made us think about backup communication paths we hadn't considered before.

haha yeah it can be a lot at first but honestly you only end up using maybe a dozen of them regularly. QSB is signal fading, like when someones signal is going up and down, pretty useful one to know. QRM is interference from other stations and QRN is natural noise like static from lightning etc. QRP means low power which you'll see a lot of people talking about. and yeah 73 isnt a Q code, its just an old telegraph abbreviation that stuck around, means best regards basically. OM just means old man which is kind of an affectionate term for any male ham regardless of age lol, and YL is young lady which is used for any female operator. dont stress about memorizing all of them, the ones you hear on air youll just pick up naturally after a while

i went through this same exact thing last year lol. ended up getting a baofeng to start and then bought a wouxun like four months later and honestly the difference was noticeable. not saying baofeng is useless but the audio on receive is just kind of muddy compared to even a mid tier radio. if you can swing $120 or so the wouxun KG-UV9D is worth a look, has a lot of bands, decent build quality. just my two cents, im still pretty new myself so take it for what its worth

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i finally worked up the nerve to check into the local 2m net last tuesday. the Tuesday Traffic Net on our regional repeater. anyway i was super nervous and honestly kind of fumbled my callsign the first time the net control called for check-ins but the NCS guy was really patient and had me repeat it and everything went fine after that. my question is mostly about the procedure stuff — like do you always wait for net control to acknowledge you before you give your full call, or is there a standard way nets handle late check-ins? i checked in during the general check-ins window but i saw on the club website there was something about mobile check-ins and traffic check-ins being separate. wasnt sure if i missed something or if that just didnt apply to me since i had no traffic. also curious how often people here participate in nets regularly. i feel like its good practice for me to actually talk on the radio instead of just listening but i never know if im doing it quite right

yeah what he said about field day is right, i did my first one with a local club and it was just a good time. even if you mess up the exchange nobody cares, the other station will just ask you to repeat and move on. people forget that most contest operators have heard every possible mistake already. the SOTA angle you mentioned is interesting too — have you looked at SOTA activator contests? theres sometimes specific SOTA on-the-air events and that might feel more natural since you're already comfortable with that operating style. not quite the same as a traditional contest but good for building confidence making rapid QSOs. anyway dont overthink it just jump in, worst case you make 20 contacts and learn a ton for next time

As someone who upgraded last year, the HF frequencies set aside solely for Extra Class operators allow you to more easily work DX stations and operate under less crowded conditions. During contests especially, having access to the full bands is invaluable.

yeah what the other guy said about the transmit tone is right. i went through the exact same thing with my first baofeng lol, those menus are not exactly intuitive. one thing i'd add is double check your offset direction — 146.940 is in the 2m band and yeah it should be a negative offset of 600khz so your transmit frequency would be 146.340. if the offset is going the wrong direction the repeater just wont hear you at all regardless of the tone. some baofengs dont always set that automatically depending on how you entered the frequency. honestly just try calling out once you get the settings sorted, worst case nobody answers and you try again later. the repeater crowd around here is usually pretty welcoming to new calls.

so i finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend at a state forest about 40 minutes from my house. KFF reference, got the 44 QSOs needed and then some which i was honestly not sure would happen since i only had about 3 hours before i had to leave. ran mostly 40m SSB with a little bit of 20m near the end when the pile kind of dried up. my question is about logging and uploading. i used HAMRS on my phone which worked fine for the actual logging part but im not totally sure about the best way to get the ADIF over to the WWFF logbook. i know you submit through the website but does it matter how fast you get it in? like is there a time window or does it just sit there waiting to be confirmed whenever? also i noticed some activators post their spot to the WWFF spotter page and some use pota.app even though this was a flora fauna ref not a parks one — is that normal or am i missing something anyway it was a really good time. set up a linked dipole between two trees and the bands cooperated. def going to do more of these

honestly the noise thing is probably your biggest clue there. verticals pick up a lot more local noise than a dipole at a decent height, thats just kind of the deal with them. i had a similar setup a few years back and when i finally got a 40m dipole up at like 35 feet the noise floor dropped noticeably and i was hearing stations i just wasnt catching before. now that said 30 feet on a 40m dipole isnt exactly ideal, youre still pretty low in terms of wavelengths, but its going to have better rejection of the local junk than the vertical will. the 4BTV isnt a bad antenna but those radials really matter and if you dont have a solid ground system under it the efficiency tanks pretty fast. i wouldnt give up on it entirely, some guys do really well with verticals on 40 for dx because of the lower angle radiation but for general use and less noise the dipole is probably going to feel like an improvement. just my experience anyway.

so ive been running Log4OM for general station logging for about two years now and honestly its pretty solid for day to day stuff, qsl tracking, award tracking, all that. but every time a contest rolls around i end up downloading N1MM again because nothing really touches it for that use case. the rate meter alone is worth it. the thing is i keep having to manually import my contest logs back into Log4OM afterward and half the time something gets weird with the ADIF and i end up with dupes or missing RST info. been messing with WSJT-X in the mix too now for FT8 and that adds another layer because WSJT-X wants to talk to Log4OM via UDP and i set that up fine but then when im in a contest and running N1MM at the same time things get... complicated. had one session where i think contacts were going to both logs and neither one was complete. does anyone just accept running two or three logging programs and deal with the import/export mess after the fact, or is there a cleaner workflow im missing? feels like theres gotta be a better way but maybe not

For comparison, I tested my vertical against my hex beam on 17M. The vertical dipole usually has a 3 to 6 db higher noise level, compared to the hex beam, and produces signal levels that are typically 3 to 6 db less than the hex beam. Your SWR is workable - focus on getting the antenna higher if possible.

I run a ZeroFive ground plane antenna 10 feet off ground with NO radials for 8-9 years - works fantastic! Height and antenna design matter more than conventional wisdom suggests.

Recently picked up a Honda EU2200i for Field Day operations, and while it's incredibly quiet, I'm getting nasty RF hash across 40-10 meters that wasn't there with my older conventional generator. The switching noise seems to be conducted through the AC line and radiating from the power supply. I've tried ferrite cores on the AC input to my Astron RS-35M, but still seeing S7-8 hash on 20M. Has anyone successfully filtered similar inverter generator RFI?Are there specific power line filters that work well for ham applications?Considering going back to battery power - are the new solar generator units actually RFI-quiet?

so ive had my technician for about two years now mostly just doing local 2m stuff and some APRS but i keep hearing people talk about HF and honestly it sounds way more interesting than i thought it would be. been thinking about upgrading to general for a while now but keep putting it off because the exam sounds intimidating is it actually that much harder than the tech exam? i remember the tech one being pretty straightforward but i also studied for like three weeks before taking it. the general pool looks way bigger when i scroll through it and theres a lot of stuff about propagation and operating procedures and some electrical theory that goes over my head a little. like i get ohms law fine but some of the more advanced circuit stuff i dont really understand anyone have tips on how to study or how long it took them to feel ready? also curious what HF privileges you actually get with general vs having to wait for extra class, dont want to do all this work and find out i can only use like a tiny slice of the bands

omg i totally missed it, was stuck at work until like 9 and by the time i got home and fired up the radio it was gone. this always happens to me lol. im still pretty new to 6m, only got my general like 8 months ago and i still dont really understand how to predict when the sporadic e is going to open. is there a good site or something to watch? i know about dxmaps but half the time i dont know what im looking at

the stock mic is almost certainly part of the problem but you're right to sort out the settings first before spending anything. on the 7300 the first thing i'd do is go into the set menu and find the TX bandwidth — a lot of people run it too wide which just lets in noise and mud. try setting it to around 2.4 or 2.6 kHz and see if that cleans things up. also check that your mic gain isnt cranked up too high, over-driving the front end is super common and it causes exactly the barrel sound you're describing. ideally your ALC should be barely moving, like just kissing the first couple bars on peaks, not slamming it constantly. the hum is probably a grounding issue or maybe RF getting into something. worth checking that your radio chassis is actually grounded properly and that you dont have any loops in your audio cables if you have anything else connected. if its just the stock mic with nothing else then id check whether the hum is there when you key up in a quiet room — sometimes its picking up computer noise or something nearby. once you get the settings in a decent place then yeah you might find the mic is still limiting you. the HM-219 is pretty mediocre tbh. a lot of 7300 guys end up going to an Heil PR-781 or something similar but honestly even a decent headset makes a big difference for everyday use.

so ive been chasing summits for about 6 months now and finally got my first activation planned for tomorrow morning, going up W4T/SU-001 which isnt super hard but its still a real hike and im carrying way more radio gear than probably makes sense. right now the plan is HF with the KX2 and a 40m EFHW thrown up in a tree or over a branch or whatever i can find up there, plus i have the 2m HT as backup just in case i cant get enough HF contacts to qualify. my main worry is honestly just the 4 contact minimum — like logically i know thats not hard to meet but what if propagation is garbage and nobody hears me or the alerts didnt go through right on SOTAwatch. i posted the alert last night so hopefully some chasers see it. also a little unsure about my reference number, i listed it as W4T/SU-001 in the alert but now im second guessing if thats the right format. the summit database showed it that way so i think im good? anyway if anyone has tips for a first timer id appreciate it, mostly just trying to not mess up the log and have fun i guess

For methodical learning, the G4FON Koch Method Trainer and Just Learn Morse Code provide excellent resources for those who prefer a step-by-step approach. Start with 13 WPM characters but 5 WPM spacing - this trains your ear properly from the beginning. Don't rush the process!

ok so i finally upgraded from tech to general last month and im trying to figure out the 40 meter band. i know generals dont get the whole band but im confused about the edges and where exactly phone starts vs cw and all that. like i keep seeing people say dont operate too close to the band edge but how close is too close and why does it even matter if youre within your privleges technically? also someone at the club meeting said something about the ARRL band plan vs what the FCC actually says and now im even more confused because i thought there was just one set of rules. can someone break this down a bit

js8call is definitely worth playing with but you're right that the activity level is spottier than ft8. i'd say on 40m you can usually find someone in the evenings, 20m during the day occasionally, but dont expect the wall-to-wall signals you see on the ft8 segment. the heartbeat feature is kind of cool though — stations periodically beacon their info so you can see whos around even if nobodys actively calling. sensitivity wise its not quite ft8, the decode threshold is somewhere around -24db if i remember right vs ft8s -24 too actually, hmm maybe theyre closer than i thought. the messages are longer so the timing is different. honestly for ragchewing purposes the tradeoff is fine, you dont need to be copying -20db stations to have a decent qso. your 7300 and vertical will be totally fine for it. psk31 i still check once in a while out of nostalgia. caught a decent dx station on it last winter which was a nice surprise. but yeah the activity collapsed pretty hard after wsjtx took off.