Karen Johnson

so ive been using N1MM for a while now mostly for contesting and it does what it does really well, no complaints there. but outside of contests i find it kind of clunky for just everyday DX logging, the interface doesnt really feel like its meant for casual use if that makes sense. somebody at the club mentioned Log4OM and i installed it last week and honestly im pretty impressed with the general logging features, the QSL tracking and the way it pulls in clublog data is really nice. but then i started wondering if i could realistically use it for contests too or if ill still need to keep N1MM around for that. also i run WSJT-X pretty regularly for FT8 and right now its feeding into N1MM via UDP which works fine but ive read that Log4OM can also receive from WSJT-X. has anyone actually tested that setup and does the dupe checking work properly across modes when youre logging FT8 contacts alongside SSB or CW in the same log? that part im not totally clear on. not trying to replace N1MM for serious contesting, just wondering if anyone has found a workflow where Log4OM handles the day to day stuff and N1MM takes over for contest weekends without it turning into a total mess keeping the logs in sync

that nervousness on the first transmission is so real, i think everyone fumbles something the first time. i remember blanking on the phonetic alphabet mid-message during a flood activation years ago, just completely went blank on the letter F for like 3 full seconds. net control was gracious about it but i still think about it lol for your go bag — the thing that saved me more than once is a good headlamp with fresh batteries, like clip it onto your logbook bag so you always know where it is. shelters can get chaotic with lighting. also a small power bank for the HT if you're gonna be there more than a few hours. and honestly a printed copy of your local ARES frequencies and the simplex calling channels because when things get hectic you don't want to be scrolling through a programming list on a tiny screen trying to remember which repeater is the backup. sounds like you did great for a first activation. the waiting is the job, people dont realize that until they're actually sitting there in a folding chair at a middle school gym at 10pm

honest answer — yeah you might be overthinking the SO2R side of it. the dead air thing you mentioned at the end is probably a bigger deal than you realize. i used to lose like 3-4 seconds between every QSO just fumbling with logging and not having my exchange ready to go and that adds up fast over 24 hours. before i ever touched a second radio i went from 90/hr to like 115 just by getting more disciplined about keeping the run frequency while S&P-ing on another band in my head — knowing roughly where to go next so i wasnt spinning the dial blind. that said, SO2R does genuinely add rate once you hit a propagation lull. the classic use case is youre running 20m and it starts dying out in the afternoon, instead of just sitting there calling CQ into nothing you can be working a whole run on 40 at the same time. but yeah the RFI situation is real, you pretty much need bandpass filters minimum and a lot of guys use separate antennas on different towers which you may or may not have. starting with a k3 as radio 1 is solid though, the IF filtering on that thing helps a lot with adjacent radio interference.

so i've been sitting on this decision for like three weeks now and im driving myself crazy. i currently have both on my desk, borrowed the FTDX10 from a club member to compare side by side before i commit to selling one off. my main thing is HF casual operating, some digital modes, maybe enter a contest here and there but im not a serious contester by any means. the 7300 i already know inside and out, had it for two years, the SDR panadapter is just so nice to use and everything is where you expect it to be. but the FTDX10 receiver honestly does seem a little cleaner to me on 40m when the band is busy, hard to tell if thats placebo or real. the roofing filter situation on the Yaesu is supposedly better on paper but i dont know how much that matters for what i actually do. anyone gone through this comparison or switched from one to the other? not looking for spec sheets, just real world impressions from people who actually use these things

so ive been going back and forth on this for about a month now and i cant make up my mind. i have maybe 60 feet of usable space in my backyard, not a lot but enough to put up something. currently running an old MFJ vertical that i borrowed from a buddy but i keep hearing that a dipole even an inverted V would outperform it especially for stateside contacts on 40. the vertical does okay i guess but the noise floor on receive is pretty rough, like S5-S6 even when the bands quiet. my thinking was an inverted V with the apex at around 30 feet using my push-up mast, fed with coax through a 1:1 balun. should work right? i built one years ago on a camping trip but never did any real comparison testing. anyone actually put both up and measured the difference or is it just one of those things where you go with what fits your situation

this is something i think about a lot actually. i went through like three iterations of my go-kit before i landed on something i was happy with. the biggest mistake i made early on was trying to pack for every possible scenario and ending up with this massive pelican case that i honestly dreaded pulling out. what finally clicked for me was thinking about it in tiers. tier one is what i can grab in under two minutes if i have to leave right now — radio, battery, a random wire antenna i can throw in a tree, power cables, headset, and a little notebook. fits in a small backpack. tier two is more gear for a sustained deployment, like a better antenna, extra batteries, a small solar panel, laptop for logging, that kind of thing. that stuff lives in a bigger bag in the truck. for your FT-857D that's a solid choice, runs on 13.8v no problem. i'd strongly suggest getting at least one dedicated LiFePO4 — i use a 20ah bioenno and it gets me through a full day of moderate operating easily. carry a spare fuse for sure, and honestly a small multimeter has saved me more than once. the EFHW is fine for fast setup but a linked dipole gives you more flexibility if you end up somewhere weird. just my two cents, your mileage will vary depending on what your local ARES actually needs from you.

ferrite ferrite ferrite. seriously just put them on everything that goes near the radio. i learned this the hard way with a different project (was trying to use an esp8266 for remote PTT) and the 2m amp killed it twice before i figured out what was happening. now i just wrap a few turns through a type 31 mix toroid on every cable that comes within a foot of the antenna feedline and havent had a problem since. also — have you looked at flrig at all? plays really nicely with rigctld and might save you some of the serial headaches if you ever add a second radio to the mix.

this is really helpful to read actually, im pretty new to HF and i keep hearing people talk about 10 meters being good "when conditions are right" but i never totally understood what that meant in practice. so is the solar flux index like the main thing to watch? where do you check it, is there a good website for that? i have a technician ticket and i can use parts of 10m but im studying for general now partly because of stuff like this

I'm pretty new to HF, only got my general a few months ago, and I have a question kind of related to this — when you say the K index was low, does lower always mean better for DX? I've seen people talk about that but I thought higher energy from the sun would help signals travel farther. Trying to wrap my head around all of this propagation stuff, it's a bit overwhelming at first.

so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, my neighbor has a big antenna setup and it got me curious. i looked it up and apparently you have to take a test? i dont really know what the process is like or how hard the test is. is there like a specific book i should get or do most people just use websites. also how long does it realistically take to study before you feel ready, i work full time so i probably cant dedicate huge amounts of time to it every day. any advice would be appreciated, i feel like im missing some obvious starting point that everyone else already knows about

the relay thing is almost definitely an active low module. a lot of those cheap 8 channel boards mix up which optocoupler orientation they use across the channels and two of them end up being active low while the rest are active high. its annoying but fairly common with the no-name boards. you can either flip the logic in your code for those two channels or if you dig into the board you might find the IN pin is wired differently on those relays. honestly just easier to flip it in software and move on. as for pi zero vs arduino — for something like band switching where you just need to read serial and toggle gpios the pi zero is probably overkill but it gives you way more flexibility later if you want to add a web interface or logging or whatever. i use a pi 3 for my shack automation stuff and having the ability to just ssh in and tweak things is really nice. arduino is great if you want low power and fast deterministic response but for antenna switching the few milliseconds difference really doesnt matter.

im kind of in the same boat as you, been licensed about a year and just submitted my first WAS application last month. the LoTW setup really isnt as bad as it looks, there are some good youtube walkthrough videos that helped me a lot more than reading the documentation. took me maybe 45 minutes total. one thing i'll add is that for FT8 specifically, WSJT-X integrates with a program called GridTracker or you can use Log4OM or HAMRS or whatever logging software and they can show you in real time which states and countries you still need. that visual stuff helped me stay motivated honestly. seeing the map fill in is kind of addictive

yeah the process has changed a few times over the years so thats probably why you're finding conflicting info. the way it works now is there's a 30 day filing window actually, not 18 — or wait, maybe i'm mixing that up with something else. point is there IS a window period and if only you apply for a specific call during that window, you get it automatically. if multiple people apply for the same call during the window then yes it goes to a tiebreaker and license class does still factor in — extras get priority over generals who get priority over techs, and if it's still tied after that i believe it comes down to application timestamp. the main thing is picking a call that not many other people are going to want. really popular ones like short 1x2 or 2x1 calls in certain districts get a ton of applicants. something more obscure in a less sought after district you might just waltz right in. ae5ab.com has a good vanity call search tool that shows you what's available and what class you'd need to qualify for a given format. definitely worth poking around there before you apply.

honestly the question pool thing isnt as bad as it looks. the actual exam pulls 35 questions from specific subelements so you're not memorizing all 400+, theyre grouped and each group only contributes a set number to your test. hamstudy.org is probably the most useful free resource out there, it tracks which questions you keep getting wrong and drills you on those specifically. i passed after about two weeks of doing maybe 20-30 minutes a day on there. for the electrical theory stuff, dont overthink it. a lot of people just memorize the formulas and the relationships without really understanding the underlying physics and thats totally fine for the tech exam. like you dont need to truly understand why a half wave dipole is a half wave dipole, you just need to know that it is and roughly what the feedpoint impedance is. the antenna questions are worth pushing through though because they come up a fair bit and some of them are kind of logical once you get the basic patterns down.

yeah 20 has been doing some weird good stuff lately. i caught a zone 26 opening two weeks ago that had no business being as good as it was, running just 100w into a wire dipole and i was getting through on the first or second call most times. i think people underestimate how important the K-index is compared to the flux honestly — i've seen flux in the 180s get completely wrecked by a geomagnetic storm and then turn around and see flux in the 140s with a K of 1 and have a fantastic time. both matter but when the K goes above like 3 or 4 i basically give up on the higher bands and just park on 40. BV9P is a nice catch btw, that one sat in my needed list for a long time. what time did you work them, i might try to get on tonight if theres any carry over from yesterday

had almost the exact same thing happen to a friends FT-991 a couple years back. turned out one of the band filter relays had actually welded itself shut from the transient and was routing signal into the wrong path entirely. transmit still worked because the TX path went around it somehow. might be worth checking the band switching relays too if the TVS stuff checks out fine, just something to keep in mind before you go too deep into the RF amp section.

honestly the best advice i got when i started chasing DXCC was to just work everything you hear and sort it out later. dont worry too much about strategy early on, the first 100 confirmed come faster than you think once you're actually paying attention to the pileups. LoTW confirmations have gotten a lot better over the years too, a lot of DX stations upload pretty regularly now so you might already have more confirmed than you realize if you havent checked in a while. as for WAS and WAZ at the same time — yeah why not, a lot of contacts count toward all of them. working a station in say Wyoming for WAS might also tick off zone 3 for WAZ, its the same QSO. the ARRL mixed it all together for a reason i think. just log everything, use TQSL, and let the software tell you where you stand. i wouldnt apply for the actual award cert until youre comfortably over the minimum just in case a few confirmations fall through or something gets questioned, give yourself a little cushion.

yeah the geomagnetic stuff can really mess things up especially on the higher bands. K index of 4 is pretty rough, anything above 3 and you start seeing degraded conditions on 20 and up, and 10/12 meters basically forget it. the solar flux being decent doesnt help much when the K index is elevated because you've got ionospheric absorption eating your signal before it even gets anywhere useful. what i usually do is check Space Weather Prediction Center in the morning before i even turn the radio on, they have a 3-day forecast that gives you a rough idea of whats coming. also DXMaps and DX Heat are solid for seeing where the activity actually is in real time. honestly though sometimes you just gotta spin the dial and see whats there, propagation prediction tools are great but theyre not perfect. 17m can be tricky because it opens and closes fast, like you'll have a 45 minute window to central europe and then its gone. been doing this 20 years and it still surprises me sometimes.

yeah rf into the arduino is absolutely a real thing and it will drive you crazy if you dont deal with it upfront. i fried two nano clones before i figured out what was happening — kept getting random resets during transmit on 40m. what finally fixed it for me was putting the whole arduino board in a grounded metal enclosure, adding ferrite beads on every wire going in and out of the box, and using shielded cable between the pi and arduino. also bypass caps on the power supply lines help a lot. on the opto-isolated relay question — yes use them, dont even think twice about it. the isolation between your control side and the switching side is worth it especially if youre switching coax that has any chance of picking up rf. sainsmart makes decent 8-channel opto relay boards, cheap enough that its not worth skipping. your cat polling idea with the ts-590 should work great btw, kenwood's cat implementation is pretty solid and python-serial makes it easy enough to talk to it.

so i finally did my first activation last weekend, took the ft-818 and a linked dipole up to a local summit here in the Appalachians, W4V/SH-001 i think it is. managed to get 10 contacts which i know is the minimum so i was sweating a bit near the end there. had a couple no-answers and one guy who came back to me but then just disappeared mid-qso which was frustrating but whatever. my question is about the spots -- i used sotawatch before heading up and self-spotted from the summit using my phone (had barely any signal but it worked). i noticed some chasers were on me almost immediately which was cool, but then like 20 minutes in the pile kind of dried up. is that normal? do i need to keep re-spotting or do people just move on to the next activation? also not sure if i logged it right on the sota database, i entered the summit reference and date but wasnt sure if the grid square thing was mandatory. anyone done a bunch of these?

so ive been trying to learn CW for about 3 months now and i finally got myself a set of paddles (cheap Bencher clone off ebay) and a MFJ keyer to go with the radio. practiced a lot on the software and thought i was doing ok but when i actually try to use the paddle setup in real life my sending sounds like garbage. like i squeeze for a dit and get a dah, or i try to send a letter and the timing is completely off and it sounds like noise. i think part of it is i keep accidentally squeezing both sides at the same time which sets off that iambic mode thing where it alternates dits and dahs and i dont want that. is there a way to turn off iambic mode or do i just have to practice until my fingers stop doing weird things? also my keyer speed is set around 13 wpm which i thought was reasonable but maybe thats part of the problem too anyone else go through this phase or did i just buy the wrong setup to start

dont worry we were all new once! when they call for checkins just key up and give your callsign phonetically, then wait. net control will usually ask for your name and location if they want it. if you cant copy something its totally fine to ask for a repeat - just say something like "net control this is your_call, could you repeat that last transmission please" - happens all the time and no one minds

ok so i just got my technician license about six weeks ago and ive been checking into the tuesday night net on our local repeater pretty regularly. last night i wasnt sure if i was supposed to wait for the net control to acknowledge me before i gave my full callsign and report or if i should just go ahead and do the whole thing when i first check in. i kind of fumbled through it and said my call twice and then awkwardly waited and i could tell i did something a bit off because there was this pause before net control came back to me. nobody was rude about it at all but now im sitting here wondering what the actual proper way to do that is. like do you just throw your callsign out there during the check-in window and wait, or do you say your call and then give your name and location all at once? ive heard people do it both ways and i honestly cant tell which is right. also is there a difference between a traffic net and just a regular ragchew-style net in terms of how you check in? i dont want to keep being the guy who slows things down.

so i just passed my general last month and got my sequential call which is fine but its kind of a mouthful and i was looking into getting a vanity call. i spent like an hour reading the FCC ULS stuff and honestly i still dont fully understand how it works. like i get that you apply and there's a window period but what determines who actually gets it if multiple people apply for the same call? also does anyone know if theres a difference in how long you have to wait based on your license class? i saw something about a 30 day window but then someone on another forum said something different. my sequential right now is a 2x3 and im in the midwest if that matters at all. just wondering if its worth the hassle or if i should just stick with what i have

so the FCC allocations are what legally matter, and for general on 40m you've got SSB privileges starting at 7.175 MHz up to 7.300. the 7.125 to 7.175 segment is also general but that's phone too, though honestly a lot of that lower chunk sees heavy CW and digital traffic so you might get some dirty looks operating voice down there even if technically allowed. the band edge thing is a real concern — running right on 7.300 for example is risky because your signal has sidebands and if any of that drifts above the allocation you're technically out of band. most people just stay a few kHz inside to give themselves a cushion. 7.200 area is usually pretty active for general SSB if you just want to find a QSO