David Williams

so ive been messing around with this idea for a few months now and finally started building it out. basically i have four antennas out back — a 40m dipole, a vertical for 20/15/10, a loop, and a discone for the scanner stuff — and im sick of going out to the junction box every time i want to switch. its out past the garage and in winter its just not happening. i picked up an arduino mega i had sitting around from an old robotics thing my kid did and figured i could use a relay board to do the switching. got one of those 8-channel 5v relay modules off amazon for like $8 which seems almost too cheap to trust honestly. the plan is to run it over serial from the shack PC and either write a little python script or maybe tie it into hamlib somehow. has anyone actually done something like this? im curious if the relay switching causes any RFI issues, the cheap relay boards scare me a little for that reason. also wondering if a pi would be better than the arduino for this since i could run a little web interface from it and control it from my phone without having to have the shack PC on.

so ive been working on this for a few weeks now and figured id post here in case anyone else has gone down this rabbit hole. basically i have an old prop pitch rotator that i picked up at a hamfest a few years back and i finally decided to do something useful with it instead of letting it sit in the garage. the goal is to have an arduino mega reading az/el from my logging software over serial and then driving the motor controller accordingly. the motor side is mostly sorted, im using an IBT-2 h-bridge module which handles the current just fine. the problem im running into is the feedback pot — its a 10-turn pot and the ADC on the arduino is only 10 bit so im getting some jitter in the position readings. ive tried averaging like 16 samples but it still drifts a few degrees back and forth and the motor just keeps hunting around the target heading. its not terrible but its annoying enough that i cant really call it done. wondering if anyone has dealt with this. i was thinking maybe switch to an ADS1115 for 16-bit resolution but not sure if thats overkill or if the issue is somewhere else entirely. also running the whole thing off a raspberry pi 4 now for the rotctld interface which is actually working really well — hamlib picks it up no problem and flrig talks to it fine too.

so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and keep hearing people talk about CW and honestly it just sounds really cool to me, like the idea of being able to just tap out a message with a straight key or whatever. but i have no idea where to start. i downloaded like three different apps and they all seem different and i dont know which approach is actually the right one. someone told me to learn with the koch method and someone else said just do character flashcards and now im just confused. is there a generally agreed on best way or is it just whatever works for you personally? i dont have any kind of time pressure on this, im just doing it for fun and maybe eventually want to actually use it on the air, not trying to pass any test or anything

so i finally did my first summit activation last weekend, took the KX2 and a 20m end fed up to a local hilltop, nothing crazy just a 2 pointer but figured id start small. took me like 45 mins to hike up and another 20 to get everything set up cause i forgot i needed to untangle the wire before trying to throw the line over a branch. anyway made 12 contacts in about an hour, mostly 20m SSB with a couple guys on CW who were way faster than me so i just sent my exchange and hoped for the best lol. the whole thing was just really satisfying in a way that sitting in the shack isnt, something about making contacts with a battery and a wire in the middle of nowhere hits different. already planning the next one, thinking about trying a 2 radio setup for vhf too

so i finally did my first SOTA activation last weekend, summit was only a 2 mile hike so i figured it would be easy. packed the KX2, wire antenna, and my usual field kit. got up there and the wind was absolutely insane, like i could barely keep the antenna up. ended up just doing a half wave end fed slung between my trekking pole and a rock and it actually worked ok once i got it sorted out. got 4 contacts on 20m before my fingers were too cold to key properly lol. activaton counts though right? just barely squeaked it out. already planning the next one, thinking about trying 40m next time since the band was kind of dead when i was up there. anyone else find 20 to be hit or miss for SOTA?

yeah i caught the tail end of that opening, came on around 10:30 and it was already starting to drop off but still worked a couple EA stations which was nice. 10m openings like that really do remind you why people chased cycle peaks so hard back in the day. my old TS-430 was just singing. on the Icom thing, i saw the same posts from Tokyo hamfair and from what i can piece together it sounds like its going to be a proper shack-in-a-box type deal where the head unit has all the controls and the RF deck sits somewhere else, kind of like the 7610 layout but taken further. price point rumored to be pretty steep but if the receiver is as good as the 7610 i could see it being worth it for serious contesters. personally im happy with what ive got but ill definitely be reading the first reviews carefully.

so ive been running a diamond x50a on the roof for a while now and its always been decent on 2m but 70cm has always felt a bit weak compared to what guys at the repeater are reporting back. the coax run from the antenna down to the shack is probably around 40 feet of LMR-240, nothing crazy, goes through the attic and down the wall. connectors are all PL-259 which i know isnt ideal for 70cm but i did my best to keep the solder joints clean. been wondering if the cable loss at 440 is just eating me alive or if theres something else going on. i tried a mag mount whip in the car and honestly the signal reports werent that different which seems weird. maybe the x50a just isnt that great on 70cm to begin with? i always assumed collinears were kind of a jack of all trades situation but maybe im expecting too much out of it. anyone run a dedicated 70cm antenna just for that band and notice a real difference or is this kind of splitting hairs territory

As a newer ham (got my General last year), I joined initially but didn't renew. Found better technical info on YouTube and forums than in QST honestly. Spending that money on actual gear instead.

the RSP1B will absolutely feel like an upgrade over the rtl-sdr on HF, that's not even close. the direct sampling mod on the RTL dongles is kind of a hack and it shows — the noise figure is rough and the dynamic range suffers when you've got strong signals anywhere nearby. the RSP1B has proper front end filtering and better ADC dynamic range, you'll notice it almost immediately if you're doing serious HF listening. that said, your antenna is going to matter more than the radio once you get past a certain baseline. if your feedline is lossy or your EFHW isn't tuned well you're going to hit that ceiling regardless. i'd say get the RSP1B, spend an afternoon in SDRuno which is clunky but works fine once you learn it, and then if you still feel limited look at the antenna side before blaming the radio. the HackRF comparison is kind of apples and oranges — hackrf is a transmit-capable SDR platform which is cool but its receive sensitivity is genuinely worse than the RSP1B, its a different tool for different things.

yeah the audio buffering in RCForb is actually pretty good once you tune the settings, theres a buffer size slider and most people leave it at default which is way too aggressive for a low latency connection. if you have a solid connection try dropping it down and see if CW tightens up. made a big difference for me. one thing nobody mentions is the PTT delay, even best case youre looking at maybe 80-100ms round trip if everyones on a decent connection, which on SSB you barely notice but on CW it does feel slightly off until you get used to it. i just run a slightly slower speed now when remote vs in the shack, not a huge deal.

ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now, tech class, and i thought i understood the privileges but the more i read part 97 the more confused i get. like i know i have HF privileges on 10 meters but only certain modes? and then someone at my club told me i can also operate on 15 meters with morse code but i cant find where that actually says that in the rules. also whats the deal with operating from a foreign country, my wife and i are going to mexico in the spring and i was wondering if i could bring my HT and use it there or if that completely different rules. i dont want to get in trouble with the fcc or whatever the mexican equivalent is. sorry if this is a dumb question im still figuring all this out

ive been wanting to try POTA forever but i have a tech license still and wasnt sure if there was even a point going out with just HF privileges on certain bands. do you need to be general or extra to really make it work or can tech ops still get enough contacts? sorry to hijack your thread just been curious about this for a while and your post made me think about it again.

oh man you picked a great time to get into this. CQ WW is honestly one of the most fun weekends in ham radio even if youre running barefoot into a wire antenna. the bands during that contest are just incredible, especially if conditions cooperate. your ic-7300 and G5RV will absolutely let you work plenty of stations, dont let anyone tell you otherwise. i worked close to 400 contacts my first CQ WW with a similar setup and thought it was the greatest thing ever. SOTA is a totally different animal — its not really a contest in the traditional sense, more of an awards program where activators hike up summits and make contacts, and chasers like us try to work them from home. its addictive though. i started just chasing from my shack and now i do both. the SOTA website has all the info and the reflector community is super welcoming to new people. for Field Day i'd strongly suggest finding a local club if you can. doing it solo is totally allowed but going to a club site your first time is just more fun, you learn a ton watching how other people operate and set up antennas, and usually theres food involved which never hurts. check if your local ARRL affiliated club has a Field Day site, most of them do and theyre almost always happy to have new members come out and help.

yeah what he said. also worth downloading the arrl band plan pdf directly from arrl.org, thats usually the most up to date version for us allocations. just keep in mind the arrl band plan and the fcc rules arent exactly the same thing -- the arrl one is more like gentlemans agreement stuff about where certain modes hang out, the fcc part is the actual legal limit you cant cross. both matter but for different reasons

congrats on the first activation, 23 contacts is a solid start especially with only 2 hours. to answer your spotting question, yeah most activators just spot themselves right away these days, theres no real reason to wait unless youre trying to practice running a pileup blind i guess. the hunters are watching the spots constantly and youll just be burning time otherwise. for the QSY thing thats totally fine, just toss out a quick 'QSYing up 5' or whatever before you move and most people will follow you. the hunters using the app will see if you respot on the new freq. nobody expects you to stay planted on a frequency thats getting hammered. logging wise i know plenty of people who swear by paper and upload to the POTA site later using ADIF, its really not a big deal. i use Hamlog on my phone when conditions let me but honestly a paper log and a quiet moment in the car on the drive home works fine too. the important thing is you got it done and activated the park, everything else is just workflow stuff you'll figure out as you go.

oh man i went through this exact same thing about a year ago. the paddle just felt completely alien compared to a straight key. what helped me was actually slowing the keyer speed way down, like embarrassingly slow, and just focusing on making clean individual characters before trying to string anything together. i had mine set at maybe 8 wpm for way longer than felt comfortable but when i bumped it up later things clicked a lot faster than expected. also dont underestimate just listening to a lot of CW on the bands even if you cant copy it yet. just having it in the background while youre doing other stuff seems to help your brain start recognizing patterns. good luck with it, theres something really satisfying about making a QSO in CW once it starts to come together

what ptt method are you using on the TNC3, the vox or the actual CM108 ptt? vox can be real finicky and sometimes just doesnt trigger reliably especially if your beacon interval is set short and theres a lot of ambient noise on the input. i switched mine to the hardware ptt and it was just way more consistent. also worth pulling up direwolf or even just a baofeng on the output freq to literally listen for your own packets going out, that way you know for sure if the radio is even transmitting

Great data! I'm seeing similar results with Dakota Lithium vs Deka AGM. The LiFePO4 really shines in contest situations where you're running higher power consistently. The flat discharge curve means your finals stay happy throughout the entire operating session.

everybody feels that way the first time, no big deal. i remember my first transmission was on a 2m repeater back in the 90s and my voice cracked like i was 14 again even though i was 32. just do it. worst case someone asks you to adjust your audio and thats actually helpful not mean. the hardest part is keying up that first time and after that its just normal conversation. welcome to the hobby

ok so i just passed my technician exam last week and im still waiting on the FCC to process everything. the VE team said it usually takes a few days but ive been refreshing the ULS lookup like every hour lol. anyway my question is kind of two part i guess. first part — does the sequential callsign process just happen automatically or do i need to do something? like do they just assign me whatever is next in the queue for my district or is there some form i missed. i read something about 1x2 and 2x3 formats and now im more confused than before. second part — whats the deal with vanity calls. i know you can apply for a specific callsign but i dont really understand when you can do that. is it only after you already have a sequential one assigned first, or can you go straight for a vanity before you even get your first callsign. my uncle has been licensed since the 80s and has a really clean 1x2 call and id love something like that eventually but i dont even know if thats realistic for a new tech. sorry if this is a dumb question, theres just a lot of conflicting stuff online and i trust you guys more than some random website that hasnt been updated since like 2009

I'm putting together a portable field comms kit centered around a 20Ah LiFePO4 battery and need some antenna recommendations. Setup will be man-portable for EmComm deployments, so weight and deployment speed are priorities. Currently considering end-fed half wave vs OCF dipole options. Primary bands will be 20/40/80m with occasional 17m work. What have you found works best for quick deployment scenarios where you need to be QRT in under 30 minutes? Interested in both wire antennas and any compact vertical solutions you've had success with.

yeah I went through the same thing when I started checking into nets. the one I check into most Tuesdays doesnt do any kind of order thing at all, net control just logs whoever calls. but I did check into an NTS traffic net once and it was way more formal than I expected, they do have a specific sequence and the net control runs it pretty tight. I kind of just stumbled through that one too lol. I think as long as you identified yourself correctly and weren't doubling with someone you're not doing anything wrong, net controls are generally pretty patient with newer hams.

ok so i just passed my technician exam like two weeks ago and ive been reading through part 97 trying to figure out what im actually allowed to do and honestly its more confusing than i expected. like i get that i have HF privileges on 10 meters but i keep seeing conflicting stuff about what modes are allowed where. someone at my club told me i can do phone on a certain part of 10m but then i looked at the band plan and now im not sure if that was the actual FCC rules or just a gentlemens agreement thing. also is there anything in part 97 about what you can talk about on the air? i know you cant do music or broadcast stuff but like can you just chat about anything? i feel like i should know this before i key up for the first time and accidentally do something wrong. any help appreciated