Emily Brown

so ive been at this for about three weeks now, got myself a cheap single lever paddle off ebay and been practicing with the keyer built into my old FT-857. i can copy about 10-12 wpm when im listening to practice files but the moment i try to actually send anything my timing goes all over the place and letters run together or there are huge gaps between elements. its embarrassing honestly. i think part of the problem might be my paddle tension or maybe the gap adjustment? i dont really know where to start with that. or maybe im just squeezing too hard. someone at the club mentioned i should slow way down and just focus on clean characters before worrying about speed but i dont know if thats actually good advice or if i should try to stay closer to the speed im trying to receive at. any thoughts from people who have been through this would be really appreciated, starting to feel like im never gonna get this

yeah the NR on the 7300 out of the box is way too heavy handed, you're not imagining it. i run mine at maybe 3-4 on the scale and even that's only when the band is really rough. most of the time i leave it off and just use the passband controls instead. took me a while to figure out the twin PBT thing too — basically think of it as two independent skirt controls rather than one width control. adjust them separately and go slow, it clicks once you hear what each one actually does to the signal. the waterfall thing is real, i had the same experience coming from a radio without one. you start seeing the band differently. enjoy the 7300, solid rig.

Welcome to the hobby, KD1ABC! Always listen before transmitting, wait until the repeater is free before making your call, and ask if the repeater is in use first. For net check-ins, just give your call, name, and location - that's it. Observing proper radio etiquette includes avoiding unnecessary chatter, waiting for your turn to speak, and being courteous to fellow operators.

im in kind of the same boat as you actually, been at it for about three months now. the LCWO site is what everyone recommended to me too and its been slow going but i can copy most letters now at around 15 wpm even if sending actual words is still rough. what really helped me was just doing 10-15 minutes every single day rather than a long session once in a while, like consistency seems to matter more than how long you practice each time at least thats been my experience so far

so ive been licensed about 8 months now (general) and i keep seeing people talk about CQ WW and ARRL and Field Day and honestly its a little overwhelming trying to figure out where to even start. like i know Field Day is a big deal and i did go to my clubs setup last june but i was basically just watching and handing people coffee. i want to actually operate this time. someone at the club mentioned SOTA and i started looking into that and it seems like a totally different vibe from sitting in front of a radio for 48 hours straight. more like hiking with a radio which honestly sounds more fun to me personally. but i dont want to miss out on the contesting stuff either if thats where you really learn to work DX fast. i guess my question is — for someone who is still pretty new, which of these is actually the best to start with and are there any coming up in the next few months i should be circling on the calendar? running a Yaesu FT-991A into a end fed halfwave up about 25 feet if that matters

Honestly for what you're describing, the FT-65 is hard to beat in that price range. It's around $80-90 usually and feels like an actual radio, not a toy. Battery life is solid, audio is clear on repeaters, and you wont constantly be wondering if the thing is transmitting on the right frequency or putting out garbage RF like some of the cheap Chinese stuff can do. That said I dont want to be one of those guys who trashes baofengs constantly — plenty of people use them fine for years. My issue is more that when youre just starting out you dont always know if a weird problem is you or the radio, and with a Yaesu or Kenwood that variable goes away pretty much entirely. The FT-65 also does CHIRP fine so programming it isnt a headache. If APRS is actually something you want to do soon though you might look at the Yaesu FT5DR since it has built in APRS, though thats definitely more than $150.

Don't stress about memorizing everything at once! I keep a printed Q-code reference sheet next to my rig and still refer to it after two years. The common ones become second nature through use. QRL? before calling CQ is probably the most important one to learn first.

the timing thing is huge and i dont think enough people talk about it. when a DX station is working split and they say "listening 5 to 10" most of the pileup just calls anywhere in that range. if you actually watch a waterfall you'll see the DX op creeping — they'll work someone at 5, then come back and work someone at 7, then 9, there's usually a pattern. tune around and figure out the pattern before you transmit anything. took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure that out honestly. for your LP question, propagation timing is probably your best tool. grey line is obviously the classic answer but more specifically i try to hit the pileup right when the path is just opening or just starting to close rather than peak — at peak everyone is workable and the pileup is biggest. on the edges fewer stations are trying and your signal might actually be competitive. also if you're working something like a pacific DX from the midwest, late afternoon LP path to JA direction sometimes gets a weird bounce through the auroral zone and suddenly you're loud somewhere you didn't expect. not something you can count on but worth knowing.

honestly the technician test isnt that bad, i was worried too when i started studying. most people i know just used hamstudy.org and drilled the question pool until they were consistently getting like 85% or better on the practice tests, then went and took the exam. the actual pool is only 35 questions and you need 26 right to pass so theres some room to breathe. for finding a session just go to the arrl website and use the exam search tool, you put in your zip code and it shows sessions in your area. some clubs also do them pretty regularly. the electronics stuff does look scary at first but a lot of it you can kinda pattern match without fully understanding the theory, though it does help later if you actually learn what ohms law is doing

had almost the exact same symptom on a 897D a couple years back and it turned out to be one of the driver transistors starting to fail — not fully dead, just weak on that band. the 857 and 897 share a lot of the same PA architecture so it might be worth looking there before assuming the LPF. the way it showed up on mine was inconsistent output that would vary a bit with temperature, like it would be closer to 30W when cold and drop as it warmed up. does yours do anything like that? if you have a scope you can probe the driver stage output and compare it against what the final PA is seeing — if the drive level into the finals looks low on 40 compared to the other bands then thats your answer and its upstream of the LPF. if drive looks right and output is still low then yeah id suspect the filter board or possibly a bad solder joint somewhere on the PA board in the 40m path. yaesu's service manual for the 857 is floating around online and actually has pretty decent block diagrams for tracing this kind of thing.

Don't worry too much about it - most groups are really welcoming to new folks. Usually the first drill or two they'll have you just listen and maybe check in at the end. You might handle some practice welfare traffic between pretend shelters or something like that. The main thing is learning how to pass messages accurately and use proper procedures. Bring extra batteries for your HT and maybe a clipboard if you have one. The notepad is for copying down message traffic. Most importantly just relax and don't be afraid to ask questions afterward!

ok so i passed my general a few months ago and ive been on HF a little bit but im still not totally clear on what frequencies im actually allowed to use. like i know theres a chart somewhere but every time i look at it i get confused because it splits things up by whether youre phone or CW and then there are these little footnotes and i dont know if those apply to me or not. specifically i was on 40m the other night and someone told me i wasnt supposed to be where i was operating but they werent super specific about it and then just moved on. i think i was around 7.250 or so doing SSB. was i in the wrong? i thought generals could use that part of the band. also is there somewhere that explains this stuff in plain english because part 97 is kind of hard to read if youre not used to legal documents

the one thing that saved me at a Red Cross shelter deployment was having a small headlamp in my kit. sounds dumb but at like 2am when the generators were being weird and i needed to trace a cable connection in the dark it was invaluable. also a notepad and a few pens, paper pens, not just the tablet thing. nets go fast and sometimes you just need to write something down quick. the other thing i'd say is dont forget about your own comfort. i had nothing to eat or drink the first time i deployed and by hour six i was pretty useless. now i keep a couple granola bars and a water bottle as permanent fixtures in the bag. your kit sounds really solid honestly, the laminated freq sheet idea is something i keep meaning to do and never have.

i went rtl -> hackrf and kind of wish i had done the rsp route instead for HF receive. the hackrf is great if you wanna transmit or do wideband stuff but receive sensitivity isn't its strong point, everyone knows that. for just listening on HF the rsp stuff makes more sense. also wxtoimg hasnt been updated in forever, have you tried Satdump? way better for the NOAA birds now

welcome welcome, that feeling when people actually come back to you the first time is something else right? i remember just kind of freezing up and forgetting everything i was gonna say lol. the club thing is worth looking into if you have time, i resisted it for a while thinking it would be a bunch of old guys talking about antennas but honestly its been really useful and they do all sorts of stuff. what part of the country are you in?

lip mounts are kinda underrated imo, i have one on my jeep on the rear hatch lip and swr is pretty comparable to a trunk lid NMO i had on my old car. the ground plane thing is a concern but in practice it seems fine at VHF. wouldnt trust it for HF mobile obviously but for 2m and 70cm it really hasnt been a problem. saves you from drilling which on a newer truck i get the hesitation.

Question: I keep hearing about Extra Class giving you "full privileges" but what does that really mean in practical terms? I'm a General now and can work plenty of DX on 20m. Specifically looking at: How much additional spectrum do you get on each HF band?Are the Extra-only segments really that valuable for DX work?Worth the study effort just for frequency privileges?Trying to decide if it's worth the time investment or if I should focus on improving my antenna system instead.

yeah the split listening thing is massively underrated. most people just throw their TX somewhere random in the announced split and call continuously like that somehow helps. the op has a pattern, you just have to figure it out before you call. i usually spend the first 5 minutes just listening and watching where the returns are landing before i even key up. on 40m specifically i've had a lot of luck going to the upper edge of the split when everyone crowds the bottom — same thing you did basically. one other thing that helps me is watching for when the DX op is working a specific geographic region and timing your calls for when they swing toward your direction. a lot of the bigger DXpeditions will announce this but even smaller ones kinda drift geographically based on who they're hearing. if you're in NA and they've been working a bunch of EU you can sometimes hear them starting to ask for NA stations before they even say anything just based on where their returns start landing on the waterfall. low bands are tough though i wont lie. 40m pileups are an absolute wall of noise half the time and on 80m forget it unless you have a serious antenna. whats your receive antenna situation like?

Looking to perform the MARS/CAP modification on my IC-7300 (European version) to enable full frequency coverage. Found conflicting information online regarding the diode removal - some sources mention D416 and D422, while others reference different diode positions. The diode matrix layout appears to vary between EU, JA and US versions. Has anyone successfully performed this modification on a recent EU version? Planning to use proper ESD precautions and gel flux, but want to confirm the correct diodes before I start. My goal is to open RX 0.030-74.8MHz and TX coverage while maintaining the 60m band capability. Current specs: IC-7300 European version, firmware updated to latest. Any guidance or confirmation of diode positions would be greatly appreciated.