Lisa Rodriguez

4 contacts is all you need man, summit counts. ive done POTA mostly but thinking about trying SOTA, seems way harder with the hiking involved. how long did the hike take you to get up there

spotting yourself is honestly the most important thing you can do especially for a first activation. go to pota.app and you can self-spot right from your phone, just put in your callsign, the park reference, your frequency and mode. hunters check that page constantly so once you're spotted you'll usually get a pileup going pretty quick. dont wait around hoping someone will spot you, just do it yourself. also one thing i wish someone had told me early on — when you get to 10 contacts dont just stop if the pileup is still going. keep working them, it makes the park easier for the next activator and the hunters love racking up their own numbers too. 40m is a great call for afternoon, maybe check 20m CW if SSB gets noisy, but sounds like you have a solid plan. good luck tomorrow you'll do fine

so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, mostly because my neighbor has a big antenna setup and it looks really cool. he mentioned i should get my technician license first but honestly i dont even know what that means or how hard the test is. like is it a lot of math and electronics stuff? im not great with that kind of thing. i looked online and found a bunch of different websites and apps and now im kind of overwhelmed with where to actually start. does anyone have advice on like the most straightforward way to study for this? also how long did it take you guys before you felt ready to take the test

so our county ARES group finally got around to doing a full simulated disaster exercise last Saturday and I figured id post about it because we made some mistakes that I think are worth talking about. The scenario was a major flood event that took out the repeater infrastructure — so we were supposed to fall back to simplex and then eventually HF to coordinate with the state EOC. first thing that went wrong was that like half the guys showed up with their go-bags but nobody had tested their HTs recently and we had at least two people with dead batteries right off the bat. One person's radio had firmware weirdness that made it not scan right. Stuff like that. You kind of forget how much you assume everything just works until it suddenly doesnt in a timed drill scenario. the simplex fallback was actually where things got interesting. We had real dead spots between the north staging area and the shelter location and nobody had really mapped those out ahead of time. We ended up having to relay through a guy parked on a hill in his truck which worked okay but slowed everything down. On HF we were using 60 meters and that worked really well actually, better than I expected for regional comms. anyway the after-action review was pretty eye opening. EC is planning monthly tabletop exercises now instead of just the one big drill per year. Wondering if other groups do similar things and what scenarios have been most useful for you folks.

so ive been wanting to try QRP for a while now and last month i finally sat down and built one of those Rockmite kits, the 40m version. took me longer than i expected mostly because i kept second-guessing myself on the toroids but got it done. took it out to the state park Saturday with a random wire antenna strung up between some trees and honestly i was not prepared for how well it worked. made contacts into two states running 500mW which sounds impossible to me still even though i was there. the battery lasted basically all day which was another thing i wasnt expecting, just a little 3ah lipo and it barely made a dent. i guess my question or thought or whatever is — for people who do a lot of portable QRP, do you bother with a tuner or do you just cut the antenna for the band? i was just running the wire as-is and it seemed fine but im wondering if im leaving something on the table without a tuner. also thinking about building a ZM-2 or something similar but not sure if its overkill for what im doing.

yeah Q65 really did change things quite a bit honestly. i worked my first EME contact on 2m with a single long yagi — i think it was a 13el M2 — and maybe 300w, and it wasnt easy but it was doable. you're right that 100w with a 9el is going to be a stretch but its not completely hopeless for receiving the big stations if your noise floor is low enough. the LNA situation matters way more than most people realize. getting a good low NF preamp right at the feedpoint, like within a few inches of the connector, makes a massive difference versus having coax run back to the shack before the preamp. the Septum feed thing is more for dishes, so if you're running yagis you dont need to worry about that yet. the absolute best starting point imo is the WSJT-X documentation and then the ping jockey reflector, lots of experienced guys there who are pretty patient with newcomers to the mode. also look up the EME2 program some clubs run where big stations specifically listen for small stations trying to make first contacts. getting your azimuth and elevation tracking sorted is kind of step one before anything else though — even a manual system works, it just takes patience

our club is actually doing a carpooling thing if youre anywhere near the Columbus area, we have a thread going on our repeater group chat. not sure how many spots are left tho

i just passed mine like 6 weeks ago coming from tech so pretty fresh on this. the stuff that got me was the operating procedures section weirdly, like i figured id know that from just being on the air but there were some questions about third party traffic and station ID rules that i had to actually look up. also a couple questions about emission types and what modes are allowed where that i totally blanked on during practice the impedance math i was dreading and it ended up being fine, just know ohms law and how to find resonance frequency and youre probably covered for most of it. i used ham study and did probably 400 practice questions over a few weeks and felt pretty solid going in, scored an 88 which i was happy with as for HF without spending much -- 40 meters is your friend seriously. even a simple wire dipole which costs almost nothing will get you on the air and youll be shocked how far you can work with it

so ive been listening on HF for a few weeks now and people throw around all these abbreviations constantly and i can only figure out maybe half of them from context. like i know QSL means like... confirmed? and QTH is location but then someone said QRM and QRN in the same sentence and i got completely lost. is there like a master list somewhere or do people just memorize these over time. also whats the difference between 73 and 88 because i heard someone say both at the end of a contact and wasnt sure if thats normal or if they knew each other or what

so ive been wanting to get into QRP for a while now and finally pulled the trigger on one of those QCX mini kits from QRP Labs. took me two evenings to build it which honestly was longer than i expected but i was being really careful with the toroids. winding those things is kind of meditative once you get the hang of it anyway got it working on 40m and made my first contact with it last weekend running maybe 3 watts into a simple end fed wire out the window. guy in ohio came back to me first call which kind of blew my mind. i kept waiting for him to ask me to repeat everything but the audio report was decent he said the thing that gets me is how little power is actually doing the work here. i spent years thinking i needed a big linear and a beam to work anything and here im sitting there with a little board the size of a deck of cards making contacts. makes you think about all that money i spent on other gear lol anyone else gone deep into QRP portable stuff? thinking about doing some SOTA activations this summer and trying to figure out if i should build something even lighter or just use the QCX as is. also curious what antennas people are packing for that kind of thing

so ive been wanting to get into CW for a while now, i passed my general a few months back and everyone keeps saying i should learn morse even though its not required anymore. i get that. but everytime i sit down to actually try and learn it i just feel completely lost on where to even begin. ive tried a few youtube videos but they just go through the alphabet super fast and i cant retain any of it. someone at my club mentioned the Koch method but i dont really understand how that works exactly. is there like a specific app or website that walks you through it step by step? i have no idea what speed i should be practicing at either, like do i start super slow or what any help appreciated, just feeling like im going in circles here

totally normal to feel that way when youre starting out, the bands really do just behave like that sometimes and its kind of maddening until it clicks. the short version is solar flux index (SFI) above about 120 or so is when 10m starts getting genuinely interesting, below that its pretty hit or miss. 15m opens up a bit easier, maybe 100-110 and youll start seeing some decent propagation depending on your path and time of day. 20m is kind of the workhorse because it stays useful across a wider range of conditions. the geomagnetic stuff -- the K index especially -- matters a lot too and honestly sometimes more than the flux number in the short term. when the K index spikes above 4 or 5 the higher latitude paths take a beating even if SFI looks great. i usually check DXmaps.com and pskreporter just to see where signals are actually landing in real time, way more useful than trying to predict it theoretically. just tune around and listen, thats still the best propagation tool there is honestly.

Yeah theres no hard rule on FM repeaters honestly, most people just say their callsign normally and thats fine. Where phonetics really start to matter is on HF especially SSB when there's QRM or the signal is weak and letters like B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V all sound almost identical. you ever tried to figure out if someone said "B" or "V" or "D" in a pile-up? nightmare. so phonetics just eliminate that ambiguity. The blanking thing happens to everyone starting out, dont sweat it. I used to stumble on X every single time (xray, right, but your brain just goes blank). Honestly the fastest way to get it down is just to do it. Say your callsign in phonetics out loud in the car or whatever until it comes out automatically. after a while your brain just maps the letter straight to the word without having to think.

so ive been at this for about 4 months now. started at 5wpm with the Koch method and honestly that part wasnt too bad, i was making decent progress every week and felt pretty good about it. but somewhere around 8-10wpm things just kind of stalled out and i feel like im not getting any better no matter how much i practice. my routine right now is about 20-30 minutes a day on the computer, mostly using the LCWO website which has been great but im starting to wonder if i need to mix things up. i can copy most characters pretty reliably when they come one at a time but as soon as im trying to copy whole words at speed my brain just falls apart. like i can hear the dit dah pattern and i KNOW what the letter is but by the time ive thought about it the next letter is already gone and then im behind and everything goes sideways from there. my goal is 20wpm eventually, mostly because i want to start doing some CW contesting and maybe chase some DX. anybody been through this same plateau and figure out a way through it? feel like im missing something obvious

the power math is pretty straightforward if you know your duty cycle. the 7300 at 100w is pulling maybe 20-22 amps on transmit, but if you're doing a net and not just keying down constantly you might average out closer to 8-10 amps over an hour depending on how much you're actually TX vs RX. so 200ah should be fine for a 6-7 hour op if you're not going full bore the whole time. add the laptop and TNC and call it maybe 12-13 amps average. you'll be fine. i'd still bring the generator though because the last thing you want is to be babysitting voltage levels when you're supposed to be running traffic. on the RF noise from generators — inverter generators are night and day compared to the old conventional ones. we've been using a Honda EU2200i for two years now and it's basically dead quiet on the bands. pricey but worth it if you're doing this more than once a year. some guys run a ferrite choke on the power lead from the genny just as extra insurance and that seems to help if you get any residual noise.

the 7300 is genuinely hard to beat at its price point, ive said it before. if youre doing FT8 and casual SSB i really dont see the compelling reason to jump unless you just want the newer toy. not judging, sometimes thats reason enough lol. but technically speaking the receivers are both excellent for what you're describing and the real world difference on a trapped vertical is probably going to be minimal

so ive been a General for about two years now and i keep going back and forth on whether to just sit down and grind through the Extra exam. i know the question pool is public and you can just memorize stuff but i've heard the theory sections are actually kind of rough if you don't have a background in electronics. like the filter stuff and the impedance matching and whatever the smith chart questions are about. i took some basic electronics in community college like ten years ago so i'm not starting from zero but i'm not confident either. my main thing is i want the full HF privileges, especially down in the lower parts of 40 and 75/80 meters where it seems like all the interesting nets run. also 60m allocations or whatever changed recently i think. anyway is it worth actually learning the theory or do most people just memorize the pool and move on. i feel like i should understand what im actually studying but maybe that's just making it harder than it needs to be

I went through this exact same thing last year lol. the waiting is the worst part, I kept refreshing the FCC ULS page every day like it was going to change. mine took the full 30 days and then showed up granted a couple days after that. just sit tight you're probably fine

yeah what he said about spotting yourself is the big thing nobody tells you about. i did my first activation without spotting and sat there for like 45 minutes making maybe 8 contacts and got really discouraged. second time i put myself on the spots right away and hit 44 in under an hour. night and day difference. also bring more battery than you think you need, and snacks lol

yeah 40 is my go-to for that kind of thing. though i gotta say my noise floor has been terrible lately, think its a neighbor with something running. hard to just vibe when theres an S7 buzz going on lol. but when its clean its real good for that exactly what your describing.

so ive been a general for about 3 years now and honestly i keep going back and forth on whether to bother with the extra. like i mostly do HF, some 40m and 20m SSB, occasional PSK31 when im feeling patient. the general privileges have been fine for what i do but i keep seeing guys mention those extra-only segments and wondering if im missing out on anything real or if its just like... bragging rights basically. the theory side of the test is what has me nervous tbh. i looked at some practice questions and the stuff about filter design and transmission line theory and complex impedance calculations is not exactly something i can just memorize my way through. or can i? i genuinely dont know how deep you have to actually understand it vs just recognizing the right answer. anyone go through this recently and have a sense of how hard it actually is if youre coming from general?

did the same swap on my F150 about three years ago, went with a Larsen NMO mount through the roof center. honestly yes, there is a noticeable difference but maybe not as dramatic as some people make it out to be. the feedline routing is cleaner, no more worrying about the coax getting pinched in the door, and the antenna stays put no matter what. on 2m i did seem to pick up a couple of the farther out repeaters a bit more reliably, hard to say exactly how much of that was the mount vs just having better coax routing with less loss. the hole thing sounds scary but if you use a proper NMO mount with the rubber gasket and seal it right it wont leak. ive had mine for years and zero issues. i actually went through three mag mounts before i just committed to doing it right. the paint touch up on the underside of the roof skin is the most annoying part tbh

so i just passed my technician exam last week (finally) and now im trying to figure out what handheld to get. everyone keeps saying different things and ive been reading reviews for like three days straight and im more confused than when i started. my main thing is i just want something reliable for local repeaters and maybe some simplex stuff if there are any nets near me. i dont need anything super fancy. the baofeng uv-5r keeps coming up because its cheap but then half the people say its garbage and the other half say it works fine so i have no idea what to believe. someone at my club mentioned the yaesu ft-65 but i dont really know much about it. budget is probably under $100 but i could stretch a little if theres a really good reason to. anyone have thoughts on this? sorry if this gets asked all the time

so this past weekend was my first actual activation with our county ARES group, we were supporting a pretty big bike event that had some communications gaps out on the rural route sections where the event organizers couldnt get cell coverage. nothing crazy, just passing traffic and doing welfare checks on riders but it was way more useful than i expected honestly i've been part of the group for about a year and done a few tabletop exercises and one SET but this was the first time we actually deployed and it felt really different from the training. like the training made sense in the room but out there at a rest stop for 6 hours with the sun beating down it becomes a much more practical thing real fast my question is mostly around net control stuff — the guy running NC was incredible, super calm and efficient, and i was watching how he handled conflicting traffic and stations stepping on each other. is there a specific resource for learning that side of things or is it mostly just experience? also our EC mentioned something about ICS integration and how we're supposed to fit into the incident command structure, i got a little lost there. do most ARES groups require the ICS courses before you can activate?

so ive been licensed for about 3 years now and mostly just did local stuff and some contests here and there, but lately ive been getting really into DX and i think i want to actually go for DXCC. i've worked maybe 80-something entities confirmed so far through LoTW which feels like a decent start but i honestly have no idea if im doing this the most efficient way. my main question is — do i need to worry about mixed vs phone vs digital separately from the start or should i just focus on getting the basic 100 confirmed first and then worry about the endorsements later? also is WAS worth chasing at the same time or is that a distraction? some of the elmer types at my club say to focus on one thing but im finding that a lot of the stateside contacts are actually helping me get comfortable with pileups for the rarer stuff anyway. also what do you all think about eQSL vs LoTW for this stuff — my understanding is ARRL only accepts LoTW or physical cards for DXCC credits but want to make sure im not wasting time logging on both platforms if it doesnt matter for the award