Contester

yeah VARA is fine, I basically stopped worrying about PACTOR ages ago. expensive modems and the performance difference for most use cases isnt worth it imo. if you ever do want to run a gateway though the process isnt too bad, theres a decent guide on the Winlink.org site and the RMS Packet or RMS Relay software is free. main thing is just making sure your radio stays on and your internet connection is stable because a flaky gateway is kinda worse than no gateway, people start depending on it and then it drops out.

this is really helpful to read, im still pretty new to all the ARES stuff and havent done a full drill yet. the net control situation sounds stressful, how did you guys eventually sort it out mid-exercise or did someone just kind of take over?

Welcome to the hobby! For around $120 the FT-65 gives you similar features to Baofeng but in a more rugged case. However, if you're serious about digital modes, the FT5DR supports System Fusion and is easy to set up even for digital newcomers. It's a bigger investment but will definitely grow with you. 73!

clublog is worth bookmarking too, especially for checking if a callsign is a new one for you. you can upload your adif and then when you look up a call it'll tell you right there if its a new entity or band slot. i stumbled onto that maybe a year into the hobby and wished someone had told me sooner. not exactly a cluster but it fits into the same workflow you're talking about.

yeah i went two years ago and it was alright, nothing crazy but i did find a pretty clean HF rig for a decent price. the swap meet thing is real though you gotta get there when the doors open or the good stuff walks out fast. i think the fox hunt they do is just for club members but not 100% sure on that

Welcome to the hobby! Sometimes simple is better as it allows you to learn about the hobby. Once you've had some time to use it, you'll have a much better idea of what you -really- want. Don't blow your whole budget on your first radio - you'll end up buying more anyway as you discover what aspects interest you most.

feedpoint impedance on an inverted-V at 45 degrees comes in somewhere around 50-60 ohms depending on height and ground conditions so actually youre probably not far off for a direct coax feed, the 1.8 might just be what it is without a matching network. i ran into the same thing with mine last spring and ended up just using it as-is because below 2:1 most rigs are happy enough. the balun thing the other guy mentioned is real though, i noticed my readings changed noticeably after i wound one.

im still pretty new to contesting but this thread is helpful. i tried running two radios in the november sweepstakes last year and it was basically a disaster — i kept losing my run frequency every time i switched focus. maybe i was switching too often like you said. how do you handle the logging side? im using N1MM and i kind of understand the SO2R config but i always feel like im one wrong keystroke from logging a contact on the wrong radio or something.

which RMS gateway specifically, do you know if its a busy one? some of those high traffic nodes can be a bit flaky depending on how the sysop has things configured. i had a stretch where i kept blaming my setup and it turned out the gateway i was hammering had some kind of issue on their end and they eventually took it down for maintenance. winlink express lets you pick alternate gateways in the channel selection window, might be worth trying a completely different one even if its farther away just to see if the behavior changes. also make sure your winlink express version is actually current, they push updates pretty regularly and some of the older builds had some weird session handling bugs that got fixed

so i've been running an IC-706MKIIG for probably 12 years now and it's served me well but the display was getting weird and i was tired of fiddling with it every time i wanted to do anything on 40m. picked up a used 7300 from a guy at our club's hamfest last month and honestly i dont know why i waited this long. the waterfall alone is worth it for me, i can actually see whats happening on the band instead of just spinning the dial hoping to find something. noise reduction is noticeably better too, at least on 40 and 80 where i spend most of my time. my shack is nothing fancy, just an end fed halfwave into a 9:1 unun, MFJ tuner on the bench, feed the 7300 off a 30A regulated supply. only gripe so far is the menu system takes some getting used to if you're coming from older icom stuff. been messing with the NR and NB settings trying to find a sweet spot. anyone else using one of these for mostly casual ssb work, wondering what settings people end up settling on for everyday use

ok so i passed my technician exam about three weeks ago and ive been reading through part 97 trying to figure out what exactly im allowed to do on HF. from what i can tell techs get some privileges on 10 meters and maybe a few other bands but honestly the FCC document is kind of hard to parse if youre not used to reading that kind of legal language. my main question is can i actually make voice contacts on 10 meters or is it just CW? i saw something about 28.3 to 28.5 MHz being allowed for technicians but then someone at my club said that was only for certain modes and now im not sure. also is there anything stopping me from just listening on 40 or 80 meters, like is monitoring without transmitting even covered under part 97 or does that not matter sorry if this is a basic question, just trying to make sure i dont accidentally do something that gets me in trouble before ive even really gotten started

honestly it sounds mostly like a practice thing but the settings can definitely make it harder than it needs to be. when i was getting started my elmer told me the gap should be just wide enough that you dont get accidental contacts when you let go, like a business card thickness or a tiny bit more. tension is super personal but if youre fighting the paddle to squeeze it that's too tight, and if it feels floppy and you keep triggering it accidentally thats too loose. takes a few sessions to really dial in. the bigger thing i'd say is drop your speed. seriously i know 18 feels like it's already slow but if your brain is scrambling to keep up your hands are gonna follow. i went back to like 12-13 wpm for a few weeks and it felt embarrassing but my fist cleaned up a lot. Koch method practice files on your pc with a program like RufzXP or just the LCWO site helped me more than anything else. once the characters are automatic at slow speed the speed comes back pretty naturally.

3/4" is correct for most NMO mounts. Use a uni-bit or step drill to avoid tearing the metal. For sealing, I use butyl tape under the mount plus a bead of marine sealant around the base.

I keep seeing conflicting advice about what we can and can't do under Part 97.113. Can someone break down the main prohibited activities in clear terms? Specifically confused about: business communications, third-party traffic, retransmissions, and the compensation rules. Looking for a practical checklist I can reference before keying up.

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so i've been doing FM sats for about two years now, mostly SO-50 and the TEVEL birds, and i always kind of ignored the linear transponder ones because they seemed way more complicated to get into. finally sat down last weekend and actually figured out AO-73 and i have to say i feel like an idiot for waiting this long. the doppler correction stuff is less scary than i thought once you just watch the waterfall and get a feel for it. i'm running a pair of yagis on an az/el mount i built out of schedule 40 pipe and some surplus rotators, nothing fancy, and SDR# on the downlink with a FT-818 barefoot on the uplink. the tricky part for me was actually finding my own signal in the passband at first — i kept hunting around and then realizing i was way off. took me probably three passes before i heard myself clearly. anyone else using gpredict for tracking and finding it accurate enough? i'm getting maybe a second or two of timing offset from the actual AOS compared to what it predicts, which seems fine but curious if others tweak their TLEs more frequently than i do. i pull new elements every couple days from celestrak.

ok so i passed my general exam like 3 weeks ago and i've been trying to figure out exactly what frequencies i'm allowed to use and honestly the FCC part 97 document is kind of a wall of text and i get lost every time i try to read through it. like i understand there are band privileges and technicians get less than generals and extras get everything but when i actually look at the charts it gets confusing fast. my main question is about 40 meters, i keep hearing people say generals can use most of 40m but then someone at my club told me there are phone/cw only portions and i just want to make sure i dont transmit somewhere i shouldnt be. also is there like an easier version of part 97 somewhere that actually explains it in plain english because reading the actual regulation feels like reading tax code

so ive been putting this off for probably two years now, kept buying commercial antennas and wondering why i wasnt happy with them. finally just did it last weekend. cut a simple 40m dipole out of some 14 gauge stranded copper i had sitting in the garage, used a SO-239 chassis connector i pulled off an old project for the center insulator, and hung it up inverted-V style between the house and a tree maybe 35 feet up at the apex. the swr came out at like 1.3:1 at 7.150 which honestly surprised me, i figured i'd have to trim a bunch. did end up cutting maybe 6 inches off each leg after the first measurement but that was it. whole thing cost me almost nothing and it's noticeably better than the trapped vertical i had up before, at least on 40. anyway i guess my question is — is 14 gauge stranded a decent choice for the wire or should i have used solid? ive seen people say different things. also wondering if the cheap chassis connector is gonna be a problem long term, the center pin already looks a little oxidized and i only put it up a week ago.

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now mostly doing fm stuff on my local repeater and some wspr which honestly kind of runs itself. but ive always wanted to learn cw and just never really committed to it. i tried downloading one of those apps a while back and just got frustrated and gave up after like two weeks. my question is i guess, is there a right way to go about this or do people just kind of figure it out on their own? i hear some people say to learn the characters by sound and not by counting dots and dashes, and other people say to do the koch method, and then theres the lcwo website which i tried but honestly couldnt tell if i was doing it right. im not even sure what a realistic goal looks like. like is 5 wpm something you can actually use on the air or do i need to be at like 15+ before anyone will respond to me any advice appreciated, been sitting on this for months and want to actually try again

yeah 15m has been doing some weird stuff lately, i noticed the same thing. those short openings to the pacific are classic when the flux is marginal — like you'll get a window when the greyline lines up just right and then poof its gone. honestly the best tool ive found besides just watching the sfi on sites like dxmaps or the solar ham site is to watch the cluster spots. when you start seeing DX spots popping up on a band that looked dead, that's usually your cue to get on quick because it wont last long. the kp index matters a lot too — anything above like 4 or 5 and you can basically forget about the higher bands for long path stuff, the absorption just kills it. that JP run sounds nice though, 15m to japan from the midwest on a marginal flux day is pretty solid. you were probably riding a brief enhancement. keep a log of the conditions when that happens and youll start to see patterns over time, it takes a while but it becomes almost like a sixth sense after a few years of paying attention.

yeah honestly same here, though im on a completely different setup so its probably not the same cause. been running JS8Call more than FT8 lately anyway partly because i like that you can actually have a conversation vs just exchanging signal reports and grid squares over and over. FT8 starts feeling like a video game after a while lol. but when i do fire up WSJT the decode numbers do feel a bit off compared to last year. could just be where we are in the solar cycle doing weird things to propagation patterns, 20m has been opening and closing at weird times lately

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now (tech, just upgraded to general last month) and everyone keeps telling me i should learn CW. i get why, i see guys on 40m having whole conversations with it and it honestly seems kind of amazing that people can just do that. but i have no idea how to actually start learning it. like do i just memorize the dots and dashes on paper? i tried that once and it felt totally useless because i couldnt actually hear it in my head someone mentioned the Koch method to me at a hamfest but i didnt really understand what they meant. also heard about morse toad and some other apps but dont know if those are any good or just gimmicks. im not in any hurry to get on the air with it, just want to actually learn it properly this time instead of giving up after a week like last time

honestly for most purposes at 35 feet youre not going to notice a huge difference either way. the inverted V does broaden the pattern a bit and yeah you lose a tiny bit of gain compared to a flat dipole at the same height but were talking fractions of a dB at best. what matters more is just getting it up and using it. the real practical win with inverted V is exactly what you said — single support point and easier to manage the ends. ive run both and i genuinely couldnt tell a difference on 40m casual operating. if you were chasing serious dx maybe youd care but for general use just do whichever one you can get higher

yeah i run both and they really do serve different purposes. FT8 is honestly just a logging machine at this point, great for filling in band slots and chasing entities but like you said theres zero rag chew happening. JS8Call is a completely different vibe. you can have a real conversation, its just slow and you have to be okay with the pace of it. think of it like texting on HF. activity on 40m is pretty solid in my experience, especially evenings local time. 20m during the day you'll find stuff too but it depends a lot on propagation obviously. the heartbeat feature is kind of neat where stations periodically beacon out so you can see whos around without having to call CQ constantly. one thing i will say is the software is a little quirky and the UI takes some getting used to compared to WSJT-X which is pretty polished at this point. but once you figure out the group messaging and relay stuff it clicks. i dont think you have to pick one over the other, just run them on different VFOs or different rigs if you have that option. thats what i do, js8call on the 7300 and ft8 on my older 7200 when i want to run both at once

okay so i just got my technician like 6 weeks ago and ive been making contacts on 2m and also got on HF a couple times with my elmer's help. people keep asking me about QSL cards and LoTW and eQSL and honestly im a little overwhelmed trying to figure out what all of it means and which one i actually need to bother with. from what i understand LoTW is run by the ARRL and its like the official one for awards like DXCC? and eQSL is a different thing that more people use casually? and then paper cards are still a thing people send through the bureau or direct mail? i just dont want to miss out on confirming contacts that might matter later but also i dont want to spend a ton of money sending cards everywhere right now. do most people do all three or just pick one? is there a reason to set up LoTW even if im not chasing awards yet?