Amanda Wright

that's really cool you got to do a real one so soon after joining. i've been a tech for about eight months and keep meaning to look into my local RACES group, i think we have both ARES and RACES active in this county but i honestly dont fully understand the difference between them yet. like i know RACES is tied to government and ARES is ARRL but in practice do they just work together or is it two separate nets and activations?

yeah just jump in honestly. i was terrified my first CQ WW and i think i made like 47 contacts total and thought that was amazing lol. now i do a few hundred on a good weekend but it took a few seasons to get the hang of the pace. the main thing is dont worry about the score, just treat it like practice and see how many states or countries you can work, thats motivation enough to keep going. one thing i'd say is download N1MM+ before the contest, set it up ahead of time because trying to figure out logging software during an actual contest is a nightmare. there's good youtube tutorials. and if your club does field day next june try to actually participate in person because thats a great low pressure way to see how a contest operation actually runs before doing it solo at home.

had almost the exact same thing on mine about two years ago. turned out to be the final PA transistors, one of them was getting flaky and the protection circuit was throttling output to keep from blowing the whole stage. the tricky part is the protection kicks in before you see any obvious fault indication on the display so it just looks like low power with no error. icom uses RD70HVF1 finals in those and they're not terrible to source but the job is a pain if you've never done SMD rework on RF boards before. honestly if you're not comfortable with a hot air station id just send it in. icom's turnaround was about 6 weeks for me but the repair was solid and they recapped a few things on the driver board too while they had it open. cost me around $280 including shipping both ways which sucked but the radio came back feeling like new.

im pretty new to HF, just got my general last fall, so i dont totally follow all the specs stuff but i did notice 10m was crazy this week too. i was just doing some listening on my little Xiegu G90 and heard all kinds of stuff i never hear. didnt transmit because im still nervous about pile ups lol but it was cool just to hear how alive the band gets. is this kind of opening normal for where we are in the solar cycle or is this unusual even by cycle 25 standards?

so i've been running a little handheld clipped to my visor for like two years now and finally broke down and got a proper Yaesu FTM-400 for the truck. got it mounted under the dash on a RAM mount bracket, ran the power cables direct to the battery with an inline fuse which i feel good about, and threw a mag mount on the roof for now until i can figure out the permanent antenna situation. overall it sounds way better than the HT obviously but i'm getting some engine noise on receive, like a whine that changes pitch with the RPM. i've read about alternator noise and ferrite chokes and all that but honestly im not sure where to start. the power cable is pretty close to some other wiring under the dash, could that be it? or is it more likely coming in through the antenna feedline? also curious what people are running for antennas on trucks, i want something that'll survive the highway and maybe the occasional dirt road. the mag mount is fine for now but it slides around a bit when i make sharp turns which is kind of annoying.

congrats on the first QSO. the baofeng is fine to start but once you get comfortable on the local repeater you should look into getting your general and trying HF, completely different experience talking to someone across the country or even DX. anyway good start, 73

Vara HF on 40m can be finicky depending on what antenna you're running and where you are geographically. I spent probably three or four sessions just messing with audio levels before my connection reliability went up. The ALC on the radio should barely be moving if at all — if its bouncing around you're overdriving it and the gateway will just drop you after a few seconds, which sounds exactly like what you're describing with the timeouts. One thing I found helpful was running the Winlink channel selector tool, it actually queries the Winlink database and tries to find active gateways on frequencies that are theoretically propagating to your location based on time of day. It's not perfect but it gave me a much better starting list than just sorting by distance. Also dont sleep on Vara FM if you have any local gateways within VHF range, the connection success rate is way higher when you dont have to deal with HF conditions

yeah what he said about JT65B, that's the mode. i worked my first EME contact last year on 2m with a single 9el M2 yagi and a cheap homebrew preamp i built from a kit off ebay, dont remember who made it now. took me about three weekends of trying but i got W5LDA on a sked and it was a clean decode both ways. not a huge station by any means but enough. one thing nobody told me that made a huge difference was getting the antenna polarization right. most of the serious EME ops use H polarization but you'll see both. if youre mismatched on polarization you can lose like 20dB which is basically forget it. worth reading up on Faraday rotation too because the polarity shifts as the signal travels through the ionosphere and sometimes you just have to rotate and see what decodes.

so ive been sitting on doing this for like two years because i kept reading horror stories about people bricking their rigs but finally just went ahead and did the mars/cap mod on my FT-857D last weekend. honestly not as scary as i thought once you actually get in there. the jumper is right where everyone says it is and the hardest part was just not losing the tiny screw near the PA board. anyway the point of this post is that while i had it apart i also replaced the stock electrolytic caps on the audio board because mine was already about 12 years old and the receive audio on 2m always sounded a little muddy to me. threw in some nichicon fine golds i had in the junk box and the difference is actually pretty noticeable, voices sound cleaner, less of that slightly boxy quality i could never quite figure out. could be placebo but i dont think so. also looked at doing the rx sensitivity mod but chickened out on that one, the alignment is touchy and i dont have a good enough signal generator to do it right. anyone actually done that one and think its worth the trouble? my 857 RX is fine on HF but it always felt a little deaf on 2m compared to a dedicated VHF radio.

honestly the FT-60 is kind of the classic answer to this question and i still think its a solid one. built like a tank, audio is loud and clear, the battery lasts forever compared to most chinese radios, and Yaesu actually supports it with firmware and accessories. ive dropped mine more times than i want to admit and it just keeps going. the UI is a little clunky to program but once its set up you mostly dont touch it. for hitting repeaters and hiking its basically perfect. the baofengs work fine too and theres nothing wrong with starting there but if youre already thinking about SOTA i'd just skip ahead to something a little more durable. the wouxun stuff is honestly pretty decent too, better build quality than the cheap baofengs in my experience, but i personally dont have as much seat time with them so i cant say much beyond that.

ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i keep seeing people talk about sending QSL cards and also uploading to LoTW and eQSL and im honestly not sure if i need to do all of these or if one is enough. like whats the actual point of each one? i made my first real HF contact last week (40m SSB, guy in Florida, im in Ohio so nothing crazy but still exciting for me) and he asked for my QSL and i said sure not really knowing what i was agreeing to. i have a basic log in WSJT-X and also just a paper log i keep on the desk. do i need to print actual cards? i looked at some and they look really cool but also seems like a lot of effort and money if youre just starting out. is LoTW free? i remember reading something about needing a certificate or something and it seemed complicated. just trying to figure out the simplest way to confirm contacts without doing something wrong.

gordan west technician manual is what i used back in the day, not sure if its still current for this version of the question pool but worth checking. some people swear by the arrl handbook approach but honestly for tech class thats overkill. just grind hamstudy until the questions start feeling familiar, theres also a decent android app if you want something to do on your commute or whatever. the exam itself is 35 questions and you need 26 right so the margin is actually pretty forgiving

oh man the bitx series is great for getting into homebrewing, good choice. the toroid winding is the part that trips most people up the first time, sounds like you got through it though. for your question about CW vs SSB — honestly both are fine but CW is where QRP really shines just because of the narrow bandwidth advantage and the fact that most serious QRP ops are listening for it. that said ive worked some really decent dx on SSB with 5 watts, its just a lot more hit or miss and youre gonna need really good conditions or a really good antenna, usually both. the wire in the tree thing is the classic QRP portable setup and it works way better than people expect. once you start chasing parks on the air or SOTA stuff with that rig youre gonna be hooked. theres something about minimalist operating that kind of resets your brain after years of just cranking up the power and calling it a day.

honest answer? dont overthink it at first. i spent way too long planning the perfect kit and by the time i had everything "right" id missed like three actual deployment opportunities because i wasnt ready anyway. start with what you have -- your radio, a way to power it that doesnt depend on the grid, and a way to communicate with your net control. for VHF/UHF that usually means a decent battery, maybe a 20-30ah lifepo4 if you can swing it, and a good mag mount antenna for the vehicle. add a logbook, some coax adapters, and a power pole distribution block and honestly you've got the basics covered for most local emcomm stuff. the pelican case stuff is nice but ive seen guys show up with a radio in a backpack and a battery in a cloth grocery bag and they worked just as well. the important thing is knowing your equipment cold and being able to set it up in the dark if you have to. also make sure your ARES EC knows you exist and that youre willing to show up, half the battle is just being on the list.

so i've been putting this off for like 6 months but i finally got my IC-2300H mounted in the cab of my F-150. ran the power leads direct to the battery with a fuse close to the battery like everyone says to do, and its actually pretty clean looking if i do say so myself. antenna is a Tram 1185 on a NMO mount i drilled into the roof which was terrifying by the way, no going back from that lol. anyway the radio seems to work fine, hitting the local repeater no problem, but i'm getting this weird alternator whine through the audio that gets louder when i rev the engine. ive seen people mention ferrite chokes and stuff but im not really sure where to start. also wondering if my antenna placement is ok — its kind of toward the rear of the roof, maybe 8 inches from the back edge. wasnt sure if center would have been better or if it matters much on VHF. any help appreciated, still pretty new to mobile stuff.