Amanda Wright

congrats on getting out there, that first one is always the hardest to actually make happen. 19 contacts is a solid activation, yeah the minimum is 10 so you're well clear of that. for spotting without cell service - a lot of people use APRS to self-spot if they have that capability, or some folks will ask a friend to spot them via the POTA website if they can arrange it ahead of time. there's also the option of just posting your planned activation the day before in the POTA app under the schedule feature, hunters will sometimes check that and watch for you even if you're not actively spotted. honestly though once you're on frequency and calling CQ POTA for a few minutes a lot of the time someone will spot you themselves, happened to me plenty of times when i had no signal at all. asking for a repeat is completely normal and expected, nobody's going to get annoyed at that. just say "again please" or "please repeat your callsign" and they'll come back. better to get it right than log a busted call. P2P contacts are just two activators making contact while both are actively activating a park - they're worth a little extra credit in the app for both people and hunters get credit for the contact too. it's kind of a fun bonus when it happens, especially if you stumble across one unexpectedly while you're in the middle of your own activation.

That SM58 is part of the problem - it has a very peaky frequency response that's great for vocals but terrible for SSB. You want fair amount of bass for "in the same room" audio quality so it doesn't sound tinny, but also higher frequencies for broadcast quality. Consider a flatter response mic like the EV RE20.

congrats on the ticket man, that first QSO feeling doesnt really go away even after years of doing this. the repeater guys are usually pretty welcoming to new hams, at least the good ones are. once you get comfortable on 2m you should try to get on HF if you can, thats where things get really interesting. dont let the baofeng haters get to you either, its fine for getting started

could also just be the time of year tbh. i noticed 40 gets weird in summer around here, all the thunderstorm QRN makes it not worth it for a lot of people. they probably come back in the fall when things settle down

Hey everyone! Just got my Technician license last month and I'm putting together my first emergency go-kit after reading about the importance of being prepared for emergency communications. I've got a Baofeng UV-5R but I'm really confused about power options and portable antennas. I know I need multiple charged battery packs, maybe a solar charger, and a power bank, but there are so many choices! Also, everyone talks about portable antennas - do I really need something fancy or will the stock antenna work for local repeaters? Would love some guidance from folks who've actually used their kits in the field. Thanks for any help - this community has been amazing for a new ham!

the european hunters thing is real, i was shocked my first time too. WWFF is huge over there, way more active than it feels from the US side. there are guys in germany and italy who chase these references constantly and they have serious ears, they will pull you out of noise that i would never even attempt. hamrs works well, ive used it too. only thing id say is double check your reference number format before you upload because i had one rejected once because i had a typo in the KFF number and it was kind of annoying to sort out after the fact

i had almost the exact same situation last year, similar lot size, went with a vertical first because i thought i wanted DX capability and ended up tearing it out after about 4 months. the radial business was annoying and i kept getting RF in the shack which i never fully sorted out. switched to an inverted V off a pushup mast and its been solid. nothing fancy, just some 14 gauge wire and a couple of dog bone insulators. works the whole midwest without any trouble on most evenings.

went two years ago and yeah the old venue was rough, parking was a nightmare and the flea market tables were crammed into like half a gym. heard the fairgrounds setup is way better, bigger outdoor swap area at least. our club usually does a info table more for visibility than anything else, dont really expect to sell much. if you do go check if theyre doing a VE session, we ran one there in 2022 and got like 8 new techs which was pretty great for the club

dont give up man, first activations are always rough. couple things - what time of day were you there? band conditions have been pretty crappy lately especially on 20m during the day. also are you spotting yourself on the pota website? most hunters are watching the spots and will pile on once they see you. if youre not spotting you might as well be invisible. also try 40m if you have it, usually more active than 20 these days

okay so ive been trying to get winlink working for a couple weeks now and i think i finally understand most of it but theres one thing thats still tripping me up. when i open winlink express and look at the channel picker it shows me a bunch of RMS stations and im not sure when i should be connecting directly to one of those versus using a peer to peer session. my situation is im running a IC-7300 into a signalink usb, got vara HF installed and the modem is working fine because i tested it with the vara soundcard test utility. so the RF side seems okay. what im confused about is the whole relay thing. like if i send a message to a winlink gateway and it gets relayed through another station before hitting the internet, does that add any delays or is it basically instant once it hits any RMS node? and do i need to do anything special to configure my hybrid network settings or does winlink express just figure that out automatically. also not sure if i should even bother with telnet sessions for testing or if that defeats the purpose since id want it to work when the internet is actually down. been reading the winlink.org documentation but honestly it raises more questions than it answers sometimes, anyone been through this setup recently and have some pointers

ok so i just got my general last month and ive been making contacts pretty regularly, mostly on 40m SSB and some digital modes. everyone keeps mentioning LoTW and eQSL and i honestly cant figure out which one i should be bothering with. like do i need both? and what about actual paper cards, is that still a thing people do or is it mostly old timers at this point? i set up an account on eQSL already because it seemed easier but then someone in a pileup mentioned LoTW and i went and looked at it and the whole certificate process confused me. i submitted my info to the ARRL like a week ago and still havent heard back. is that normal or did i do something wrong? also i guess my real question is — for awards like DXCC and WAS, does it actually matter which platform i use, or do they all count the same? sorry if this is a dumb question, just trying to figure out the whole confirmation system before i have a bunch of unconfirmed contacts sitting there

A good SDR waterfall display is your best friend for checking bandwidth. I use SDR# alongside my transceiver to visually confirm my signal stays within the 2.8 kHz limit.

honestly? for what you're describing it's probably rig envy. the 7300 is not holding you back on 40 and 20 SSB with a dipole. now if you were running weak signal digital modes or doing serious contest operating where you're trying to pull calls out of a pileup the roofing filter difference between the 7300 and something like the 890S or 7610 starts to matter more. but casual SSB a few hours a week, you'd spend six months going wow this is nice and then it'd just be your radio that you use. the 7610's dual watch is genuinely useful, i'll give your buddy that, especially if you like to monitor two bands at once or watch a DX frequency while working a pileup on another. but that's about the use case for it. if you've got $1500 burning a hole i'd throw it at a better antenna before i'd upgrade that radio. a 7300 on a good antenna will smoke a 7610 on a dipole strung low every time.

ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (tech) and everyone keeps telling me to check into a local net to get practice but honestly i have no idea what the actual procedure is. like i know you say your callsign but when? and how do you know the net has started? do you just sit there on the frequency until someone says something or is there a specific time listed somewhere also i found what i think is a net schedule on a repeater club website but it just says 7pm Monday and doesnt say what to expect. is it going to be a traffic net or just a chat thing? and is it rude to check in and then not really have anything to say? i dont want to mess anyone up if im doing it wrong

just chiming in cause im in almost the exact same boat, sitting at about 11wpm and watching 20 feel impossibly far away lol. someone told me to just get on the air and make actual contacts even if i have to go slow, the real QSO pressure supposedly forces your brain to adapt faster than just practicing alone. havent worked up the nerve yet tbh but maybe that applies to you too if youre not already doing it

so ive had the 7300 for about three weeks now and figured id post something since i spent so long reading other peoples impressions before buying. background: i was running an old Kenwood TS-440S for years, like genuinely years, and the 7300 is just a completely different world in terms of what you're looking at on the screen. the waterfall alone has changed how i operate, i catch signals i would have just tuned past before. the built in tuner is fine for stuff thats already pretty close to resonance but dont expect miracles with a badly matched antenna, it gave up on my 40m dipole when i had it trimmed wrong and i had to go back to my LDG external. not a dealbreaker but something i wasnt expecting based on some of the reviews i read. audio on receive is really good, better than i thought it would be from a radio in this price range honestly. been doing a lot of 40m SSB ragchews in the evenings and people have commented the audio out is clean too. RF gain and the DSP noise reduction are both something youll want to spend time with instead of just leaving on defaults, took me a couple nights to find settings i actually liked. anyway not a review just some notes. curious if anyone else made a similar jump from an older rig and what surprised them

congrats on going for it, the first one is always a little nerve wracking but honestly once you make that first contact it just clicks. couple things that helped me early on — dont stress about finding a perfectly clear frequency, just listen for a bit and if its mostly quiet give a shout. also spot yourself as soon as you start calling, the pile will come to you way faster than cold calling. i usually get my 10 within the first 20-30 minutes on 40m depending on the time of day. one thing i wish someone told me: bring more battery than you think you need and maybe a camp chair because sometimes youll want to stay way longer than planned once the contacts are flowing. have fun with it, the POTA community is super welcoming especially to new activators

Planning my attack on learning CW properly this time (failed twice before). LCWO is ideal for learners who want a flexible, online-based CW training tool - suitable for all skill levels and particularly useful for those who prefer a self-paced learning experience. But I've also heard good things about the G4FON Koch trainer and some mobile apps for practice on the go. Tried a lot of morse code apps - best feature is you can set it to speak the letters after playing the code, helps you hear the sound of the letter and not individual dits and dahs. Which tools actually got you from zero to solid 20wpm? Looking for real-world success stories.

Cut 1/4 wave wire radials (4 at least) sloped down at 45 degrees - but this will only be good for a narrow bandwidth around the frequency you tune to. Elevated radials are still essential for proper operation.

so ive been chasing 3Y0 and some of the other tough ones for a while now and honestly i used to just throw my call in with everyone else and hope for the best, which as you can imagine works basically never. spent a lot of time frustrated just hearing the DX work station after station and never getting through. what actually started working for me was really listening first before transmitting. like actually sit on the frequency and figure out where the DX operator is listening, not just where hes transmitting. a lot of guys just park on the DX's tx frequency or randomly spread across the split and it turns into a wall of noise. if you can figure out the pattern — like hes working up, or hes staying around a certain part of the spread — thats where you want to be. also timing your call. when i stopped calling continuously and started calling right as the DX finishes a QSO i got way more responses. seems obvious but in the heat of the moment with everyone screaming over each other its easy to just key up and hold. running about 500w into a 4el yagi here so not exactly barefoot but not a kilowatt amp either. tried some tail-ending too which helped a couple times. curious what other techniques people actually use, not the textbook stuff, the stuff that actually works when youre in it.

ok so i just passed my technician exam last week (finally) and now im trying to figure out what handheld to actually buy. everyone i talk to either says get a baofeng because its cheap or get a yaesu because its better but nobody really explains WHY one is better or what features actually matter for someone just starting out. i mostly want to hit the local repeaters, maybe do some APRS stuff eventually, and just generally learn without spending a fortune. is the UV-5R really that bad or do people just trash it because its not a fancy radio? and whats the deal with the FT-60 vs the VX-6R, i keep seeing those come up but theres like a $100 difference between them and i cant tell if its worth it for a new person. also does dual band actually matter starting out or should i not even worry about that yet

you've basically got it right on the impedance thing. a flat dipole at a decent height over real ground is close enough to 50 ohms that a direct coax feed works, and a 1:1 choke balun is mostly there to keep RF off the coax shield rather than do any impedance transformation. the 4:1 crowd isnt wrong exactly, they're usually thinking about a folded dipole or running it multiband and accepting a higher SWR, but for a simple 40m dipole you don't need it. inverted V does drop the impedance a bit yep, more so if the angle is shallow. at like 120 degrees included angle you're still in the ballpark, closer to 50-60 ohms depending. not gonna matter with modern transceivers and their built-in tuners. cut it long like you said, just leave yourself 6 inches or more on each leg because trimming is way easier than splicing back in wire if you overshoot. 468 is fine as a starting point. wrap the ends, hang it up, check SWR across the band, then trim in small increments. the feedpoint height and what's around the antenna changes things anyway so you can't really pre-calculate it exactly.

Running into frustrating decode issues with WSJT-X where I'm seeing signals on the waterfall but getting zero decodes. FT8 and FT4 depend on computer time being very accurate and synced with NTP - shouldn't be out more than 0.4 seconds. Windows built-in NTP client can have issues syncing better than 0.6 seconds, so many FT operators use Meinberg NTP Package or Dimension 4. Each FT8 transmission must begin exactly at 00, 15, 30, 45, or 60 seconds - if station clock isn't synchronized, messages will fail to decode. What's everyone's preferred time sync solution for rock-solid operation?

honestly depends what you're trying to do with it. I went the other direction and got a HackRF instead of the SDRplay because I wanted TX capability for testing and the 1MHz to 6GHz range was useful for some stuff I was messing with. but if you're purely a receiver the HackRF is actually worse than both on noise floor, like noticeably so, the ADC resolution just isnt there for serious weak signal work. the RSP1B is probably the right call for what you're describing. just dont expect it to replace a proper communications receiver or anything, its still an SDR with all that implies. the selectivity ahead of the ADC matters a lot and none of these cheap SDRs have real front end filtering like a dedicated rig does.

honestly the Extra exam isnt as bad as people make it out to be once you sit down and actually go through the question pool systematically. yeah there's some hairy stuff in there, the laplace transforms and the filter design questions and all the stuff about transmission line theory, but heres the thing — you dont have to actually understand all of it deeply, you just need to recognise the right answer. i spent maybe six weeks going through the HamStudy flashcards every morning with coffee and i passed with room to spare. the privileges are worth it to me just for the satisfaction honestly, and having the full 80m and 160m segments available has been nice when things get crowded during contests. the theory is harder on paper than in practice for the test.