John Williams

so im putting together a portable setup for a county ARES exercise this weekend and ive been going back and forth on the power situation for a few days now. the site we're using doesnt have shore power so were looking at either running a generator or going battery with solar backup. my main concern is the generator noise — both RF and acoustic — because were gonna be trying to work some digital modes (js8call mostly, maybe some winlink) and last time someone brought a cheap harbor freight genny to one of these things the noise floor was just brutal, like S7-S8 on everything. we have access to a honda eu2200i which ive used before and its pretty quiet electrically if you bond it right, but its also kind of overkill for what we need if were mostly running a 100w hf rig and a laptop. thinking about supplementing with a 100ah lifepo4 and a small renogy panel to top it off during the day. that way we can run the generator for maybe an hour in the morning to top the battery and then shut it down during actual operating periods. antenna side im planning on a buddipole in vertical config for 40m and maybe stringing an ocf dipole between some trees if the site cooperates. anyone done something similar for an emcomm exercise? curious if the buddipole vertical on 40 is actually useable or if its just gonna be a compromise on compromise at that point

yeah paper QSLs absolutely still count for DXCC, you just have to get them checked at an ARRL card checking session or mail them in directly, its just slower and more of a hassle than LoTW. the bureau can take a really long time, like 6 months to over a year for some countries, thats totally normal unfortunately. some rarer entities wont even respond at all so LoTW is way better when the other station uploads. WAS and DXCC are completely separate awards with separate applications, yeah. WAS is all 50 states, WAZ is the 40 CQ zones. DXKeeper does track all of this if you set it up right and its connected to LoTW — it'll show you confirmed vs worked for each award category which is really handy. i'd honestly just focus on getting your LoTW account set up properly first if you havent already, that'll make everything a lot clearer once you can see whats actually confirmed in there

i was in the same boat not too long ago tbh. what helped me was just finding one of those frequency allocation charts that has all the license classes color coded. theres a few floating around online, just image search arrl band plan and youll find something you can actually read without falling asleep. the actual part 97 text is useful once you know what youre looking for but its not really meant to teach you anything, its just the legal language.

yeah i was in the same boat not long ago. one thing i'll add is that uploading to LoTW after every session becomes pretty routine once you get the hang of TQSL, i basically just do it at the end of every operating night. the certificate setup process is the annoying part but you only do that once. the physical cards are kind of a joy though honestly. i wasnt expecting to care about them but when a nice card shows up from somewhere far away it's just satisfying in a way a digital confirmation isnt. i ordered cards from a place called UX5UO which a lot of people use, pretty affordable. and yeah just send one back when you get one, no big deal. most people just appreciate the gesture.

so ive been licensed about 14 months now and a buddy at the club keeps telling me i need to try CQ WW this october. i did field day with the club last june which was a blast but that felt more like a big camping cookout with radios honestly. people kept handing me a mic and saying work that station and i had no idea what i was doing but it was fun. CQ WW sounds way more serious. like people are running 1500 watts and have stacked yagis and i'm sitting here with my IC-7300 and a wire dipole in the backyard. is it even worth bothering or am i just going to spend the whole weekend frustrated because i cant break any pileups. i guess i could do search and pounce the whole time but i dont really know the exchange format yet either. do i need logging software beforehand or can i just use paper for a casual effort also totally unrelated but has anyone done SOTA activations in the northeast, thinking about doing a few before winter hits

so i finally did my first activation last weekend, been chasing for a few months and kept telling myself id get out and actually climb something. picked a relatively easy summit near me, W6/SC-305 i think, not a lot of elevation but enough to count. brought the ft-818 and a linked dipole that a guy at the club helped me build, got it strung up between two scrubby trees and started calling on 40m. honestly wasnt sure i was gonna get the four contacts needed but i ended up with like 11 QSOs which felt amazing. even had a couple of chasers who clearly already knew i was up there because they came back instantly when i called, which was cool to see how the whole spotting system works in practice. posted a self-spot from my phone before i started calling and i guess that does most of the work. anyway questions: does the summit reference always have to match exactly what's in the database or can you approximate? i thought i was on the right peak but the GPS was bouncing around a bit near the top. also whats the deal with activator points vs chaser points, i saw something about bonus points for winter but i dont fully understand how it all works. and is there a minimum time you have to operate from the summit or can you just get your 4 and head down?

im kind of in the same boat as you actually, started working through LCWO about a month ago and its going ok i think. one thing thats helped me is just listening to actual CW on the bands even when i cant copy it yet, like just getting used to what it sounds like in a real environment with QSB and QRM and whatever. W1AW does code practice broadcasts on a schedule you can find on the ARRL site and they go through different speeds so theres something for beginners. also there is an app called Morse Mania that some people like, feels a bit more gamelike if the straight lesson format isnt doing it for you

the generator noise thing is a real problem and honestly most of the cheap inverter gennys are better than the conventional ones for RF but they still need work. what helped us was getting the genny as far away from the operating position as the extension cord would allow, like 50-60 feet minimum, and using a line filter right at the radio end. still not perfect but it knocked it down to workable levels. we used a tripplite isobar type filter and combined with the distance it got us down to maybe S2-S3 which you can work through. that said we've been slowly transitioning to LiFePO4 batteries for anything under 12 hours. two 100Ah battleborn or equivalent in parallel gives you a real comfortable margin for an 8 hour exercise even with the 7300 running hard. yeah the upfront cost is rough but hauling a genny, fuel, dealing with the fumes and exhaust placement near people — batteries win on the hassle side every time for exercises that long.

oh man i remember feeling the exact same way my first few check ins lol. i actually transmitted over someone by accident the first time and wanted to crawl under my desk but the NCS just asked me to repeat and moved on like nothing happened. its really not a big deal to them. i dont know about your specific net but a lot of them have a net preamble at the start that kind of explains how check-ins work so if you can catch the beginning of the net and just listen to that it usually spells everything out. also some clubs post their net schedules on their websites with the procedure written out which helps. theres a 2m simplex net in my area on tuesday nights thats specifically kind of low key and good for newer people if youre looking for something less intimidating to practice on while you get comfortable with 40

drilled an NMO in my Tacoma about four years ago and never looked back. yeah its a commitment but if you use a good quality mount, seal it properly with self amalgamating tape and maybe a dab of silicone on the inside, you wont have rust issues. the difference in the ground plane is real — i went from a similar SWR situation to basically flat on 2m. the antenna sits rock solid too, no wobble at all even on the highway. the mag mounts with NMO fittings are ok but the ground plane on a mag mount is never gonna be as consistent, especially on a truck cab where the metal isnt always centered under the antenna. if youre planning to keep this truck for a while just drill it. worst case you can always get a plug for the hole if you sell it.

im in basically the same boat as you, got my tech license like 6 weeks ago and the band privilege stuff was really confusing to me too. what helped me was downloading the ARRL band plan PDF and just keeping it open on my phone when im at the radio. also my elmer told me when in doubt just listen first and see whats actually happening on a frequency before you transmit anywhere near it

i'm sort of in the same boat as you, just started learning CW a few months ago and the iambic stuff is confusing to me still. i ended up just switching to single lever mode for now because i kept getting extra dits when i didnt want them. my elmers says it's a crutch but honestly it helped me focus on the actual letters instead of fighting my hands. might be worth trying just temporarily?

so ive been going back and forth on this for like two months now and i need to just pick something. currently running a baofeng on 2m/70cm and a crappy little sdr dongle for HF listening, which obviously isnt a real setup. finally have a budget around $900-1000 and im trying to decide between getting a new IC-7300 or hunting down a used FT-991A in decent shape. i know the 7300 has that waterfall display which everyone seems to love and the DSP is supposed to be really good. but the 991A does HF plus VHF and UHF all in one which would let me ditch the baofeng at least for home use. the thing is i mostly want to do HF, some SSB and probably mess around with FT8 once i figure out the interface stuff. VHF isnt a huge priority honestly. anyone run either of these for a while and have opinions? not looking for a marketing writeup just real world stuff. does the 991A audio hold up on SSB compared to the icom or is that whole thing overblown

ok so i just passed my technician exam last week and im waiting for my callsign to show up in the ULS database. someone at the club told me i should look into getting a vanity callsign instead of just taking whatever sequential one gets assigned to me, but honestly i dont really understand how any of that works. like from what i can tell the FCC just assigns you a call in the format for your district and you get whatever the next one in line is? and then separately you can apply for a specific call you want if its available? i guess my question is, is it even worth doing the vanity thing right away or should i just start operating with whatever i get assigned and worry about it later. i dont even know what calls are available or how to check that. also does the vanity application cost money now? i thought i remembered reading something about that changing a few years back. sorry if this is a dumb question, still figuring all this out

i did my first one about two years back and the thing that got me was just the radio propagation being weird that day — like we had planned everything around the local repeater and then there was some kind of issue with the machine and suddenly people were trying to go simplex and half the portable stations couldnt hear each other. nobody had really thought through a contingency for that and it kind of exposed how much we were assuming the infrastructure would just work. after that our EC made everyone practice simplex ops for like three meetings in a row which was honestly really good. not glamorous but super important.

so ive had my IC-718 for probably 8 or 9 years now and it still works fine honestly but ive been eyeballing some of the newer stuff and wondering if its worth the jump. main thing i use it for is general HF work, some casual contesting, bit of digital on 40 and 20. i run it into an LDG autotuner feeding a dipole up about 35 feet so nothing crazy. the thing is i keep going back and forth on whether to get something like the IC-7300 which everyone seems to love, or stretch a bit further and look at the 7610. i know the 7300 is basically the gold standard recommendation at this point but i dunno, feels like id just be getting a slightly shinier version of what i have in terms of actual on air results. the 7610 dual watch stuff is interesting for contesting but is it actually useful day to day or is it more of a nice to have that you stop noticing after a week. also my shack is kind of a mess right now, running the rig off a 30 amp astron that sits on a shelf behind the desk and the whole thing is just cables everywhere. been thinking about doing a proper cleanup and maybe mounting stuff properly but every time i start i end up just getting on the air instead of fixing things. anyone else just live with shack chaos or did you actually commit to organizing at some point

same boat as you were a few months ago lol. what helped me was just using the arrl frequency chart and also there's a few youtube videos that walk through general class privileges on each band which made way more sense than reading the actual regulation. the digital modes thing is because some portions are designated for specific emission types and you have to match what youre doing to whats allowed in that segment. took me a while to get it straight honestly

which kit did you build if you dont mind me asking? im looking at a few options and cant decide. also did you need any test equipment to align it or did it just work out of the box basically

yeah 10m has been really something this cycle, we're in pretty good shape with the solar max and its showing. your Japan contact with 50w and a dipole is totally legit by the way, dont sell that short, thats exactly what the band can do when its open. for tracking conditions i mostly just watch the K index and solar flux together. flux above 150 or so and K index at 2 or below and i start getting excited, especially for trans-pacific paths. the A index is kind of a daily average of the K index so if A is low it means the day has generally been calm geomagnetically. high K means storms basically, solar wind messing with the ionosphere and that kills the higher bands pretty fast. DXmaps.com is also really useful, you can see actual spots in real time and get a feel for whats open to where. once you start cross referencing that with the flux numbers it starts to click pretty quick. took me a while to get it intuitive but now i can kind of feel when 10m is going to be good before i even key up

yeah the SFI is only part of the picture honestly. what you really want to watch alongside that is the K-index and the A-index. when the K goes above 3 or 4 the higher bands can really suffer even if the solar flux looks good, geomagnetic disturbances will wipe out 10m propagation faster than anything. there's a site called NOAA space weather that shows near-realtime updates on those numbers. the other thing is that 10m openings especially to South America tend to happen in a pretty predictable window based on the grayline and the solar zenith angle over the path. like your opening yesterday afternoon makes total sense, that's pretty much when the F2 layer over that path tends to peak this time of year. if you start checking around the same time each day you'll probably catch more of them. also DXmaps.com is great for seeing where openings are happening in real time based on actual spots, saves a lot of blind tuning

good write up, that price sounds about right for a clean used one. i made a similar jump except i came from a TS-590SG and the thing i missed most was the kenwood's receiver on a crowded band — the 7300 is real good but side by side on a busy 40m contest night the 590 just felt a little more composed to me. not saying the icom is bad at all, just something i noticed. the waterfall integration is hard to argue with though especially for casual operating where you're not trying to pull a signal out of a pileup also re: the ATU, have you gone into the settings and manually saved a channel memory for the frequencies you use most? makes the tuning cycle way shorter once its learned the match, saves a lot of time especially on 10 when its bouncy

ok so ive been licensed about 4 months and still feel kind of awkward on voice. my question is like... do you always have to use the NATO phonetics or is it just when things are unclear? i was on a local repeater the other day and someone just said their callsign normally without spelling it out phonetically and it was totally fine, but then on HF everyone seems to go full NATO every single time even when conditions are good. is there a rule about this or is it just one of those unwritten things also side question, does it matter if i use a slightly different word? like i know some people say "Sugar" instead of "Sierra" or whatever. is that going to bother people

I went last year as a newly licensed tech and honestly had no idea what half the stuff on the tables was but it was still fun just walking around. somebody explained what an antenna tuner was to me for like 20 minutes lol. definitely going again if i can get the day off work.

yeah 18 wpm when youre still building muscle memory is gonna sound exactly like what you described. your brain cant keep up so your fingers are doing whatever they want. drop back to like 13 or even 12, get the letters sounding clean and crisp at a slower speed before you push it up again. the Koch method stuff everyone recommends really does work for this, start slow get it solid then bump. on the iambic mode B thing your buddy is onto something but honestly for most people just starting out mode A is less confusing. mode B inserts an extra element when you release the paddle which can add characters you didnt mean to send if your timing isnt tight. try switching to mode A in the 7300 menu and see if it feels cleaner, you might not even notice a difference yet but its one less thing to fight against while youre still learning. also the Bencher BY-1 is a solid paddle so thats not your problem, that thing will outlast both of us probably

i went through almost the exact same thing last year, had a 40m dipole at about 28 feet and felt like i was shouting into a pillow for DX. ended up putting up a Hustler 6BTV vertical with about 24 radials cut to roughly a quarter wave and honestly it changed things quite a bit for 40 and 80. still not crushing it on EU but i can get through now when conditions are decent. the noise floor did go up noticeably though, especially in the evenings. so yeah the elbow grease on radials is real, i spent a whole saturday pinning wire to the ground and i probably should have laid more.