Ashley Anderson73

ok so ive been licensed about 3 months now (technician) and i finally got my first HT, a Baofeng UV-5R, and im trying to access a couple of the local repeaters listed on repeaterbook. some of them i can hear just fine but when i key up nobody seems to hear me or the repeater doesnt open up. i went through the settings and i think i have the offset right but im not totally sure about the CTCSS stuff. from what i understand you need to transmit a subaudible tone to access most repeaters, is that right? but on repeaterbook some listings show a tone and some dont. if theres no tone listed does that mean its open carrier or is the info just missing? also one of the local guys told me i need to set the tone on transmit only and not on receive but i wasnt sure why that matters. my radio has options for like tone, ctcss, dcs and i honestly have no idea what half of them mean. just trying to figure out the basics before i embarrass myself too much on the air

welcome to the hobby man, that first qso feeling is something else isnt it. i still remember mine, i was so flustered i forgot to give my callsign twice and the guy on the other end had to ask me again. dont worry about the baofeng, everyody starts somewhere and for hitting a local repeater it does the job fine. once you get comfortable you'll probably want to upgrade to technician... wait you already have that. i mean you'll wanna look at getting your general so you can get on HF, thats where things really open up. stick around and ask questions, people here are pretty helpful

so ive been chasing DX seriously for about two years now and for the longest time pileups just felt like a wall i couldnt get through. like i'd hear a rare one come up, throw my call in, and just get buried every single time. been doing a lot of reading and experimenting lately and i finally had a breakthrough working VK9 last weekend so figured id share what clicked for me and see what you guys do differently. the biggest thing that changed for me was actually listening before transmitting. i know that sounds obvious but i mean really listening — figuring out where the DX is actually listening, not just where everyone else is calling. so many guys just tune to the split frequency and blast away without even confirming where the DX is working. i spent like 10 minutes just watching the pattern before i even keyed up and figured out he was consistently pulling calls from about 3 up. threw my call there and got through on maybe the 4th or 5th attempt which for me is basically a miracle. also timing has been huge for me. sending my call once, clearly, and then waiting. not tail-ending endlessly or doubling with everyone else. i run an IC-7300 into a hexbeam at about 35 feet which isnt a big gun setup by any means so i cant just overpower the pile. have to be smarter about it. curious what techniques others use especially if you're running modest power, dont have a stacked yagi situation going on.

yeah the stock hm-219 mic on the 7300 is pretty mediocre honestly, it tends to be kind of boomy especially if youre close to it. the biggest thing i noticed when i switched to a desk mic was just how much easier it was to shape the audio consistently because you're always the same distance from the element. but even before going that route, the TX eq on that radio can help a lot if you know what youre doing. basically for SSB voice you really dont need anything below about 300hz, its just muddiness that doesnt help readability. i cut pretty hard below 300, leave the mids mostly flat and add a small boost maybe 3-4db around 2.5khz which is where speech intelligibility lives. also make sure your speech processor is set AFTER you get the mic gain right — like set your mic gain so youre hitting about 50-60% on the ALC without the compressor on, then turn compression on and it should only be adding a few db of average power not slamming the peaks. also worth asking someone to record your audio off the air and play it back to you, way more useful than going by verbal reports in a qso

Building my first SO2R setup with two IC-7300s and running into serious interstation interference on adjacent bands. Currently testing with 40M on radio 1 and 20M on radio 2, but getting significant desense on the receiving radio when the other transmits. Phase noise from the exciter output seems to be the main culprit - similar to what others have reported with older rigs. Looking at commercial band-pass filters vs. homebrew stubs for isolation. Band filters are clearly essential for SO2R operation, but budget is tight. Has anyone tried the Array Solutions Six-Pack for antenna switching combined with basic BPFs? Also considering separate receiving antennas to improve isolation. Station is suburban with 40M dipole and tri-band beam at 50ft. Any recommendations for minimum viable filtering setup that won't break the bank?