Sarah Thompson

this is making me feel a bit better honestly, im newer to ARES and the last exercise i did i definitely was one of those deer in headlights people when things got complicated. nobody told me beforehand that the message forms would be coming in handwritten and sometimes barely legible lol. i spent like 3 minutes trying to read one guys handwriting instead of just asking him to clarify which i totally should have done. does your group do any kind of after action thing where the newer folks can talk through what confused them without feeling dumb about it? thats the part i feel like would help me most, just a space to say hey i had no idea what i was supposed to do in that moment without it being a big debrief with 20 people watching

yeah the inverted-V geometry definitely does that, the closer the legs are to horizontal the more the resonant frequency shifts down compared to a flat top. at 8 feet off the ground for your ends you're getting a pretty steep angle and that'll make the antenna behave electrically longer than the formula predicts. stranded wire also has a tiny bit of effect compared to solid but honestly that's minor, the geometry is the bigger factor here. the fix is just trimming. start taking small amounts off each end, like 2-3 inches at a time, check the analyzer, repeat. annoying but it doesn't take that long. also worth double checking your coax connection at the center - a bad solder joint or a little moisture in there can do weird things to your readings. 2.4:1 at your target frequency isnt the end of the world for 40m but you can definitely get it under 1.5 with some fiddling. what center insulator material did you say you used?

so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and EME has always been this thing in the back of my head that seems completely out of reach but i keep reading about guys making contacts on 2m with modest setups and now im not so sure its as impossible as i thought. did a bunch of reading last weekend and now i have more questions than answers which is probably normal my current 2m setup is an IC-9700 into a 9 element yagi at about 30 feet which i know is nowhere near enough for traditional EME but ive seen people mention digital modes like JT65 and stuff and apparently that changes the math considerably. is that actually true or is there still a hard floor on antenna gain you need before its even worth attempting also what is the actual minimum realistic setup people have had success with? like does my radio matter as much as the antenna situation? ive got a fairly low noise location, maybe S1 background on a quiet night. would love to hear from people who have actually done this rather than just reading spec sheets because a lot of what i find online sounds like it was written to sell me a preamp

yeah the thursday night nets are great, i think i know which one you're talking about actually. for special event stations the best way ive found is just bookmarking the ARRL special event page and checking it maybe once a week, they list everything coming up usually a few weeks in advance. also a lot of clubs will announce their special event activations through their local nets so you're already in the right place for that. the W1AW operating schedule is worth knowing too if you havent looked at that yet, its not exactly a special event but its kind of a landmark station that a lot of people like to work especially newer hams. as for showing up in nets, it kind of depends -- sometimes a special event station will check into a net just to spread the word but mostly you're hunting for them on the bands yourself. parksontheair and summitsontheair activations get announced on their own apps and sites which is super helpful, those communities are really active about posting their schedules ahead of time.

so ive been licensed for about 3 years now and mostly just ragchewed on 40m and did some local stuff but lately ive been getting way more into actually working DX and i think i want to go for DXCC. problem is i dont really understand how all the credit stuff works. like i know you need 100 confirmed entities but im not sure if Logbook of the World is the only way to confirm things or if paper QSL cards still count. also does every band count separately or is it just a total of 100 unique entities across all bands combined for the basic award. ive also been hearing people talk about WAS and WAZ at the same time and im trying to figure out if i should be chasing all three at once or just focus on one. seems like WAZ would actually be harder in some ways because there are zones that almost never have activity. anyway if anyone has gone through this process recently id love to hear how you approached it because the ARRL award pages are kind of dense to read through

oh and bring more water than you think you need, learned that one the hard way last summer lol. also make sure your park reference number is right before you go — i once spent an hour activating what i thought was one park and logged it under the wrong K number. had to do it again which wasnt the worst thing but still annoying

yeah the first one always gets you. i remember mine i was so nervous about the whole thing i triple checked my log sheet before i even started calling CQ. once the first contact came back i just relaxed. the kx2 is a solid choice for that stuff, i use an x5105 myself mostly because i got a deal on one but honestly either works fine at those power levels. you will want to start thinking about a proper linked dipole or something if you want to do multiple bands though, makes a huge difference for getting those 4 contacts when conditions are being annoying

First thing id check is whether the TNC is actually set to APRS mode and not just generic packet. On the D710 you gotta make sure youre in the APRS mode not just TNC mode — they behave differently. Also double check your symbol table and symbol character because I've seen a situation where a weird symbol config causes the packet to get rejected by some igates even though it technically transmits fine. Also worth grabbing a second receiver and decoding the packets yourself with something like APRSIS32 or even just Direwolf running on a laptop nearby. That way you can see exactly what youre putting out on the air and check if the string looks right before blaming the igate infrastructure. 90% of the time when I hear this complaint its something dumb in the config that jumps right out when you actually decode your own packet.

so i just passed my technician exam last week and im trying to figure out what handheld to get. ive been reading forums for like 3 weeks now and i feel like i know less than when i started honestly. everyone seems to have really strong opinions and i cant tell whats actual advice vs brand loyalty stuff. my main use case is just getting on the local repeaters and maybe doing some APRS stuff down the line. i dont have a huge budget, probably somewhere around 50-80 bucks to start. ive seen people talk about the Baofeng UV-5R constantly and then just as many people saying dont touch it with a ten foot pole. and then theres the Yaesu FT-65 and the FT-4XR which seem well regarded but theyre a bit more. just looking for some real talk from people who actually use these things day to day.

yeah this comes up a lot. short answer is most contesters run N1MM exclusively during a contest and then import everything into their main logger (Log4OM, DXKeeper, whatever) after the event is done. you dont really want two programs fighting over the same radio during a contest weekend, trust me i learned that the hard way during a state qso party a few years back. N1MM does actually have UDP broadcast support so WSJT-X can talk to it, its not as plug and play as the Log4OM integration but its doable. theres a setting in WSJT-X under the reporting tab where you point it at N1MM's port instead. i've run FT8 contacts logging directly into N1MM during contests that had a digital category and it worked fine once i got the ports sorted out. the N1MM documentation is dense but the contesting community on their reflector is super helpful if you get stuck on something specific

yeah the chart thing doesnt really work, or at least it didnt for me. you really want to learn the sounds not the symbols, thats the whole thing people get wrong at first. the koch method your club guy mentioned is basically where you start with just two characters at full speed, like 20wpm, and you dont move on until you can copy them reliably, then you add one more and so on. sounds slow but it trains your brain to hear the rhythm instead of counting dots and dashes which will kill you later when speeds get higher. i used an app called morse-it for a while and it was decent, but honestly the thing that actually made it click for me was just getting on the air and listening to slow speed nets. there used to be a bunch of QRS nets specifically for beginners, FISTS has some stuff, you might look them up. just listening even when you cant copy everything helps more than you'd think.

okay so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i keep seeing people talk about QSL cards and then also LoTW and eQSL and i honestly am not sure what the difference is or which one i need to actually use. like do i need all three? does it depend on what award im going for or what? i made my first real DX contact last week, worked a station in Japan on 20m which i was really happy about, and the guy said he'd QSL via bureau. i have no idea what that means. i looked it up and now im even more confused because apparently there's a bureau system AND you can just mail cards directly AND there's the electronic options and i feel like im missing something obvious that everyone else just already knows. also does LoTW cost money? i saw something about a fee when i was trying to sign up and i got nervous and closed the tab lol. just want to understand the whole system before i start uploading logs or whatever

had the same chirp problem on a 20m transmitter i built last year, drove me crazy for weeks. turned out my buffer stage didnt have enough isolation and the PA loading was pulling back through into the oscillator. ended up adding another stage between them and it cleaned right up. the sidetone pitch thing is probably just your monitor oscillator running at a slightly different frequency, not really a problem unless it really bugs you — some guys actually prefer that so its easy to distinguish the monitor from the actual signal.

not a dumb question at all, this stuff genuinely confused me when i went through it a few years back. so the short version: yes there's a filing window system. when you apply for a vanity call, the application sits in a queue for a certain number of days (i think its like 31 days but dont quote me on the exact number, worth double checking on the FCC site or arrl has a good explainer). if nobody else applied for that same call during that window, you get it. if multiple people applied for the same one, yeah it does go to a kind of random selection among the qualified applicants. so its not exactly a lottery in the pure sense but thats pretty close to how it works in practice for popular calls. on the format question - yes license class matters. as a general you can apply for certain formats that technicians cant, and extra class opens up even more including the short 1x2 and 2x1 calls. the 1x3 format like W4XYZ is available to generals i believe, while 2x3 is kind of the baseline. just search for the vanity call eligibility chart, theres a good one floating around that lays it out clearly. and no waiting period that im aware of, you can apply pretty much right after your upgrade shows up in the FCC database which usually takes a day or two after your csce or whatever.

Hawaii is just W6 so it counts as the same entity as the rest of the US for DXCC purposes — same with Alaska. But for WAS they obviously count as states so you still need them for that award. The entity thing trips a lot of people up at first, basically the ARRL has a list of current DXCC entities and it doesnt map 1:1 to countries at all, some small islands or territories count separately even if theyre politically part of a bigger country. For lotw — yeah you set it up once and it tracks all your confirmed QSOs in one place, but you do have to apply for each award separately and pay the application fee when you're ready. The credits themselves accumulate automatically as people upload their logs and match with yours, you'll start seeing your totals go up without doing anything. I'd honestly just focus on WAS first since with 100w and a dipole you can do it on 40 and 80 meters without too much trouble, especially if you're patient and hit the bands when propagation cooperates. DXCC will come naturally as you work more DX anyway, you might be surprised how many entities you've already worked without realizing it.

same boat as you were a while back and just want to say the filtering thing on DXwatch took me forever to find too. theres a little gear icon or settings somewhere that lets you set your prefix and it changes what shows up. made a huge difference for me once i figured that out.

the theory is definitely harder than General but honestly its not as scary as people make it out to be. the impedance matching stuff, the Smith chart questions, filter rolloff, transmission line calculations — yeah theres real math involved but the question pool is finite and if you just grind through it with something like HamStudy or the ARRL Extra class book it starts to click after a while. took me maybe 6 weeks of studying on lunch breaks and evenings. as for the frequencies mattering — i'd say yes, actually more than i expected. the Extra portions at the bottom of 40 and 75 meters are noticeably less crowded, especially during contests when the General portion turns into a wall of noise. and on 80 CW being able to drop down below 3525 makes a real difference for finding clear space. so its not just a certificate thing, there are real operating benefits depending on what you like to do.

so i finally worked up the nerve to check into the Tuesday evening 2m net our club runs and i think i messed up a few things. when the net control called for check-ins i just said my callsign and that was it, wasnt sure if i was supposed to say my name or location or what. then at one point i tried to make a comment after another station finished talking and i guess i either stepped on someone or the timing was off because net control kind of repeated the last guy's call again before acknowledging me. nobody said anything mean about it and net control was nice but i just felt awkward after. is there like a standard way you're supposed to check in and participate in these things? i've read a bit about it but it's different actually doing it on the air for the first time.

hah yeah cluster spotting is kind of addictive once you start. for filtering on DXwatch you should be able to narrow it down by band pretty easily, there's a band filter at the top if i remember right, just uncheck the bands you dont care about and it gets way more manageable. some people also filter by mode if you're only doing SSB or only FT8 or whatever. the QRZ logbook integration is nice but honestly i never got deep into it either, i use Log4OM for my main logging and just let it pull spots from a telnet cluster directly into the bandmap. if you ever want to go that route most logging software has a built in DX cluster client you can point at a server like dxc.ve7cc.net or similar. makes it real easy because the spots just pop up color coded right on the bandmap and you can click to tune. but DXwatch in the browser works fine for casual chasing, nothing wrong with that

honestly the solar panel thing you mentioned — test it now, not when you need it. i made that mistake. thought my panel plus my battery would keep me going indefinitely and then found out my panel puts out like 8 watts in real conditions not the 25 it claims and my radio was pulling more than that on receive alone. wasnt pretty. one thing i dont see people mention enough is a short patch cable or two and a small audio interface if you plan to do any digital modes during an activation. winlink has saved the day at a few exercises i was at when voice traffic was too congested. just something to think about depending on what your served agency actually needs from you.

I went through this exact same thing last year. ended up building a fan dipole with elements cut for 40 and 80 instead of going vertical and honestly kind of glad i did just because i didnt want to deal with the ground radial situation. my lot is pretty rocky and getting anything buried is a pain. but yeah if you have even halfway decent soil a vertical with a reasonable radial field is probably worth trying for dx. the low angle radiation thing is real, its not just theory. just dont expect miracles if your radials are short.

so i finally did my first activation last weekend, took about 2 hours to hike up to W4T/SU-001 and honestly the whole thing was way more fun than i expected. i was running a KX2 with a linked dipole that i threw together based on a youtube video and it actually worked, got my 4 contacts pretty quick on 40m then switched to 20 and worked a few more including someone in europe which kinda blew my mind considering im running like 10 watts from a summit. anyway a couple things i wasnt sure about. first, do i need to self-spot or will chasers find me if i alert ahead of time? i did put an alert on SOTAwatch but im not sure i did it right because the time zone thing confused me. second, the summit reference i used -- how do i know if its actually valid and in the database? i looked it up on the SOTA mapping page but wasnt totally sure i was reading it right. and honestly just wondering if most people use SSB or CW for this because i felt like 40m SSB was getting crowded and someone suggested i try CW but im still pretty slow at it.

so ive been a general for about three years now and honestly i use maybe 10% of the privileges i already have. a buddy at the club keeps telling me to just go for the extra and get it done but every time i look at the question pool i kind of freeze up. the math stuff especially, like the stuff around transmission lines and impedance and all that, it genuinely looks like college coursework to me. i guess my real question is do people actually USE the extra privileges in any meaningful way or is it mostly just a vanity thing at that point. like is there actually more activity on the extra portions of the bands or is it kind of dead down there. and also how long did it realistically take people to actually feel ready for the test, not just pass it by memorizing answers but actually understand whats going on

yeah 15m has been doing some funky stuff lately, i noticed the same thing. the flux number tells you about the overall ionospheric ionization potential basically, but the K index is what'll kill a good opening fast — anything above like 3 or 4 and you start losing the higher bands even if the SFI looks great on paper. they really do work against each other sometimes. what i usually do is check both the SFI and the A index together rather than just the K index snapshot, because the A index gives you kind of an averaged picture of geomagnetic activity over the past 24 hours whereas K is just the last 3. so you can have a low K reading but a high A and know that things were rough earlier and might still be recovering. propagation after a geomagnetic storm can take a day or two to settle down even after the K drops back to normal. for 15m specifically i find it really likes SFI above 150 to get those transatlantic paths going reliably, below that it can be hit or miss especially in fall and winter. but we're in a pretty active part of the solar cycle right now so there should be more good days than bad coming. just gotta be at the radio at the right time honestly, sometimes those openings are only a couple hours and if you miss the window thats it.

lol same, spent like 90 mins calling CQ last tuesday and got one reply and it was someone two towns over. at least we talked for a while i guess