Sarah Thompson

yeah same experience here honestly. ft8 you call cq and youre getting decoded within like 2 cycles, js8call feels like shouting into a room that might be empty. i think the timing matters a lot more with js8call, like there are windows when people are actually around vs ft8 where theres always someone decoding 24/7. 10 watts into a dipole at 25 feet should be totally fine for it though, dont let anyone tell you you need more power for weak signal digital. ive worked dx on js8call with 5w and a compromised antenna, the mode is sensitive enough. its more a population problem than a propagation one

congrats on passing general, thats awesome. okay so the vanity system — yeah you can absolutely apply for a specific call as long as its available or comes available. the FCC has a searchable database (AE7Q is the one most people use, way better than the FCC's own tools honestly) where you can look up calls and see their status. if a call is unassigned you can apply for it directly. if it was previously held by a silent key or someone who let their license lapse there's usually a waiting period before it opens up to the general pool. the sequential process they use for automatically assigning calls just works through a list — they basically go in order through available callsigns in your call district. you dont get much say in that, its just whatever is next. vanity is the way to go if you want something specific or shorter. and yes there is a fee now, i think its around $35 through the FCC's ULS system. they started charging a few years back. its not bad for a ten year license. the vanity application itself isnt any more expensive than a regular renewal or upgrade as far as i know, same fee structure.

i got my first EME contact on 2m with a single 11 element yagi and 400 watts, worked a EA8 station with a big array. took a while and i had to send my call about a dozen times but it happened. the key really is finding someone specifically willing to work you, just going on random calling frequency with a small station is rough. there are EME scheduling sites, the main one people use is EMElogger or you can coordinate on the usual clusters. one thing nobody told me before i started was how much polarization matters. i had my yagi horizontal and was losing probably 3dB at times because the path geometry was rotating the polarization, circular polarization or at least being able to rotate your feed helps a lot but obviously thats more complexity. for a first contact dont let it stop you, just something to be aware of when you're scratching your head wondering where the signal went

honestly the question pool thing isnt really cheating, thats just how the exam works. the FCC publishes the exact pool of questions the test is drawn from and everyone knows it. so using something like HamStudy or the ARRL's own practice tests is completely legit and like 90% of people do it that way. that said if you actually want to understand the material -- and it sounds like you do -- i'd recommend grabbing the ARRL Tech Q&A book. its not that long and it explains the reasoning behind each answer instead of just telling you what to pick. given that you already have some electronics background you'll probably breeze through the electrical theory sections and spend more time on the regulations stuff, which is where people usually trip up because its just memorization with no real logic behind it. i passed mine in maybe three weeks studying maybe 20-30 mins a night on hamstudy.org. if you do the flashcard mode until youre consistently hitting like 85% or above on practice exams you should be fine. the real test felt easier than the practice ones to me honestly.

same boat here not too long ago, the Koch thing felt really slow and boring at first but it works. one thing nobody told me was to not skip characters even if you think you know them already, i skipped ahead and paid for it later lol. also try just listening to cw while you do other stuff, not trying to copy it just having it on in the background. sounds dumb but i think it helped my ear get used to faster speeds without the pressure of actually copying. G4FON's trainer is pretty good too if you want something offline.

Don't forget the ARRL License Manual if you want comprehensive coverage. Their Exam Review includes all questions with explanations and lets you review by chapter - really helps connect the dots between concepts.

yeah what he said. one thing i'd add — when you apply for DXCC you submit through the ARRL's online system and it pulls your LoTW confirmations automatically which is pretty slick. just make sure your callsign and dates are right in LoTW or stuff wont match up, had a friend lose a bunch of credits because his logging software had the UTC date off by a day and it caused mismatches for like 20 QSOs. the order to chase them honestly doesnt matter just go for whatever feels fun. i started with WAS because working all 50 states felt more manageable when i was new, then went after DXCC. WAZ i kind of did by accident while chasing DX, some zones fill in naturally. dont overthink it just work stuff and confirm it

Make sure you test all your PIN diodes individually before troubleshooting further - I've seen switching diodes fail in subtle ways that only show up under RF drive conditions. A simple forward/reverse resistance check isn't always enough.

cant really speak to the RSPplay specifically but i went from a no-name dongle to the RTL-SDR v3 and that alone made a big difference on HF with direct sampling. if youre still on a generic dongle that might be a cheaper first step. that said a guy in my club has the RSP1A and it does look noticeably cleaner on a waterfall compared to anything RTL based ive seen side by side. also someone mentioned the HackRF to me as an alternative and while its cool because its transmit capable too, for just receiving HF i think the RSP1A probably makes more sense, the HackRF noise floor is actually worse than a good RTL dongle in some situations from what i read. anyway i might be wrong on some of this, still pretty new to the SDR rabbit hole

ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and just recently started trying to actually chase some DX instead of just ragchewing on the local repeater. someone at the club mentioned DX cluster spotting and i looked it up and now im kind of overwhelmed. theres QRZ's logbook thing, DXwatch, DX summit, like half a dozen apps on my phone... i dont even know where to start or which ones people actually use vs which ones are just kind of there. right now i have an HF rig and a pretty decent wire antenna so im not totally helpless, i just dont really understand how the whole spotting network works. like who is putting those spots in? is it automated or do real people post them? and when i see a spot on DXwatch for say some rare pacific island station, how long ago was that spot actually valid? sometimes i tune there and theres nothing. is there a delay or am i just missing the window? also someone mentioned using the QRZ page to look up if a station is actually real before i try to work them, which makes sense i guess. anyway just looking for some basic guidance on how people actually use this stuff day to day

the check-in thing really does vary net to net and honestly the best way to figure it out is just listen for a round or two before you jump in. most NCS operators will tell you what they want right at the top — like "call sign and name only" or "call sign, name, and QTH" — so if you can catch the first few minutes of the net you'll know what format they're using. for finding nets, the ARRL net directory is probably your best bet these days, its at least somewhat maintained. also a lot of state emergency nets and traffic nets post their schedules on their own websites. your local ARES group might also have a list of recommended nets for people trying to build their operating experience, worth asking at the next club meeting. i got started on the same thing a few years back and honestly just hopping around was the best education, you pick up the rhythm pretty fast.

hamstudy.org is honestly probably all you need for passing the test, a lot of people way overthink the prep for tech. the question pool they use is current, they update it when the pool changes. just do the practice exams until you're consistently hitting like 85% or better and you'll be fine on test day. the actual exam is 35 questions and you need 26 right so the margin is pretty decent. that said if you actually want to understand what youre doing and not just pass a test, the ARRL Ham Radio License Manual is pretty solid. its not super expensive and it explains the why behind a lot of the questions. the electricity and antenna stuff especially makes way more sense when someone explains it instead of just memorizing that the answer is 50 ohms or whatever. took me maybe 3 weeks of casual studying, maybe 30 minutes a night, before i felt ready.

yeah what he said about the tension. also are you resting your wrist on something or holding your hand in the air? i was doing it wrong for weeks before someone at the club showed me i needed to let my wrist rest and just move my fingers. completely changed things. the KX2 keyer is fine btw so its probably not that

nice work getting 44 in the log on your first try. i fumbled around for like two activations before i felt like i knew what i was doing with WWFF. one thing i'll add is that the WWFF community has a pretty active presence on some of the regional facebook groups and that's honestly where i learned most of the unwritten stuff. like which references are considered rare and will bring a pile of hunters vs the ones that are pretty common. some of the national park references get a ton of attention and some of the smaller WMAs or nature reserves barely get spotted at all so you can have a really quiet activation depending on where you go. also if youre interested in the Flora and Fauna side of it theres actually an expectation in the program that you mention wildlife or plants you see, some activators post photos with their logs which is kind of a nice touch and fits the whole spirit of the program. not required but people seem to appreciate it

yeah SO2R is genuinely just hard and it takes way longer than people admit to get comfortable with it. i think i ran it for 3 contest seasons before it stopped actively hurting my score. the mental load thing you're describing is real — you're basically training yourself to do two things at once that both require full attention, so early on one of them always suffers. the rhythm thing on the run frequency is the key issue imo. what helped me was basically treating radio 2 as completely passive for the first hour or two until i was in a groove. like yes you're leaving mults on the table but your rate on R1 will be higher and you'll end up ahead. once the run frequency starts slowing down naturally, that's when R2 becomes more valuable because you're not sacrificing as much by glancing away. on the mult chase threshold — 5 kHz is probably fine for sweepstakes since it's not a crazy multiplier contest, there arent that many mults to chase. i'd tighten it to maybe 3 kHz and only break if it's a section you genuinely need. if you can hear the guy on R2 while you're calling CQ and he's still there after your next CQ, then chase him. if you lose him, move on.

im kind of in the same boat as you, been working on it since winter and the 10wpm mark is just brutal for me. one thing that helped me a little is just listening to actual on-air CW even when i cant copy most of it, like just running it in the background while im doing other stuff. not sure if thats actually doing anything scientifically but it feels like it keeps my ear at least somewhat engaged with the sounds. also LCWO dot net if you havent tried it, theres a word training mode that i think works better than random characters for getting your copying speed up

ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and im starting to get into DX chasing a little bit. i keep seeing people mention DXwatch and then also QRZ has that spot thing built into the logbook and i honestly cant figure out if theyre pulling from the same data or what. like sometimes ill see a spot on DXwatch and then check QRZ and its not there yet, or vice versa. also someone in my local club mentioned using a dedicated cluster client, i think they said DX4WIN or maybe it was something else, and connecting directly to a telnet cluster node. is that actually better than just using the web stuff? feels like a lot of setup for something i can just open in a browser. im probably missing something obvious here. running mostly HF, TS-590SG if that matters, just getting into chasing DX on 17 and 20m mostly.

so i finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend at a state forest near me, KFF-something, i had to look it up on the wwff.us site and register beforehand which took me a bit to figure out but wasnt too bad once i read through it. set up my little linked dipole between two trees and ran about 40 watts on 40m mostly, got 44 QSOs in about 2.5 hours which i was pretty happy with for a first time out my question is about the logging side of things — do i need to submit the log to both the WWFF database AND to adif.wwff.us or whatever it is, or is it just one place? i uploaded to LOTW already out of habit but i know thats separate. also i spotted myself on the POTA app by mistake lol, habit again, had to go find the wwff spotter. someone still came back to me who musta seen it on pota so whatever it worked out also wondering if anyone has tips for finding good references that havent been activated much, im looking at some of the less popular state game lands around me and a few nature preserves but im not sure how to filter for ones with low activation counts on the directory

so i finally did my first activation last weekend at a state park about 45 minutes from my house, been putting it off for months because i kept second guessing my setup and honestly just felt a little intimidated by the whole thing. ended up taking my FT-891 and a random wire antenna i threw up in a tree and just worked 10w the whole time which probably wasnt necessary but whatever it worked. got my 10 contacts in maybe 40 minutes which i was pretty happy with, bunch of hunters on 40m were just waiting it seemed like. my question is about the spotting system though — i spotted myself on the POTA app before i started and it worked fine but i noticed other activators seem to get like 50+ contacts in an hour and im wondering if theres a strategy im missing. do people just stay on one frequency the whole time or do they hop around? also is SSB always better than CW for getting contacts faster, im not super comfortable with CW yet so i was just using phone. anyway it was a really good time, ate lunch by the lake and worked radio, honestly cant believe i waited so long to try it

So I finally did my first activation last weekend at a state park about 45 minutes from me, K-4901 if anyone's familiar with it, and honestly it went pretty well but there were a few things that tripped me up that nobody really told me about beforehand so figured id share. First thing — I had no idea how important it is to spot yourself on the POTA app. I was just calling CQ for like 20 minutes on 40m and getting almost nothing, then a buddy texted me and asked if I was spotted and I wasnt. The moment I self-spotted through the app the pile-up started almost immediately. Like within maybe 2 minutes I had 6 or 7 stations calling. It was kind of wild honestly. Second thing is bring more water than you think you need, especially if youre running QRP. I had a little 10 watt setup with an end-fed and spent way more time outside than I planned because the contacts kept coming and I didnt want to stop. Lost track of time completely. The logging — I used the HAMRS app on my phone and it synced up to the POTA website pretty smoothly. Only hiccup was I forgot to set the park reference before I started logging so I had to go back and edit like 30 entries which was annoying but not the end of the world. Anyway if anyone has tips for the second activation id love to hear them. Thinking about trying a summit next time but not sure if thats biting off more than I can chew.

i just did this like four months ago so i can tell you what worked for me at least. i used the hamstudy app on my phone and just did like 20-30 practice questions whenever i had a few minutes, on my lunch break or whatever. took me maybe 3 weeks and i passed with only like 3 wrong. the electrical theory questions tripped me up at first but once you see them enough times you start to remember the patterns even if the math doesnt fully click. one thing i wish someone told me is that the General upgrade isnt that much harder and a lot of people do both back to back while theyre already in study mode. i didnt do that and now im kicking myself a little because id have to go back and study all over again. just something to think about

Been running both modes during activity weekends and Q65 definitely has the edge. The key advantage isn't just sensitivity but the improved doppler handling - Q65 tracks the moon's movement much better than JT65, especially near perigee when doppler shift changes rapidly during the QSO.

I'm planning my first remote station setup using an IC-7610 at a remote site about 50 miles away. I understand the basic CAT control part, but I'm confused about the audio routing for both receive and transmit audio over the internet connection. The audio setup is a bit trickier than just the rig control. My goal is to be able to install software for FT8, PSK31, RTTY, and even digital voice. What's the most reliable method for getting clean audio paths set up? Should I be looking at IP-Sound which provides low quality audio with low latency for use with remote control software, or are there better solutions?

yeah the 12-15 range is where most people get stuck, its almost like a rite of passage at this point. what worked for me and a lot of folks i know is to just crank the speed up past where you're comfortable and accept that you're gonna miss stuff. like set it to 18 or even 20 and just try to catch what you can. your brain will start recognizing the rhythm of common words even when you miss individual characters the thing about spelling letters in your head — you gotta starve that habit out basically. if you give your brain time to process each letter it'll keep doing that. faster speeds force you to let go because there just isnt time. it feels awful at first, you'll maybe copy 30% of what you hear, but stick with it for a week or two and something kind of clicks. also honestly head copying while doing something slightly boring like folding laundry or whatever helped me more than sitting at a desk staring at a notebook LCWO is good, definitely worth setting up. the word training there is really useful once you have the alphabet solid

the theory isnt as brutal as it looks honestly. yeah there are some filter and impedance matching questions that take a little work to understand but once you get the underlying concept down a lot of the questions start to feel repetitive. i spent maybe 6 weeks going through hamstudy dot org every morning with coffee and by the end i wasnt just memorizing i actually understood most of it which surprised me. your club friend is right about the band segments btw, during a big contest the general portions of 40 and 80 can get absolutely wall to wall while the extra portion still has some room. not empty but definitely less of a zoo. that alone was worth it for me since i do a fair amount of casual operating on 40 at night and it was getting frustrating fighting for space. the 160 meter privileges are nice too if you ever get into that band, and 60 meters has a few extra channels for extras i think, or maybe thats changed, worth double checking. as for the personal achievement thing, yeah a little of that too but i dont think thats a bad reason. its the top license, might as well have it if youre serious about the hobby