Sarah Thompson

Great advice! My TS-590 mic gain is set at only 5% and still produces full 100W PEP with average around 35% where it should be. Too many hams think louder is better, but clean audio gets through much better than processed mush.

i was in the same boat when i first got my ticket. what finally made it click for me was just downloading the arrl band chart and keeping it open while i was messing around with the radio. also worth knowing that the power limits are different for techs on some of those HF segments, i think 200 watts on some of them not the full 1500, so double check that too before you key up

so i've been trying to figure out if its worth the drive, last year i went and honestly picked up some great stuff at the swap tables but the parking situation was a nightmare. thinking about going again this year but wanted to see if anyone else from around here is planning on heading out. also heard our local club is maybe doing a group carpool thing but havent confirmed that yet

so ive been doing a lot of portable ops from a local hilltop, mostly 2m and 70cm, and right now im running a Diamond X50 on a painters pole which honestly works pretty well for the casual stuff. but ive been thinking about dragging a yagi up there for when i want to actually reach out further or work some weak signal stuff. the thing is im not sure if a 5 or 6 element yagi is even worth the setup time vs just sticking with the collinear. the hilltop has decent elevation, maybe 800ft above the surrounding terrain, so the omni covers a lot already. but theres a repeater about 140 miles out i can sometimes hit and im wondering if a yagi pointed that direction would make it more consistent. does anyone actually do this regularly, like bring a yagi out for hilltop portable work? curious what the workflow is like and whether you bother with a rotator or just hand point it

yeah the noise thing with generators at a public event is real, people always end up parking it in the worst spot and then someone complains. the eu2200i is at least tolerable but still. one thing we've started doing is using a small DC-DC converter setup so the radio gear is completely isolated from whatever noise the genny puts out on the line — had some RFI issues early on that turned out to be coming right through the power leads, not even radiated. cant really comment on the CHA-250 specifically never used one but my general take on loaded verticals for HF field work is they're fine for casual operation but when it actually matters i want a resonant antenna. for ARES stuff where you might need to punch through on a bad band day i'd take the dipole hassle every time.

so ive been trying to get Winlink going for a few weeks now and i think im close but something isnt clicking. Running Vara HF on a IC-7300 connected to a windows 10 laptop, got the audio levels sorted out (took forever btw) and i can see the waterfall activity when i tune around the Winlink frequencies. The problem is when i try to connect to an RMS gateway it just times out. Like i can see the CMS list in Winlink Express, i pick a gateway thats supposedly nearby and hit connect and it just sits there. I think im misunderstanding how the RMS gateways actually work. Is the gateway just a relay station that someone is running on their end, and it has to actually be active at that moment? Or is it more like a server thats always up? I assumed they were always listening but maybe not. Also do i need to do anything special with the message routing or does Winlink handle all that automatically once youre connected to any gateway? The other thing thats confusing me is the difference between a telnet connection and an RF connection in the software. I tested with telnet and got messages through fine so i know my account is set up right, its just the RF side thats not working. Any ideas would be appreciated, been poking at this for a while now.

Same thing happened to me! Now I have a calendar reminder every 3 months to do a full deployment test in my backyard. I set up the antenna, run on battery power, and check into at least two nets. Also rotate through different digital modes to keep those skills sharp.

honestly the General isnt that much harder than Tech, at least thats how i felt when i did it. the question pool is bigger yeah but a lot of it is stuff you kind of already know or can figure out with common sense if youve been doing any reading about ham radio at all. the math stuff is there but its not like calculus or anything, mostly ohms law and some decibel stuff and a few propagation questions. if you use HamStudy or the ARRL study guide you should be fine in a few weeks of casual studying. the one area that caught me off guard was the regulations section, there's more of it than on tech and some of the band plan stuff gets a little specific. as for skipping to Extra right away, i wouldnt bother unless you're really motivated. get the General first, get on HF, figure out what you actually want to do, then decide if Extra makes sense. Extra opens up a few more slices of the bands but for most people just starting HF, General privs are plenty to keep you busy for a long time.

yeah the tech HF privileges are pretty limited but they do exist. for voice you can do SSB on 10 meters, specifically 28.300 to 28.500 MHz, so your club buddy was right about that. you also get some CW segments on 80, 40, 15, and 10 meters. the power limit for technicians on HF is 200 watts PEP on those limited segments, which is actually plenty to make contacts especially on 10 when the band is open. honestly the easiest thing to do is just google the arrl band plan for technicians and print it out and tape it next to your radio. part 97 itself is kind of written in legalese and its not the most friendly thing to read if youre just trying to figure out where you can operate. the actual subpart B section 97.301 is where the frequency allocations are if you do want to read it straight from the source though.

CQ WW is absolutely the deep end yeah, but honestly dont let that stop you from jumping in even if you just make a handful of contacts. nobody is judging your score, especially not a new general. the exchange for phone is literally just your signal report and your CQ zone so its not that complicated once you hear it a few times. for warmup contests i'd look at the state QSO parties, theres usually a bunch of them in the sept/october timeframe before CQ WW phone rolls around. your own state probably has one and they tend to be lower pressure with simpler exchanges. also ARRL Sweepstakes is coming up in november which is a big domestic one — the exchange is more involved but its a really fun one to try. SOTA is its own whole thing, separate from contesting really. its about activating summits and getting contacts from portable setups. some guys love it, some focus purely on contesting. i'd say try a contest first just to get your feet wet then see if the outdoor portable operating appeals to you later on.

This is why I invested in a good battery monitor. Got one of those little LCD displays that shows voltage and current draw so I can see exactly whats happening. Also helps to know your radio's actual power consumption - some of the published specs are way off from real world use especially on SSB

ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i keep seeing people talk about LoTW and eQSL and i set up accounts on both but honestly im still a little fuzzy on when to use which one and whether paper cards are even worth bothering with anymore like i made contact with a guy in japan last week (my first DX on HF, pretty excited about that) and he said he'd upload to LoTW and i said great but then i got home and realized i still dont fully understand the whole certificate thing with LoTW — i downloaded TQSL but the upload process seems weird and i wasnt sure if my log from WSJT-X just goes in automatically or if i have to do something manual also does eQSL actually count for any awards or is it mostly just for fun? i see some people say it doesnt count for DXCC and others say theres like a different tier thing going on. and do i need to send a paper card if i want credit for something like WAS or is digital enough now sorry if these are dumb questions, just trying to figure out what the actual workflow is that most people use day to day

Don't forget that the knowledge from studying for Extra gives you background to experiment with antennas and electronics with more confidence. It's not just about frequency access - you'll understand your equipment better. Extra operators get the choice portions of phone bands, usually toward the center where antennas have better SWR.

so i finally did it after like two years of telling myself i was gonna study for the tech exam. passed it last tuesday with a 94% which i was pretty happy about. got my callsign assigned friday and spent the weekend just listening on the local 2m repeater trying to figure out the vibe before i keyed up. today i just went for it, said my callsign and that i was new and a guy named Dave came back to me immediately and we talked for maybe 15 minutes about nothing in particular, his antenna setup and what radio i was using. it was kind of surreal honestly. like i knew the theory but actually doing it felt totally different. anyway just wanted to post somewhere cause nobody in my family understands why im excited about this

not a dumb question at all, the FCC process is genuinely confusing the first time through. so for the sequential part — yeah it's basically automatic. once the FCC processes your application and grants your license, they just assign you the next available callsign in sequence for your district based on your license class. you dont fill out any extra form for that, it just happens. for a new tech you'll probably get a 2x3 format, something like KD9 or KE8 followed by three letters depending on what region you're in. now for vanity calls — yes you can apply for one even before you get your sequential call, but in practice most people wait because the sequential one usually comes through pretty quick and you need an active license to apply for a vanity anyway. the FCC has a window system where certain calls get opened up based on license class and whether the previous holder is deceased or let the license lapse. 1x2 calls are pretty sought after and mostly go to extras, so as a new tech that might be tough right now, but nothing stops you from upgrading eventually and then going after one. the whole process is done through the ULS on the FCC website and there's a small filing fee now, like 35 bucks i think. just be patient with the ULS, sometimes it takes a week or so to show up fully

dont stress about the station, ive worked CQ WW with way worse than a 590 and an attic dipole lol. the first time i did it i had a mobile whip on a mag mount on my balcony railing and still managed to log like 80 something contacts over the weekend. the whole point for most of us is just having fun and seeing how far your signal gets. one thing i'd say though is look up your ITU zone before the weekend so you're not fumbling around during the actual contest trying to figure it out. also if your local club has a contest station sometimes they let newer members operate under the club callsign which is a really good way to learn without the pressure of running your own station. worth asking around

so our ARES group has a county-wide exercise coming up in about 5 weeks and im helping put together the communications node at the EOC annex site which is basically a parking lot with a building we can use for maybe half of the team, rest will be outside under canopies. been doing this for a few years but this is the first time im actually in charge of the power side of things and i have some questions. we're planning to run two HF stations, probably an IC-7300 and someone's 706, plus a couple VHF/UHF rigs, a laptop for winlink, and some battery charging. the organizer wants us to be off grid for the full 12 hour exercise. i've been looking at a honda eu2200i for the main genny and then using a couple 100ah lifepo4 batteries as a buffer so the radios dont see the generator noise directly. does that make sense as an approach or am i overcomplicating it? also the antenna situation — we have a decent collection of stuff but the site has almost no vertical clearance, like there's a parking structure nearby and some trees but nothing over maybe 40 feet that we can actually use. someone suggested just putting up a fan dipole on a 33ft fiberglass mast but i dont know if thats gonna work well for 40 and 80 which is what we actually need for the exercise comms. anyone dealt with similar site constraints?

so i finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend at a state forest near me (KFF reference, not gonna bore you with the number) and honestly it went way better than i expected. set up my little linked dipole between two trees, ran about 25w on 40m and got a nice pileup going after spotting myself on pota.app — wait do WWFF folks use a different spotting system? i was using the POTA spotter out of habit and wasnt sure if that was the right move. anyway managed 44 QSOs in about 2.5 hours which i think is enough to qualify the reference, but i cant find a clear answer on how many contacts you actually need. POTA is 10 to activate, is WWFF different? i thought i read 44 somewhere but that seems oddly specific and im not sure i didnt make that up. also the logging — i used HAMRS on my phone for POTA stuff before but im not sure if it exports in the right format for WWFF. anyone gone through the upload process recently? the website confused me a little.

the thing i always tell people is dont forget a way to make copies of your ID, your license, any ARES or RACES membership cards — laminated copies, not just digital. when youre at an EOC at 2am and someone needs to verify you belong there you dont want to be digging through your phone with a dead battery trying to find a screenshot. also meals. sounds obvious but i showed up to a deployment during a flood situation and spent 12 hours on a radio with nothing but half a granola bar i found in my jacket. now i keep a small dry bag in the kit with a couple days worth of simple stuff. its a go-kit not just a radio kit if that makes sense. your antenna plan sounds fine for most situations. ive used a 40m EFHW thrown over a tree limb more times than i can count and it works. the real thing is practice putting it up fast in the dark or in the rain before you actually need to

so our ARES group has a county-wide exercise coming up and im trying to figure out the best way to power everything without relying on shore power. we'll be running an IC-7300, a small packet station on a separate laptop, and probably a 2m/70cm mobile rig for local coordination. rough estimate is somewhere around 30-40 amps continuous draw when the HF rig is transmitting which honestly is more than i expected when i added it all up. my question is mainly whether to bring the Honda EU2200i I borrowed from a club member or just stack a couple of the 100ah lifepo4 batteries i already own. the generator obviously gives unlimited runtime but its loud and at the last exercise the EOC people got pretty annoyed about generator noise near the building entrance. the batteries are quiet but i dont know if 200ah is really enough for a full 12 hour activation, especially if we end up doing a lot of HF traffic. also still havent settled on antennas. was thinking a NVIS setup with a 40m horizontal loop fairly low to the ground for in-state comms, and then maybe a buddipole or something similar for longer range if needed. anyone done something like this for a real exercise or actual activation and have opinions on what actually works vs what sounds good on paper

ok so i passed my tech exam a few months ago and ive been on 2m mostly just doing local repeater stuff which is fine but i want to start doing more HF stuff and i honestly cannot figure out what part 97 actually allows me to do on HF as a tech. like i know i get some HF privileges but every time i try to look it up i end up on some page that just lists frequencies and i dont really understand what im allowed to actually DO on those frequencies, like can i do SSB on 10m or is it just CW down there. also someone at my club said something about the phone segment being different for techs vs generals and i got even more confused. i dont want to accidentally transmit somewhere im not supposed to, it feels like a pretty big deal