Ashley Wilson

yeah FT8 always felt like a video game to me more than radio, i know thats a controversial opinion on here lol. i went back to PSK31 for a while just to have real keyboard to keyboard QSOs but the bands have to be in decent shape for that obviously. JS8Call splits the difference pretty well i think, slow enough to punch through noise but you can still have an actual exchange havent tried the emcomm angle but that relay/store forward stuff does sound interesting for ARES use

so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and yeah its great for racking up contacts and working new entities but honestly it feels more like a video game than radio sometimes. you click a callsign, the software does everything, you log a contact with someone you never actually talked to. i dont know, maybe im being a snob about it. anyway i stumbled onto JS8Call a few months back and the concept seemed cool — basically the FT8 weak signal magic but you can actually type back and forth with someone. been trying to get it set up properly on my IC-7300 with the built in USB audio and it mostly works but i keep seeing decode errors on my end even when the SNR looks fine. running WSJT-X for FT8 on the same setup with zero issues so its something specific to JS8Call i think. anyone else notice the decode threshold is noticeably worse than FT8? feels like i need a stronger signal to get a clean decode also is there even enough activity on JS8Call to make it worthwhile or is it kind of a ghost town these days

yeah the variability right now is pretty typical for where we are in the cycle honestly. solar flux in the 150-190 range is generally good news for the higher bands but the real wild card is the K index and any geomagnetic disturbances that come through. you can have a great flux number and then a CME hits and the bands go dead for a day or two. thats probably what youre seeing with the inconsistency the short openings like that south america thing you described, thats pretty common with sporadic conditions or even just the terminator passing through. some of the best DX ive ever worked was in a window under 30 minutes. you really do just have to be there at the right time. i keep a radio on in the background a lot more than i used to just because of stuff like that. 17 meters in particular has been giving me some really weird long path stuff in the mornings, worth checking if you havent tried that yet

went through this same thing about 8 months ago lol. i waited forever refreshing the ULS like a maniac. mine took 6 days to show up which felt like forever at the time. i did end up applying for a vanity after and got it on the first try which was lucky i guess, a lot of the 2x3 calls in my region werent taken so i had options. the 1x2 and 2x1 calls are a whole different thing though, those go fast and theres a whole system of who has priority for them based on license class and stuff. if youre a tech you probably wont get one of the short ones right away anyway so dont get your hopes up too much on that front, upgrade to general or extra first and then reassess

so i was just sitting down with coffee around 9am local and decided to spin the dial on 10 meters just out of habit, not expecting much, and holy cow there was a pile of stations coming in from europe like it was 1979 or something. worked a few italians and a german station before it kind of faded out around noon. solar flux has been looking pretty good lately and i guess its finally showing up on the higher bands which is great news for those of us who got our tickets during the low years and never really experienced a good cycle peak. anyway totally unrelated but has anyone actually gotten hands on time with the new Yaesu FT-710? ive been reading the reviews and they seem decent but reviews always seem decent. my 7300 is fine but theres something about that new receiver architecture yaesu is talking about that has me curious. not in a rush to upgrade just wondering if anyone here has actually used one on the air for a while and has real opinions about it.

the inverted V will definitely shift resonance lower compared to a flat top, the coupling between the drooping legs changes things. 28 feet at the apex with ends at 8 feet is a pretty steep angle — if you measure the angle between the legs it's probably under 90 degrees which compresses the radiation resistance too, that could explain the 2.1:1 even at resonance since youre looking at maybe 35-40 ohms instead of the usual 50-ish for a flat dipole. honestly though 2.1:1 isnt catastrophic, most rigs will handle that fine. the bigger issue is getting it to the right frequency. trim carefully, like 3-4 inches per leg at a time and recheck. also double check that coax isnt laying on the ground right at the feedpoint because that can really mess with your readings on the 259. the common mode current thing is real and if you dont have a choke balun or at least some ferrite beads on the coax near the feedpoint the coax shield is basically acting like part of the antenna and youll chase your tail forever.

so ive been using Log4OM for general day to day logging for about a year now and honestly i really like it for that, the clublog integration works great and the UI doesnt make me want to throw my computer out the window unlike some other software i wont name but contest season is coming up and everyone keeps telling me just use N1MM for contests, which i get, N1MM is basically the gold standard for that stuff. my issue is i dont really want to maintain two separate logs or manually merge them after every contest. last time i tried importing an ADIF from N1MM into Log4OM after a state QSO party it was kind of a mess, dupes everywhere and some of the exchange data didnt come through clean also i run WSJT-X on the side for FT8 and that auto-logs to its own file which then i have to remember to import too. so at any given time i have like three sources of truth and none of them fully agree with each other which is driving me nuts anyone actually have a clean workflow for this or am i just overcomplicating it

so ive been trying to get Winlink working for a few weeks now and i think i finally understand most of it but the RMS gateway part is still kind of fuzzy to me. like i get that the gateway is basically a node that forwards your email over HF or VHF to the internet, but when i'm looking at the RMS map i see some listed as RMS Relay and some as just RMS and i cant figure out what the practical difference is when im just trying to send a simple message to a regular email address. my setup right now is a Yaesu FT-991A going into a Signalink USB, running Winlink Express on Windows 10. im mostly trying to do this on 2m packet through a local gateway first before i tackle HF. got VARA FM installed too but havent messed with it much yet. the TNC side seems ok, i can see the modem connecting but when i try to open a session with the nearest RMS it just times out. im pretty sure im on the right frequency, i checked the gateway list and it shows 144.990 for the one closest to me. also not sure how message handling works on the receiving end - like if i send something to a regular gmail address does it just show up normally or does it have some weird formatting? and what about attachments, should i even bother trying those on a slow link?

I passed mine about 6 months ago and used hamstudy exclusively, took me maybe 2 weeks of studying for like 20-30 min a night. The math questions freaked me out too but honestly theres only a handful of them and once you see the patterns its not bad. Ohms law stuff just comes up a few times and the numbers they use in the question pool are always the same so you kind of just recognize them after a while. dont overthink it, the tech exam really isnt that hard compared to general or extra

The key is understanding propagation and circuit analysis - those bite a lot of people. Make sure you really get skywave, sporadic-E, solar cycles, and skip zones rather than just memorizing. I mentor VE sessions and see too many people fail because they crammed formulas without understanding the physics. KB6NU's No-Nonsense guide is also excellent for bridging concept gaps.

so i just got my technician and been listening a lot before actually transmitting and i notice some people use the nato phonetic alphabet like alpha bravo charlie and some people just say their callsign normally without spelling it out. im confused about when youre supposed to use it vs when you dont have to. like is it a rule or just a courtesy thing? my call has some letters that sound alike so i was thinking i should probably spell it out but i dont want to sound weird or do it wrong. also does it matter what band youre on?

For mobile, try the DX Spots app - it shows live feed of the DX Cluster network on all bands and modes. Has many filters to choose from which helps narrow down what you want to see. Works great for checking spots when I'm mobile!

The key is instant feedback on your answers with explanations for why each answer is correct or incorrect. I recommend HamRadioPrep's mobile app - lets you study during lunch breaks or commutes. Remember, 74% is passing, so don't fall into the perfectionism trap!

so i finally picked a summit for my first activation, going up W4T/SU-066 tomorrow morning. its not a super high peak but the trail is only about 2 miles each way so figured it'd be a good starter. ive been chasing for about 6 months now and thought i understood what goes into an activation but now that im actually planning one im second guessing everything. my setup is gonna be a KX2 with a 40m/20m linked dipole, gonna try to hang it off my trekking poles since theres no great trees near the actual summit area from what i can see on the satellite view. spotted myself on sotawatch already for around 10am local. did i miss anything obvious? im nervous about the logging part mostly, do people really just pencil and paper it and enter it later on the website? also not sure if i should try 2m FM too, i have an HT but wasnt planning to bring extra weight if i can avoid it. any thoughts appreciated

so ive been messing around with my audio chain for a while now trying to get a cleaner signal on 20m SSB and honestly half the advice i read online feels like people just repeating stuff they heard somewhere without actually testing it. wanted to get some real opinions from people who've actually spent time on this. my current setup is an IC-7300 with the stock mic, i know i know, everyone says get a better mic and i probably will eventually but i want to squeeze what i can out of what i have first. ive been playing with the TX bandwidth settings and the bass/treble in the radio's audio menu and it actually does make a noticeable difference when i monitor on a second receiver. cutting the low end below like 200hz and rolling off above 2800 or so seems to tighten things up a lot, less mud i guess. the thing im not sure about is the compression settings. the manual says keep the TX power compressor under 10dB of gain reduction to avoid distortion but ive heard guys running way more than that and still sounding decent. is there a point where more compression just makes you louder on peaks without actually helping average power? feels like thats whats happening when i push it too hard, people report the audio gets harsh. also curious if anyone has actually A/B tested different mic positions, like boom vs desk vs handheld. i feel like proximity matters way more than people admit.

i just passed mine two months ago and honestly hamstudy dot org is what got me through it. just kept doing the practice exams over and over until i was consistently scoring above 80% and then i felt okay. the actual exam felt pretty familiar. some of the electrical theory questions tripped me up a little but theres enough other stuff that even if you miss a few of those you're fine. you need like 26 out of 35 i think. dont stress too much about fully understanding ohms law and all that before the test, you can learn the deeper stuff after you get the ticket

so this has been driving me nuts for about two weeks now. my 7300 started acting up during a contest — was running fine at 100w then suddenly power dropped to like 8-10 watts and the ALC was pegged way into the red. thought maybe it was a software glitch or something so i rebooted it, no change. tried different bands, same thing across the board which made me think probably not a filter issue. checked the antenna, SWR was fine on the dummy load too so its not a reflection problem. pulled up the radio's internal power meter and its definitely not putting out anywhere near rated power. the receive side seems totally normal which is kind of confusing me — like why would RX be fine if the finals were actually gone. anyone dealt with this before? im wondering if its the driver stage rather than the finals themselves but honestly i havent cracked the lid yet because im a little nervous about digging into a radio this new. its about 3 years old and out of warranty obviously. should i just send it to icom or is this something diagnoseable at home if you have a decent DMM and some patience

Yeah 20m has been pretty rough lately. Solar flux has been hovering around 70-80 which is pretty low. We're still in the solar minimum basically even though cycle 25 is supposed to be starting. I've been having better luck on 40m during the day lately, might want to try that. The good news is conditions should start improving over the next year or two as we ramp up toward solar max.

ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now, got my technician last spring and ive mostly just been doing local 2m repeater stuff which is fine. but i want to start doing more and i keep reading about Part 97 and what techs are allowed to do vs general vs extra and honestly the FCC website just makes my head spin like i know techs get HF privileges on 10m but only certain modes? and i think theres something about 15m or 40m CW only for techs but i cant remember and i dont want to accidentally transmit somewhere im not supposed to. someone at my club told me something about a 200 watt limit too but then i read something else that contradicted that is there like a plain english version of this somewhere or can someone just explain the tech HF privileges in a way that makes sense. also what happens if you accidentally go out of band, is that an automatic fine or does the FCC even care about that for honest mistakes

so ive been running single op for a few years now mostly on SSB sweepstakes and the occasional FD and im starting to hit a wall with my rates. like i can do okay for the first couple hours and then it just kind of falls off and i watch my score stagnate while guys with similar antennas seem to keep pulling contacts. been reading about SO2R and i get the concept but i genuinely dont know if its the operating technique thats holding me back or if two radios would actually help at my level. my current setup is an IC-7300 and a pretty decent dipole situation for 40 and 20. not running any amplifier. my rates on a good run hover around 80-90/hr at the start and then drop to like 40-50 after the first couple hours which i always assumed was just band conditions thinning out but maybe im doing something wrong with how im managing the bands. is SO2R even a realistic thing to get into without spending a ton and rebuilding the whole station? or are there just better techniques to squeeze more out of single radio operating that i havent figured out yet

so ive been messing with a cheap RTL-SDR v3 dongle for about 6 months now and honestly its been great for just poking around HF with the direct sampling mode, listening to some MW broadcast, picking up NOAA weather sats, all that stuff. but ive been reading a lot about the SDRplay RSP1C and people seem to really love it for HF specifically. my question is mostly around whether the RSPdx or even the RSP1C is actually worth the jump from like a $30 dongle to $100-200. i know the specs on paper look better — wider dynamic range, better ADC, no need for that upconverter hack — but does it translate to a real world difference when youre just casually monitoring 40m or scanning around shortwave? im not doing anything serious, no serious decoding work or anything, just kind of exploring what's out there on the bands. also currently running SDR# on windows and it works fine but ive heard SDRuno which comes with the RSPplay is actually pretty good. anyone compare the two? my antenna situation is pretty modest, just a random wire out the window which is probably the bigger limiting factor anyway

so i decided i want to get my technician license and i bought a study guide at a hamfest a couple weeks ago but honestly its kind of overwhelming. theres so much stuff in the question pool about electrical theory and i dont really have a background in any of that. like i understand the basic radio stuff conceptually but when it gets into ohms law and calculating things i kind of zone out. is there a better way to go about this or do i just need to grind through all 400+ questions until i know them. a guy at the hamfest told me to just memorize the answers without understanding them but that feels wrong somehow. also how long did it take most people to actually feel ready to take the test

oh man i went through the exact same thing a few months ago. the vanity call process is actually not that bad once you figure it out. i ended up getting a 1x3 which i was really happy about. just be aware theres a filing window thing — i think its 30 days or something — and if multiple people apply for the same call it goes to whoever has seniority or certain license classes first. I almost lost the one i wanted to someone who had been licensed longer. so if you find a call you really want dont wait around too long to apply for it.

so i dont know if anyone else has been watching the wspr spots or just generally hanging out on 10m but holy cow the last few weeks have been something else. i was just sitting there running low power like maybe 10 watts into my end fed and i was getting spots from europe, south america, even a JA station which i honestly wasnt expecting at all on a tuesday afternoon. its got me thinking about finally dusting off my old tribander that i hasnt used in probably two years because the rotor cable got chewed up by something. anyway been reading that we're really hitting the stride of solar cycle 25 now and the flux numbers have been consistently high. saw something about a new sunspot region rotating into view too. also heard there was a new handheld coming from yaesu, something in the FT-60 replacement family maybe? i saw a thread somewhere but lost the link. anyone know anything about that or is it just rumor at this point

the KX2 is a great little rig, been using mine for about three years now mostly for SOTA. for antennas i usually pack an end fed half wave cut for 40m, works decent on 20 with the ATU. light enough that it doesnt feel like a burden on the hike up. i tried a linked dipole for a while but honestly the EFHW with a small 9:1 unun is just so much easier to deal with in the field. the cold finger thing is real by the way, i've thought about getting some of those thin liner gloves but havent bothered yet. you get used to the knob layout eventually and kind of do it by feel. one thing i'd suggest is turning the key repeat rate down if you find yourself hitting menus by accident, took me an embarrassingly long time to figure that out.