Carlos Silva

oh man CQ WW is definitely the deep end of the pool for a first contest lol but honestly thats not a bad thing. your setup is totally fine for getting started, dipole and 100w will work you plenty of stations especially if conditions cooperate. the bands DO get insane on the opening weekend, like genuinely wall to wall signals on 20m, but just tune around and when you hear something you can pull out of the noise just call them. dont stress about rate or anything like that your first time through. yes absolutely submit your log even if you only make 50 contacts. the cabrillo format is easy to figure out and most logging software like N1MM will generate it automatically. every log helps with checking and the log checking process and honestly its just a good habit to get into. as for field day vs CQ WW, field day is way more relaxed in my opinion. its more of a club social event that happens to be a contest, you can wander over get a hot dog and make a few contacts without any pressure. CQ WW is a real contest with real stakes for a lot of people so the energy is completely different. but both are worth doing

so ive been using a cheap RTL-SDR v3 dongle for about a year now, mostly just scanning around HF with an upconverter and listening to some shortwave, weather fax, that kind of thing. works fine honestly but ive been eyeing an SDRplay RSP1B and the price jump isn't crazy but its not nothing either, like $120 vs what i paid for the dongle setup. main thing im wondering is whether the dynamic range improvement is actually noticeable in practice or if its one of those spec sheet things that doesnt really translate to real world use. i live maybe 8 miles from a couple of FM broadcast towers and that bleed has always been annoying even with the software filters in SDR#. figured maybe better hardware would help but idk. anyone actually switched from one to the other and noticed a real difference day to day?

oh man 14 countries in two hours on 10m I'd be losing my mind. i'm still pretty new and have only worked a handful of DX contacts total. quick question if you dont mind — were you running any real power or just barefoot? im wondering if 10m openings like that are workable with 100w and a simple antenna or if i need an amp to actually get through

so ive been trying to figure out if its worth the drive, last year i went and honestly the swap meet tables were kind of thin but i did score a decent MFJ antenna tuner for like 15 bucks so you never know. thinking about loading up the truck and maybe bringing some gear i dont use anymore to sell. anyone else planning on going? also does anyone know if the club is doing a fox hunt again this year, that was the best part last time

so i finally got called up for an actual activation last weekend, not just a drill. county emergency management had us supporting a pretty bad flooding situation about 30 miles east of here and they needed comms relay between a couple of shelters that had lost their landlines and cell was totally swamped. i've been going to the monthly ARES nets and two or three SET exercises since i got my general back in the spring but nothing really prepares you for when it's actually real, you know? like during the drills everyone is kind of relaxed and joking around but when you show up to an actual shelter and the EC is pointing at a table and saying 'you're on comms here until i tell you otherwise' it's a different feeling. ended up being about 6 hours on HF mostly, some VHF between the shelter and the county EOC. honestly i fumbled a few things early on, kept forgetting to say the net control's callsign before mine which is embarrassing but they were patient with me. the bigger hams in the group were really solid, watching them handle message traffic was something else. anyway just wanted to share since i know some folks here have been on the fence about getting involved with ARES. its worth it even if the trainings feel repetitive sometimes. also curious if anyone else had jitters their first real activation or if thats just me

so i've been a member of our local ARES group for about eight months now, mostly just going to the monthly nets and doing the ICS training courses online. honestly i wasnt sure i'd ever actually get deployed because our county is pretty quiet, but last weekend we had a pretty serious flooding situation and the EC called everyone in. ended up spending about 14 hours at the EOC running HF traffic to a shelter that had lost their cell service and their internet was spotty at best. used Winlink for most of it which worked great once i got the VARA tuned in, but we also did some voice passes on 40m when the digital link was being flaky. the whole thing was way more intense than i expected, not technically really, more just the pace of it and the fact that people were actually depending on what you were doing. different feeling than a drill for sure. anyway my main question for anyone who's been doing this longer than me — do most groups do formal debriefs after activations? our EC kind of did an informal chat at the end but i feel like there was a lot to learn from and im not sure if thats a standard thing or just depends on the group

so i finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend at a state forest near me, been meaning to do one for ages and just kept putting it off. ended up getting 47 contacts in about 2.5 hours which i was pretty happy with for a first attempt. ran 40m mostly, dipped into 20m for maybe 20 minutes and picked up a few europeans which was a nice surprise honestly. anyway my questions -- do i have to submit the log to both WWFF and my national program separately? im in the US so thats KFF but i wasnt 100% sure if they sync up automatically or if i double have to enter everything. also the reference i activated was already in the database but it had zero previous activations listed, does that mean im the first person to activate it or could there be old paper logs that just werent entered? the park itself is pretty well known locally so it seemed weird. also for anyone whos done a bunch of these, is it worth trying to get on 80m late in the day for the local hunters or does it usually not make much difference to the total count. my setup was just an end fed half wave off a 31 foot pole, worked fine but curious what others are running.

so ive been messing around with JS8Call for a few months now and honestly im kind of torn on it. the idea is great, you get that weak signal capability kind of like FT8 but you can actually have a real conversation instead of the 599 73 exchange thing. but man the bands feel pretty empty compared to FT8 most of the time. i'll call CQ on 40m JS8 and just sit there for like 20 minutes hearing nothing. i do like that you can leave it running and it'll store messages for you, almost like a store-and-forward thing which is pretty neat for emcomm type stuff. and the heartbeat feature where it just periodically announces your presence is clever. decode sensitivity is solid too, been able to pull in some pretty marginal signals. i guess my question is does anyone actually have active JS8Call nets or schedules they work? or is it basically just FT8 for people who want to feel like they're doing something different. not trying to be harsh, i genuinely like the mode i just cant find anyone to talk to on it half the time

im kind of in the same boat as you actually, been at it for about three months now. what helped me was just listening to a lot of QSOs on 40 meters even when i couldnt copy anything, just getting used to the sound of it i guess. also there's a youtube channel i found that does slow code practice with text on screen which felt like cheating but honestly it got me to recognize letters faster than anything else the lcwo site the other person mentioned is good but i found it a little dry so i mix it up with the morse trainer app on my phone when im waiting for something. having it on your phone means you actually practice instead of meaning to practice later lol

Log4OM can actually talk to WSJT-X directly over UDP if you set it up right, so you dont have to do the manual import thing for FT8. took me a while to find that setting but its in the WSJT-X config under reporting I think. once thats going your Log4OM log updates in real time while youre working digital modes which is pretty nice for contests i just accept that N1MM is a seperate thing and move on, trying to have one logger do everything perfectly is kind of a losing battle imo

made that exact switch about 18 months ago and honestly yes it was worth it for me but i do a lot of contesting so your mileage may vary depending on how you operate. the dual receive is genuinely useful not just a gimmick — being able to park one receiver on a DX station calling CQ while you work a pileup on the other vfo is something you dont really appreciate until youve done it. the roofing filters are noticeably better too, crowded band conditions on 40 and 80 at night are a lot more manageable. that said if youre mostly doing casual operating or even moderate contesting the 7300 is not holding you back. the 7610 is a real step up but its a "nice to have" more than a "need to have" unless you're really pushing it in competitive environments. if the price difference hurts your wallet you could probably wait and see if a used one pops up, they show up on qrz classifieds pretty regularly around $1400-1500

yeah i was confused about the exact same thing when i upgraded. what helped me was just downloading the ARRL band chart as a PDF and taping it next to my radio for a while. the legal document version of Part 97 is brutal to read if youre not used to that kind of writing, totally agree with you there. i still pull up 97.301 and 97.305 when im not sure about something specific but for day to day operating the chart is fine

i built something similar a couple years ago and the hum drove me insane for weeks. turned out one of my audio wires was running parallel to a piece of wire carrying the LO signal, only about an inch apart, and that was enough to couple into everything downstream. moved it and like 80% of the hum just vanished. sometimes its not an electrical fix, just the physical layout being sloppy. not saying yours is sloppy but worth looking at with fresh eyes, sometimes you stop seeing whats right in front of you after staring at it too long.

yeah the two sites arent exactly the same feed — DXwatch aggregates from a bunch of different cluster nodes around the world and QRZ has their own spot feed that i believe pulls from a slightly different set of nodes, or at least processes them differently. the delay you're seeing is totally normal. sometimes a spot originates from a node in europe and it takes a bit to propagate through the network to whatever server QRZ is polling. its not you doing anything wrong. for android honestly i've been using HamSphere's cluster feature just as a backup but my main go-to for alerts is actually just setting up a filter on DXWatch and leaving it open on an old tablet. theres also an app called DX Alert that used to work pretty well, not sure if its still being maintained though. if you're serious about 17 and 12 you might also want to look at the ON4KST chat for those bands, thats where a lot of the serious guys coordinate before and during a pileup, way faster than waiting for cluster spots sometimes.

im kind of in the same boat as you, been chasing DXCC for about a year now and just hit 98 confirmed last month so close it hurts haha. one thing nobody told me early on is to keep really good logs from day one because trying to go back and figure out which QSOs were on which band or mode is a pain. i use WSJT-X for FT8 and it logs automatically which helps a lot. also the ClubLog website is worth looking at, you can upload your log and it shows you a map of which entities you've worked and confirmed and which ones you're still missing. makes it pretty obvious where to focus your antenna when a rare one shows up on the DX cluster.

Welcome to the hobby, and good on you for listening first before jumping in -- that already puts you ahead of a lot of new folks honestly. So the CTCSS thing: the tone you set to transmit needs to match what the repeater expects to hear before it opens up. If you've got the wrong tone programmed (or none at all) the repeater just ignores you. Most repeater directories like RepeaterBook will list the required tone. Some repeaters also have a tone squelch on the output side, meaning you wont hear anything unless you also program a receive tone, but that's a separate setting -- a lot of people just leave the receive tone off so they hear everything. As for timing, after someone finishes talking there's usually a courtesy beep -- that little chirp or beep from the repeater means it's reset and ready for the next person. You want to wait for that before you key up, otherwise you'll step on the tail of someone's transmission and cut off the last bit of what they said. It's one of those things you pick up fast once you start participating. Just jump in, say your callsign and that you're new, most folks on local repeaters are pretty welcoming.

honestly dont stress too much about it, every net runs a little differently and most net controls are pretty forgiving with newer hams. the guy who pulled you aside probably meant well even if it came across a bit harsh. that said, the general idea is yeah, you want to wait for net control to open up check-ins before you transmit. most nets have a specific moment where NCS will say something like "the net is now open for check-ins" or "please call with your check-in now" and thats your cue. some nets do it in rounds, some just open it up free-for-all style, and a few will take traffic stations first before regular check-ins. if you listen to the net a couple times before jumping in it gets easier to read the flow. the fact that you checked in and NCS acknowledged you means you didnt cause any real problem. just keep showing up and you'll get the hang of it pretty quick. most of us did something awkward our first few times on a net and lived to tell about it.

VARA HF has gotten really widespread in the last couple years, most of the HF gateways ive connected to support it fine. You dont need PACTOR unless you're going somewhere really remote or dealing with a gateway that hasnt been updated in a while. The VARA FM on VHF is solid too if you havent tried that side of it. The hybrid network thing — yeah that confused me too when I first dug into it. Short version is a hybrid node can route messages peer to peer without hitting the internet, which matters a lot in a real disaster scenario where the CMS servers might not be reachable. Regular RMS gateways relay everything through the common message server over the internet. As a regular user you probably dont need to think about it much unless youre planning emcomm use where you genuinely cant assume internet access. Then it starts mattering which nodes are hybrid capable. Running your own RMS relay is worth it if there's a coverage gap in your area, but if you've already got good gateway density locally it might just be redundancy. check the Winlink map and see what the actual coverage looks like around you before committing to the hardware and the ongoing maintenance headache.

yeah that 40m low power issue on the 857 is actually more common than youd think. theres a driver transistor — Q1023 or thereabouts depending on revision — that sits in the 40m band pass chain and they can degrade without failing completely. you wont see it as a dead band, just reduced drive getting to the finals. grab the service manual off the usual places and check the bias voltages on the driver stage while its transmitting on 40m, compare to what the manual says. if the bias is off that'll point you at the right component pretty quick. also worth checking the LPF switching relays for that band, a relay contact that's not fully closing will drop your output without giving you any obvious symptom. spray some deoxit in there if you can get to them.

i ran RemoteHams for probably 18 months before switching back to a custom setup with KiwiSDR and a separate VoIP path. the client is genuinely well done and the latency handling is better than anything ive cobbled together myself, but the subscription thing started bugging me mostly on principle i guess. the SDR remote piece works great for monitoring, i used it to keep an eye on my remote QTH while i was at work and it handled the waterfall display way better than i expected over a mediocre connection. the transmit side goes through their server infrastructure for the CAT and PTT which some people dont love from a latency standpoint but honestly in practice it was fine for SSB and even reasonably okay for CW if you kept your eye on the buffer settings. never tried chaining it into an echolink node so cant help you there but i dont see why it wouldnt work if you got the audio routing sorted out on the remote machine first, maybe just use a virtual audio cable and route things manually before RemoteHams even sees it

the insulated wire is almost certainly why your resonant point is off — insulated wire has a velocity factor less than 1 so it behaves electrically longer than its physical length. rule of thumb is you usually need to trim a few inches per leg compared to bare wire, sometimes more depending on the insulation thickness. i wouldnt be surprised if you need to take 3-4 inches off each side to pull resonance up toward the middle of the band. on the balun question, for a basic dipole fed with coax i usually just go with a few turns of coax wound into a choke right at the feedpoint, works fine for most situations and costs you nothing if you have extra feedline. a good 1:1 current balun will do the same job more predictably especially if youre running higher power but honestly for casual HF operation either way is fine. the common mode current thing is real though, if you skip it entirely you might find your SWR changes when you touch the coax or your audio picks up RF. learned that the hard way on my first dipole back in the day.

yeah they're all pulling from the same underlying DX cluster network more or less, the spots originate from nodes that feed into the whole system so you'll see a lot of overlap. the timing differences are usually just propagation delay between nodes or how often the website refreshes its feed. i personally just use dxwatch because the filtering is pretty straightforward once you find the settings — you can absolutely filter by band, look for the filter options at the top of the page and just check the bands you want. saves a lot of sanity during a big contest weekend when everyone and their dog is spotting. qrz's cluster is convenient if you're already on there looking something up but i wouldnt rely on it as your main spotting tool, feels like it lags behind a bit in my experience. some guys swear by dxscape too but honestly they all get the job done, just pick one and learn its quirks.

the selectivity issue on crystal sets almost always comes down to the Q of your tank circuit and how the antenna is coupled into it. if you're tapping the antenna directly to the top of the coil you're loading it down heavily and that kills Q pretty fast. try a tapped coupling — maybe 5 or so turns from the bottom end of the coil as a separate antenna loop and see if that cleans things up. also 15 meters of wire hanging out a window with a water pipe ground is going to be a pretty lossy setup, not great but not terrible for broadcast either. the 1N34A is the right diode for this so thats not your problem. i built one years ago using a quaker oats tube as the former and got reasonable selectivity just by being careful about the antenna coupling ratio. takes some fiddling honestly.

ok so ive been listening on HF for a few weeks now and i keep hearing and seeing all these abbreviations that i dont really understand. like QSL, QTH, QRM, QSB... i know QSL has something to do with confirming a contact but honestly im just guessing most of the time. is there like a master list somewhere or do people just kind of pick these up over time? also on digital modes people are using stuff that isnt even Q codes, like ES and DE and 73 and i have no idea where any of that comes from. feels like theres a whole other language i missed the memo on

so ive been running a TS-590SG for about 4 years now and honestly it was a great radio, no real complaints, but i kept hearing people go on and on about the 7300's waterfall display and i finally caved last month when i found a used one locally for a decent price. guy was upgrading to a 7610 so the timing worked out. first impressions — the waterfall is genuinely useful and not just a gimmick like i thought it might be. being able to see activity on a band before you even spin the dial is something i didnt know i was missing. propagation on 40 last weekend was all over the place and i could see the openings happening in real time which was cool. the receiver feels a little different than the 590, hard to say if its better or worse honestly, just different. on a busy contest weekend the 590 always felt really solid to me but i havent had a chance to run the 7300 through a full contest yet so jury's still out. audio out of the speaker sounds better to my ears though, more natural. anyway not really a question just figured id share since i see people asking about this comparison a lot. happy to answer anything if somone has specific questions about either radio.