Mountain Ham

Classic problem with digital VFOs in sensitive receivers. Try adding some ferrite beads on the power and I2C lines, and consider switching away from the MAX7219 display - those things are notorious noise generators. I had good luck with a simple LCD display instead.

that logging thing is so real. i messed up my first ICS 214 during an actual event and felt terrible about it, but honestly the forms are one of those things where muscle memory only really builds under pressure. after that i started keeping a blank 214 taped inside my go kit lid so i could glance at the field order without having to think. small thing but it helped. glad your first one went well overall. the calm-under-pressure thing surprises a lot of people, i think the structured net format does more than we realize to keep people from panicking. you kinda just fall into the rhythm of it.

i have a TM-V71A too, great radio. mine is roof mounted and i'm happy with it but i'll be honest the install took me most of a saturday and i still second guess whether i sealed the NMO base well enough every time it rains hard lol. the trunk lip is way less stressful if you ask me. i run a lip mount on my wife's car and it gets into every repeater within 50 miles no problem on 2m.

i just use a mag mount on my SUV and honestly for hitting repeaters around town it does the job, but i think if i was doing a fresh install on something i planned to keep id probably just drill it. the mag mount does scratch the roof over time even with a pad under it, my old car had marks from it after a couple years. anyway congrats on the new truck that thing is probably sweet

the partial track thing is usually either a path problem or your transmit timing is colliding with other stations. WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 is fine but if youre in a dense area with lots of APRS traffic your packets are probably stepping on each other. also worth checking — is your SmartBeaconing set up in APRSdroid or are you using a fixed interval? fixed interval beaconing is kind of the worst thing you can do in a busy area because everybody ends up transmitting at the same time roughly. SmartBeaconing will vary your rate based on speed and heading change which reduces collisions a lot. also double check your SSID. if youre mobile you should be using -9. not sure it affects whether the packet shows up but aprs.fi does some filtering based on SSID type and it can affect how your track renders.

im not super familiar with the RemoteHams SDR side of things but i do run a remote HF station over the internet and the latency stuff you're describing honestly just sounds like the two audio streams getting out of sync and phasing. does the echo happen on both ends or just what you hear locally? because if its only local that narrows it down a lot also 40 miles on a decent internet connection shouldnt be adding much delay on its own, so if the latency is bad im wondering if the upload on the remote end is getting saturated when both the SDR stream and the IRLP audio are going at the same time. what kind of connection is on that end

congrats on passing the test, welcome to the hobby. so here's my honest take after going through this same thing a few years back — if your budget can stretch to the ft-60r, just do it. its been around forever, build quality is rock solid, the audio is loud and clear, and it'll handle being dropped a lot better than most of the chinese handhelds. i still have mine from when i started and it just keeps going. that said if you really cant go above 80 bucks a baofeng uv-5r or one of the slightly better uv-82 variants will absolutely work for getting on repeaters and doing simplex. the programming is kind of a pain without chirp but chirp is free and pretty easy once you get the hang of it. you'll want it regardless of what radio you get honestly, manually programming repeaters into some of these things through the keypad is a nightmare. APRS is cool but i wouldnt worry about it at all when youre just starting. get on some local repeaters first, find your local club if you havent, and worry about fancy features later. you dont need them to have fun right now.

oh man i feel your pain on this one... we had a guy in our club who insisted on bringing this ancient onan that leaked oil everywhere and made more noise than a harley convention. Finally the site coordinator at the park told us we couldnt use generators after 10pm because of complaints from campers nearby. That was actually a blessing in disguise because it forced us to get creative with battery setups and solar panels. Now we run everything off lifepo4 packs during the day and charge them with solar when the sun's out. Way more peaceful and honestly more fun without that constant noise in the background. Plus you can actually hear those weak signals without competing with engine noise.

oh man i remember this exact phase, took me probably 3 months before my sending felt natural and i wasnt fighting the paddle. first thing id check is your paddle tension and spacing - most cheap ebay paddles come way too tight and with the contacts too close together which makes it really easy to accidentally trigger extra elements. back the tension off until it feels almost too loose, then work up from there. on the mode A vs B thing - mode B remembers the last squeeze element and adds it after you let go, mode A doesnt. a lot of people find mode B helps with certain letters like K and C because of the timing but honestly for a beginner i wouldnt stress about it. just pick one and stick with it for a few weeks. the muscle memory thing is real, your fingers literally have to learn this independently from your brain and it takes time. slow down to like 8 or 9 wpm and send for 20-30 minutes every day, that matters way more than anything else

hamstudy.org is absolutely the real deal, that's probably the main thing most people use now. the way it works is it pulls from the actual question pool that the FCC uses so youre literally studying the exact questions that might show up on your test. the thing about the tech exam is yeah a lot of it you can just memorize the answers without fully understanding why, but honestly the electrical stuff and the regs sections arent that hard if you spend a little time on them. i passed mine in like 10 days just doing hamstudy on my phone during lunch. they have this mode where it tracks which questions you keep getting wrong and hammers those specifically, that feature alone is worth it. the ARRL Tech manual is fine too but honestly for just passing the exam you probably dont need to buy anything

not dumb questions at all, this stuff is confusing when you first start digging into it. ok so DXCC is the big one and yeah the ARRL runs it — you need confirmed contacts with 100 different entities (countries basically, though its more complicated than that). LOTW is absolutely the way to go if you can, most serious DX operators upload there and you get credit confirmed almost instantly once both sides upload. paper cards still work and some rare DX only does cards so you'll need to deal with that eventually, but for starting out LOTW will get you most of your credits without the hassle. WAS is also ARRL — worked all states, 50 confirmed contacts one per state. WAZ is a different one, thats CQ magazine's award, worked all zones, there are 40 CQ zones worldwide. so yeah separate organizations for that last one. the good news is a lot of your LOTW uploads count toward multiple awards at once depending on how things line up. just keep logging everything with accurate info and upload regularly, that Japan contact definitely counts for DXCC as long as you got a confirmation.

so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and i keep reading about CW and how people swear by it and im kind of curious about learning it but i have no idea where to even start. like do you just memorize the dots and dashes on paper or is there some better way to do it. i downloaded some app a while back but it felt really random and i gave up after a week. i think my problem is i dont know if im doing it the right way or just wasting time. is there a specific order you're supposed to learn the letters or does it not matter. sorry if this is a vague question i genuinely dont know enough to ask it better

so ive been a ham for about three years now and i keep telling myself im going to put together a proper go-kit for emergencies and i just never actually do it. well after the storms we had last month and losing power for two days i figured it was time to stop procrastinating. i already have an FT-857D that i was thinking of using as the main rig, plus a buddipole that i borrowed from the club a while back and honestly kind of forgot to return (sorry Dave if you're reading this) anyway i put it all in a big rubbermaid tote for now which i know is not ideal. i have a 20ah lifepo4 battery, a basic coax jumper, my logbook obviously, and some DC power cables. i think i have the basics but something keeps nagging me that im forgetting important stuff. like is there a standard checklist people use for this kind of thing or do you just kind of figure it out as you go? also curious whether people keep their go-kits in their car or just at home ready to grab

okay so i just got my general a few months ago and ive been making contacts pretty regularly, got a couple hundred in the log now. someone at my club mentioned i should be uploading to LoTW but then someone else said eQSL is better and now im reading about ADIF files and bureau cards and honestly my head is spinning a little from what i can tell LoTW is run by the ARRL and is more official for things like DXCC and WAS confirmations? but eQSL seems easier to use and has those nice looking digital cards. and then there are people who still do paper QSL cards through the bureau which sounds like it takes forever what do most people actually bother with day to day, like is it worth setting up all three or do you just pick one and go with it. also does the other station have to be using the same system or does it just match up automatically somehow

The key with RF grounding is bonding all equipment to a common reference, not the absolute impedance to earth. 14AWG copper is fine for equipment connections - save your money and focus on proper choking instead.

so anyway i finally got the ft-7900r mounted in my truck after like three weekends of messing around with it. runs off the battery directly with a fused line which i know is the right way to do it but man running that wire through the firewall was a pain. ended up using an existing grommet near the brake booster. antenna is a tram 1185 on a mag mount for now just sitting on the roof. i know i know, NMO through the roof would be better but im renting so i dont want to drill holes in my truck. the mag mount seems ok, getting into the local 2m repeater about 12 miles away without any trouble, and i can hit a couple 70cm machines too. my question is really about the audio. when im moving it sounds fine but when i stop at a light or something with the engine idling there's this faint whine that kind of changes with the RPMs. i googled it and i think its alternator noise but wanted to see if anyone here has dealt with it and what actually worked. ive seen people mention those ferrite chokes and also some kind of ground loop isolator but not sure which one to try first. the radio itself is grounded to a bolt under the dash.

Excellent procedure! Strict adherence to band plans ensures different communication modes have adequate space and don't interfere with each other. I keep printed band plan references at each operating position - saves time and prevents mistakes when switching bands or modes during emergency activations.

With the BARTG HF RTTY Contest coming up March 21-23, 2026 and ARRL RTTY Roundup January 4-5, I'm finally taking the plunge into RTTY contesting after years of FT8. Currently running an IC-7610 and looking at interface options. I've been reading about the 2-TONE decoder being much more sensitive than MMTTY for AFSK operation. My question: for serious contesting, should I invest in a hardware FSK interface, or are modern AFSK solutions like 2-TONE competitive enough? I'm particularly interested in weak signal copy during contests when the bands get crowded. Also considering DXLog for contest logging with its real-time logging and automatic dupe checking - anyone have experience with this combo? I've been using N1MM+ for phone contests but want to optimize my digital setup.

yeah what he said but also just want to add — i was in the exact same spot like two years ago and the thing that finally clicked for me was downloading the actual part 97 pdf and using ctrl+f to search for "technician" specifically. still dense but at least you can skip to the relevant parts. section 97.301 is the one that lists authorized frequency bands by license class if you want to go straight to the source

yeah i was terrified my first check-in too lol. what helped me was just sitting through like 4 or 5 nets first and writing down exactly what people said word for word so i had kind of a script. then when i finally did it my voice was shaking but nobody cared, net control just said "copy, welcome to the net" and moved on. you'll be fine just go for it

i went through exactly this debate last year and ended up just putting up both lol. vertical with 16 radials and kept the dipole as a backup slash comparison antenna. honestly the difference on 40 wasnt as dramatic as i expected. the vertical does seem to pull in the weaker DX stations a little better on the low stuff but the dipole is quieter on receive here, less local noise. might just be my location though. if i had to pick one id probably keep the vertical but im glad i didnt take the dipole down

I've been reading through Part 97.113 about prohibited transmissions and I'm getting confused about the line between legitimate amateur use and "business communications." Section 97.113 prohibits transmissions for hire or material compensation, and defines amateur service as having "personal aim and without pecuniary interest". Here are some specific scenarios I'd like clarification on: Coordinating volunteer emergency communications for a nonprofitTesting equipment that I might later sellParticipating in a ham radio club net where dues are collectedWhere exactly does Part 97 draw these lines? Any elmers have real-world examples?

i went through exactly this about 18 months ago. ended up going the 4x17 element yagi route because i had the yard space and i was intimidated by the dish tracking stuff. first actual contact took me a few weekends of messing with the setup to get right, mostly feedline issues and the LNA wasnt seated right at the connector so i was getting more noise than i should have been. one thing nobody really told me upfront was how much the moon's position matters for your takeoff angle. i have some trees to the east and theres a solid window of maybe 3-4 hours where the moon is in clear sky from my QTH, so i basically plan everything around that. the EME2 or Heavens-Above sites help a lot for planning but you gotta walk your yard at different times and just look at where the obstacles actually are. sounds obvious but i wasted a whole activity weekend before i figured out my best window.

ive had mine about 18 months and still finding little things. one thing that helped me with the menu weirdness is just spending an hour going through the quick menu setup and putting the stuff you actually touch all the time in there. took me way too long to figure that out. also if you do any digital modes the built in USB audio interface is pretty great, got FT8 running in maybe 20 minutes first time i tried it which was not my experience with previous radios let me tell you.

so ive been licensed for about 12 years now, mostly HF stuff, some 2m weak signal when conditions are good, but ive always wanted to try moonbounce and keep putting it off. recently retired so i finally have the time and the backyard space to do something real about it. problem is every time i start reading about it i go down a rabbit hole and come out more confused than before. from what i understand the basic minimum on 2m EME is something like a pair of long yagis, decent power, and a low noise preamp right at the feedpoint. ive seen people say you can do it with a single yagi and JT65 but also seen people say thats barely workable and youll spend months getting your first contact. i have room for a 4-yagi array but not sure if thats overkill or honestly where i should start. noise floor around here is reasonably low, not super rural but not in a city either. also the moon tracking software and rotator situation is kind of intimidating. do people actually use separate az/el rotators or is there some integrated setup that works better. my current rotator is just an old Yaesu G-800 which obviously wont do elevation. just looking for some reality check from anyone whos actually done this, not just the wiki writeups which tend to assume you already know everything.