Michael Peterson

i went through basically the same thing last year. one thing that tripped me up for way too long was that i had PTT set up wrong in the Signalink, the jumper inside the unit has to match your radio or it just never actually keys the transmitter. i was getting audio out but the radio wasnt keying and i sat there wondering why nothing was connecting for like two evenings. worth double checking if you havent already. also 22 miles on 2m should be totally fine if youre both at decent elevation, but try a couple different gateways if you can. some of the RMS nodes listed are not super active or have flaky internet connections and the map doesnt always reflect that in real time.

yeah so the short version is the FCC allocates General class phone privileges on 40m starting at 7.225 MHz up to 7.300, and then there's CW/data lower down. the 7.125-7.175 range your friend mentioned is a shared international thing where other countries have primary allocations and you can end up causing or receiving interference from stations in other ITU regions, its not illegal exactly but its a mess. the band plan on top of that is just a gentleman's agreement basically, ARRL puts it out and most people follow it but the FCC doesn't enforce it directly. as for band edges, the issue is your signal has sidebands, so if you're on USB and you tune to exactly 7.300 you're actually putting energy above that. the FCC looks at your occupied bandwidth not just your carrier frequency so you can technically be cited for operating out of band even if your dial reads 7.300. most people just stay a few kHz inside to be safe, like 7.295 or so for an upper limit.

so ive been licensed about 6 years now and done plenty of HF DX, some 2m weak signal stuff, but EME has always seemed like this almost mythical thing that only guys with giant yagi arrays in their backyard could do. lately ive been reading more about it and apparently the situation has changed a lot with digital modes? like JT65 changed everything from what i understand. anyway im on a suburban lot, no HOA thankfully, and i could probably put up a decent 2m yagi. my neighbor has a 4x4 yagi array for 2m EME and he makes it sound more accessible than i thought but he also has a pretty serious preamp setup and a really clean feedline run which im not sure i can replicate exactly. what are we actually talking about minimum equipment wise to make a legit EME contact? like realistically, not the "well technically you could do it with a 50w rig and a dipole" kind of answer. i have an IC-9700 which i know is pretty capable on 2m and i could probably squeeze 100w out of it, maybe add a BEKO or similar amp later. is a single long boom yagi viable or am i kidding myself

not required by the FCC or anything like that, its just the standard that everyone settled on because it actually works. the whole point is that those specific words were chosen because they sound distinct from each other even over a bad signal or with heavy QRM. like November and November dont sound like anything else in the alphabet set, whereas if you just said N for Neon or whatever theres a good chance someone hears M. you'll pick up the whole alphabet pretty fast just from being on the air, i think i had it memorized within a few weeks without even trying. some guys especially the older timers will occasionally use non-standard ones but its usually obvious what they mean

yeah what he said about 97.305 is right, that section is basically the one to read for this. i spent like an hour on it when i upgraded and it finally clicked. the FCC enforcement thing is kind of a gray area in practice. they do still act on complaints especially if somebodys causing interference repeatedly, theres been some notable cases in the last few years. but a single oops on the wrong freq isnt going to do anything, nobody is monitoring every transmission waiting to pounce

the single yagi EME thing is real but you need to set expectations correctly. with JT65B or Q65 and a decent preamp you can make contacts on 2m EME with a single long yagi, like a 17 or 21 element M2 or similar, but youre going to be working other big stations mostly. the path loss on 2m EME is around 252 dB which is just brutal, so every dB you can squeeze out of the system matters a lot. your IC-9700 is actually fine for this, its a solid radio for weak signal work. the weak link for you would be antenna gain and a good low noise preamp at the feedpoint, like a 0.3 dB or better NF unit. and yeah the G-5500 is basically the go-to starting point for az/el, everyone uses it or something similar. you technically can catch the moon with az only during perigee windows near the horizon but its not practical for regular operating. just get the G-5500 and a decent controller and youll be set. honestly the software side has gotten so good with WSJT-X and moon tracking programs that a lot of the complexity thats always scared people off is just handled automatically now.

yeah the certificate thing threw me off too when i first set it up, but yes they really do mail you a physical postcard and you type in the code to activate the certificate. kind of ironic but it's a security thing to verify your address. once thats done though it's pretty painless, Log4OM has a built in TQSL upload so you just export your log and it handles the rest. for DXCC yes LoTW confirmations count exactly the same as paper cards, and honestly most serious DX stations upload to LoTW pretty regularly so you'll rack up confirmations fast especially on FT8 since a lot of those contacts get uploaded automatically. i barely bother with paper cards anymore except for really rare DX where i want the physical card for the wall. eQSL is kind of a separate world — it doesnt count for DXCC but some awards like the eQSL ones obviously use it, and some operators only use that system so it depends on who you're working. i'd say get LoTW sorted first since thats the one that matters for the big awards, then maybe set up eQSL later if you feel like it. not critical but it doesnt hurt to have both running once you get the hang of it

yeah nice work on getting it done. i did my first one a few months ago and totally stressed about the 44 contact requirement way more than i needed to, ended up with like 70 by the end. the spotter network really does make a huge difference, i almost didn't bother self-spotting the first time thinking it would feel weird but honestly thats just how it works now. i dont know much about submitting new references but id be curious about that too, there's a couple places near me that seem like they should qualify but arent in the database either.

lcwo.net is free and its basically the koch method built into a website, thats what i used. i did like 15-20 minutes a day and after a few months i could actually copy most of a QSO at slow speeds. the key thing everybody told me and i ignored at first is dont go up in speed too fast, i kept bumping it up before i was ready and had to go back down which was kind of demoralizing. also just get a cheap straight key and start sending too even before you feel ready, something about sending it yourself helps it stick in a different way than just listening

the romex wire thing caught my eye — is it solid conductor? solid copper can be a bit different to work with for antennas that move around in the wind, it'll work fineelectrically but it gets stress fractures at connection points after a while. just something to keep in mind down the road. for now your bigger issue is probaly what the other guy said about the balun, that'll fix a lot of weirdness at the feedpoint.

so i finally did my first activation last weekend, W4C/EM-001, been planning it for months and honestly i thought i'd be way more prepared than i was. got up there with my KX2 and a random wire antenna i threw up in a tree and just... sat there for like 20 minutes trying to remember everything at once. spotted myself on SOTAwatch, called CQ SOTA on 40m and nothing for a while, then switched to 20m and got a small pileup which was insane, never had that happen before. ended up with 9 QSOs which i know qualifies but it felt chaotic. a couple times i couldnt hear the chasers well at all, wind was pretty loud up there and i think my signal was getting blown around or something, not sure if thats a thing. also one guy kept sending his callsign like 4 times really fast and i kept missing the last letter, is there etiquette around that or do i just ask for a repeat without feeling bad about it also question about the reference numbers — when i log it on the SOTA database later, do i just put the summit ref as the QSO comment or is there a specific field. ive been staring at the logging page and im confusing myself

yeah that plateau around 8-10wpm is super common, pretty much everyone hits it. the thing is at that speed youre probably still sounding out each character in your head instead of just hearing it as a sound pattern. the trick that finally worked for me was forcing myself to copy at a speed where i was maybe getting 60-70% of it right instead of trying to be perfect at a comfortable speed. uncomfortable practice is kind of the whole deal with CW. also if you havent tried the Farnsworth method where characters are sent at like 20wpm but with extra spacing between them -- that realy helped me stop the habit of counting. took me about 8 months of daily practice to get solidly to 20 but i wasnt super consistent about it either. some weeks id barely touch it. the people who say 6 weeks are probably naturally gifted or already had musical training or something, i wouldnt use that as a benchmark

so ive been lurking on this forum for a while and finally decided to try building my first QRP rig from scratch. going with the Manhattan style construction on a copper clad board, doing a 40m CW transceiver loosely based on the Minima design but ive been borrowing bits from a few different schematics which is probably a mistake but here we are. the oscillator section seems stable enough, i can hear it on my other radio and it doesnt drift too bad after warmup. but my TX output is way lower than i expected -- im getting maybe 200mW into a dummy load when i was hoping for closer to 500. the IRF510 driver stage is running warm but not scary hot. is this just a biasing issue or should i be looking at the driver transformer winding ratio first? i wound it myself and honestly i lost count at some point and had to guess the last few turns. also general question -- for portable ops with a battery, whats a reasonable expectation for contacts per amp-hour at these power levels? i know thats kind of a how long is a piece of string question but just curious what others experience

the ground plane thing is real, ive tested it with a buddys nanoVNA and the impedance on a lip mount was all over the place compared to a proper bonded NMO install. not saying yours is bad just that it varies a lot by vehicle. some guys use the hood or hatch and get decent results, others its a mess. one option if you dont want to drill is a mag mount on the roof, like a quality one not the cheap ones, gives you a pretty good ground plane without the hole. not as clean as NMO but better than a lip mount usually. or look at the fender NMO mounts that thread into an existing hole, some trucks have those antenna boss holes already punched in the fender from the factory

those JA openings on 10m at sunset can be incredible when they happen. i worked like 15 JA stations in one of those short windows back in october and then nothing for a week. one thing i started doing is running VOACAP online before i even sit down at the radio, just plug in your location and where you want to work and it gives you a rough idea of what hours and bands might be usable. its not perfect but its saved me a lot of time sitting there listening to static. also the solar flux index isnt the only thing to watch, the Kp index matters a lot too -- even if flux is high a geomagnetic storm can wipe out the high bands pretty fast so if Kp goes above like 4 or 5 i usually drop down to 40 or 80 and work closer in stuff.