Jennifer Walsh

the gordon west study guide is what i used and it was pretty good for actually explaining why things are the way they are instead of just here are the answers. some people swear by just memorizing the pool and thats totally valid if you just want to pass, but i found understanding the material helped it stick better and honestly made getting on the air less confusing afterward when i was trying to figure out what frequencies i could actually use one thing nobody told me that wouldve helped -- practice the exact exam format too, not just random questions. hamstudy has a practice exam mode that simulates the real thing which is 35 questions and i think you need 26 to pass. doing a few of those timed before your actual test session just so its not unfamiliar

Looking to compile a comprehensive list of current Morse code learning software and mobile apps. In 2024, there are numerous software programs available that cater to different learning styles and skill levels, whether you're a complete beginner or experienced ham operator. What I'm looking for: Free vs paid optionsWhich apps work best for Koch methodDesktop software vs mobile appsFeatures like Farnsworth timing, custom lessons, QSO simulationWhat are people actually using and recommending these days?

During Hurricane Milton last year, my computer UPS died after 3 hours but my 12V battery system kept the 2m rig running for two full days. Even when you have AC power available, running through a lithium battery can be beneficial - if you lose AC power, the battery keeps systems up and running. Lesson learned!

The goal is to improve your sound quality and increase average power output without causing distortion. I found turning on processing and compression increased my power output from 50W peaks to 75W average with 100W peaks much more often. Try MIC 50%, PROC 30%, AMC 30% and watch your ALC meter - keep it within recommended range.

so ive been meaning to do this for literally two years and i finally sat down last weekend and started pulling stuff together for a proper go-kit. right now i have my FT-857D, a roll of coax, my buddipole, a little 35ah AGM battery, and a cheap harbor freight solar panel that i honestly dont totally trust yet. threw it all in a plastic tote from walmart for now. the thing is i keep feeling like im forgetting something obvious. like i know i need to think about power management better and i probably need a charge controller for the solar situation. but beyond the RF gear itself what are people usually putting in these kits? im thinking first aid stuff is kind of a given but do most of you keep spare fuses, extra connectors, that kind of thing? my wife thinks im overthinking it but i mean thats kind of the point right, you want to think through the failure points before you actually need it also curious how people handle the laptop vs tablet situation for digital modes in the field. i have fldigi and js8call set up on my old thinkpad but that thing weighs a ton and the battery is basically dead so it needs to be plugged in which defeats the purpose

honestly for repeater work youre probably overthinking it. the x50 is a solid antenna and if youre already full quieting at 18 miles with 50w theres not a lot a yagi is going to do for you in practical terms. more gain into a single direction sounds great on paper but when you want to call a buddy who lives in the other direction youll be turning the antenna or just not hearing them as well, which gets old fast. the collinear more elements idea isnt bad, something like a diamond x300 or even an x510 would give you a little more gain while keeping the omni, but were talking maybe 2-3db real world difference from what you have. whether thats worth another roof climb and $100-150 is really up to you. if your current setup is working i'd probably just leave it alone and spend the money on something else. now if you were trying to work weak signal ssb on 2m that would be a totally different conversation and yeah a yagi starts making a lot of sense.

im kind of in the same boat honestly, been at it about the same amount of time. one thing that really helped me was switching to mode A on the keyer, i know some people swear by mode B but i kept making a mess of my endings on letters. also just spending like 10 minutes a day on the Koch method trainer app even when i didnt feel like it made a bigger difference than anything else i tried

timing is everything and most people never figure that out, they just key up with everyone else and wonder why they cant break through. the other thing i'd add is freq discipline on your transmit side — if youre running split and you keep landing on the same freq as 50 other guys youre just adding to the noise. i actually move my tx freq around slightly, like 1-2 kHz, between attempts and pay attention to where the DX seems to be digging. some ops work the pileup systematically, low to high or the reverse, and if you can figure out the pattern youre already ahead of 80% of the pile. the partial call thing is real too. a lot of newer operators dont realize the DX op is trained to pull a fragment and confirm, they dont need your whole call every time. just your suffix or even just the last letter pair. less is more in a big pileup honestly.

Iambic keying is about the fastest way to send Morse - when you hear operators at 40+ WPM doing it manually, it's probably dual-lever. But honestly, focus on solid fundamentals first. A good single-lever paddle will serve you well for years.

Computer technology and specialized data modes have considerably reduced equipment requirements, bringing moonbounce within reach of many radio amateurs. Your setup should work fine for scheduled contacts with bigger stations. Start with what you have!

yeah what he said about the ALC is important. i spent like three weeks thinking my mic was trash and turns out i just had the mic gain cranked way up because i thought louder = better. it doesnt. had a buddy record my audio off the air and it was genuinely painful to listen to. once i backed the gain off and let the radio do its thing it was completely different. one thing i'll add — mic placement matters more than people think on SSB. talking off-axis into the mic or being too far away changes the sound a lot. not trying to be a broadcast engineer about it but just keeping consistent distance helps. i'm on 40 a fair bit too if you ever want an audio check, feel free to holler

Not a dumb question at all, this trips up a lot of new hams with those radios. So the Baofeng has separate settings for TX tone and RX tone. For hitting a repeater you pretty much only need the TX CTCSS set to 100.0 — that's what tells the repeater to open up when you key. The RX tone is different, that would filter what YOU hear on your end, so if you have it set you might actually be blocking signals you want to receive. Try turning the RX tone off (set to none or off depending on the menu) and leave only the TX tone on at 100.0. As for the courtesy tone thing, yeah that's pretty common etiquette on a lot of linked repeaters especially. The idea is you just pause for a second after someone finishes talking so the repeater can drop and give a courtesy beep, that way people know the frequency is clear before someone else jumps in. On some machines if you step on that it can cause all kinds of weirdness especially if the repeater is linked to others. Worth asking your elmer or whoever the trustee is what the local customs are because it really does vary.

so i finally got activated for a real event last weekend, been doing the monthly nets and training exercises for about 8 months now and this was the first time i got called up for an actual served agency thing. it was for a half marathon the county runs every spring and our EC assigned me to a water station about 4 miles out from the start line. honestly i wasnt sure what to do with myself for the first hour. i had my HT, the assigned simplex frequency on the event repeater, my ICS form stuff, my go bag, but like... nobody was really calling me. i kept checking in on the net but mostly it was quiet. then around mile 3 a runner went down with what looked like heat exhaustion and i had to relay info to the medical coordinator and that was when it actually clicked why we do all this. got the info passed clean, EMS was staged nearby and it went smooth. i guess my question is, is that pretty typical for ARES events? a lot of waiting with small bursts of actual activity? also wondering if anyone has tips for staying sharp when nothing is happening for long stretches. i found myself zoning out a bit and felt bad about it afterward even though everything turned out fine.

not a dumb question at all, part 97 is genuinely written in a way that takes some getting used to. so the short answer is yes, techs do get a sliver of 10 meter phone — specifically 28.300 to 28.500 MHz for SSB and other voice modes, up to 200 watts PEP. your club friend was wrong on that one. the full breakdown is in 97.301 and 97.305 which spell out both the frequency allocations and the emission types permitted in each segment. the other thing youre asking about is actually a really good catch — the ARRL band plan and part 97 are not the same thing. part 97 is the actual FCC regulation and thats whats legally enforceable. the ARRL band plan is basically a gentlemens agreement the amateur community follows to keep things organized but nobody is going to lose their license for operating CW at the wrong end of 40m as long as theyre within the part 97 frequency limits. that said most people follow the band plan anyway because it just works better for everyone.

After struggling with traditional methods, I found success with CW Academy's Level 1 classes that use proven techniques. The structured approach with live feedback from advisors made all the difference. Don't overthink the method - just pick one that includes regular practice sessions with real people.

The NATO phonetic alphabet improves clarity in radio communications by using standardized words for each letter (e.g., "Alpha" for A, "Bravo" for B). This reduces confusion caused by noise or poor signal quality, accents, or similar-sounding letters like "B" and "D." Here's my learning approach: Practice your callsign phonetically 10 times daily Use NATO numbers ("One," "Two," "Tree" for 1, 2, 3) - "Tree" replaces "Three" to avoid confusion with "Free." Listen to on-air usage before transmitting Start with local repeaters where mistakes are forgiven What other tips helped you master phonetics quickly?

so i finally did my first real SOTA activation last weekend, summit was only a 2 mile hike but man i was not prepared for how much the wind was gonna mess with everything. brought my ft-818 and a linked dipole and spent like 20 minutes just trying to get the thing up in a tree and the whole time my fingers were going numb. made 6 contacts on 20m which i guess is fine but i needed 4 so technically a success. didnt even try 40 because by that point i just wanted to go home. not complaining though it was honestly really fun and im already looking at other summits near me, just gotta figure out a better antenna situation because fighting that dipole in wind is rough

yeah there's no hard rule for casual QSOs honestly. if the band is clear and the other person copied you fine, nobody's gonna care if you just say the letter. phonetics are really for when things are rough — marginal signals, QRM, working someone with a heavy accent, that kind of situation. contesting you basically never bother unless you're really struggling to get your call through. as for the "America" thing, that's old timers using what some people call "non-standard" phonetics. used to be pretty common before NATO phonetics got standardized. some guys have been doing it for 40 years and just never switched over. it's not wrong exactly but it can cause confusion especially working DX where the other op might not know what you mean. stick with NATO, it was designed so the words would be understood across different languages and accents which is the whole point

im pretty new too (licensed like 8 months ago) but one thing that helped me a lot was just listening to the net for several weeks before checking in. you start to pick up the rhythm of how that specific net runs because they're all a little different. some net controls are really formal and want phonetics every time, others are pretty relaxed especially if everyone knows each other already. one thing i still mess up sometimes is holding the PTT a tiny bit before talking so the repeater actually picks up the first part of my callsign. lost the first syllable a few times and had to repeat myself which feels awkward but whatever, people are generally pretty forgiving on local nets in my experience

im pretty new to this too so take what i say with a grain of salt but i stumbled onto an app called Ham Radio Today or something like that... actually no wait i think it was just called HamDX or DXdroid, i can't remember the exact name but if you search the play store for dx cluster android you'll find a few options. the one i use has a simple bandmap view which is nice. the QRZ spot thing on the side of the page i mostly just ignore honestly, i find it cluttered. DXwatch with a good band filter has been working fine for me as a newer ham just trying to figure out propagation and find signals. still learning which spots are actually worth chasing vs the ones that are like 5 years old busted callsigns lol

From an implementation standpoint, internet connections at remote repeater sites can be challenging with no phone lines, cable, or fiber - we use point-to-point RF links to get connectivity. Both systems work well once you have reliable internet. I'd recommend starting with IRLP for simplicity, then adding EchoLink later if needed.

yeah the CTCSS thing trips up a lot of new folks, dont worry about it. the tone you're seeing — 88.5 Hz — is what you need to transmit to open up the repeater. basically the repeater has a little filter on it that ignores anyone who doesnt send that subaudible tone, which keeps random interference and other stuff from keying it up accidentally. so you program 88.5 as your transmit tone and youre good. on the Baofeng you go into the menu, i think its menu item 13 for T-CTCS (thats the transmit one), set it to 88.5 and you should be getting in. the receive CTCSS (R-CTCS) you can usually leave off unless the directory specifically says there's a receive tone required, which is less common. as for calling out on the repeater, yeah just wait for that courtesy beep after someone finishes talking, then just say your callsign and that youre monitoring or listening, something like "W1XYZ monitoring" is totally fine. people will usually come back to you or at least youll know the radio is working. dont overthink it, most repeater folks are pretty welcoming to new hams.

not a dumb question at all, everyone starts somewhere. so the question pool is legit the actual questions the test is pulled from, like they publish the whole thing publicly which is kind of nice honestly. the FCC requires that all the questions come from that pool so if you study every question in the pool you literally cannot fail. hamStudy.org is probably the best free resource, just do flashcard mode every day for a few weeks and youll be fine. the ARRL book is good background but you dont need to read the whole thing cover to cover to pass, some people just grind the question pool and show up and pass no problem. i'd say spend maybe 2-3 weeks on hamStudy and then take a practice exam until you're consistently hitting 85% or better before you go sit for the real thing.

omg yes i thought it was just me being a new ham and not knowing what im doing lol. i got my general back in march and ive been trying to figure out propagation ever since and it feels like every time i think i understand it something weird happens. someone in my club told me to just watch the DX cluster and jump on anything i see but half the time by the time i find the frequency its gone already. still learning i guess

I've been using the DX Spots app for about a year now and it's pretty solid. It has many filters to choose from, though I'd like to see current zulu time in the app and a dark mode option. For notifications of specific calls, HamAlert is definitely the way to go - saved me from missing several new ones!