Amanda Moore

so ive been checking into the regional net on 40m Wednesday evenings for about three months now and honestly its become one of my favorite parts of the hobby. started doing it just to practice making clean exchanges and giving my signal reports but now i kind of look forward to it every week. the net control guys are really patient too which helps when youre still figuring out the timing of when to break in. anyway i was wondering if anyone here does nets regularly and if theres any good ones worth adding to my schedule. ive heard there are some special event stations coming up around the holidays and im not sure how those work exactly — like do you just tune around and call them or is there a net structure involved? still pretty new so maybe im overthinking it

LoTW QSLs count towards ARRL awards like DXCC, while ARRL doesn't recognize eQSL for awards credit. Success rates show LoTW at 18% vs eQSL at 9%, so definitely start with LoTW for awards. The setup is more complex but worth it for serious DX work.

nice, 12 contacts with 5w and a random wire is solid for a first activation. you get your 4 for the qualifier? thats the only thing that matters lol. i remember my first one i was so nervous i forgot to log two of the contacts and had to try and remember the callsigns later. also 40m was probably the right call, 20 can be weird depending on time of day and where youre trying to reach. keep an eye on sotawatch next time and spot yourself before you start calling, makes a huge difference

so ive been kind of interested in ham radio for a while now, my neighbor has a big antenna setup and it looks really cool. he told me i need to get licensed before i can transmit anything which makes sense i guess. but i have no idea where to start with studying or how the test even works. like is it multiple choice? do i need to know morse code? i looked it up a little and saw there are different license classes which is confusing, not sure if i should just go for technician first or try to do them all at once or what. any advice would be helpful, i dont really have a background in electronics or anything like that

yeah the band plan stuff trips up a lot of newly licensed folks, totally normal. so the short version is that as a General you do get HF privileges but they're not the whole band — the FCC carves out certain segments for Extra class only. on 40 meters specifically you can use SSB in the 7.175 to 7.300 MHz range, the lower portion of the phone segment is Extra only. the power limit thing your club guy mentioned is real, at least in some contexts — there are situations where 200W applies in certain segments near the Novice/Tech sub-bands, it's in Part 97.313 if you want to look it up directly. for digital modes they fall under whatever emission privileges you have for that part of the band, so it's not a separate category exactly, just has to fit within your allocated segment. honestly the ARRL band plan chart is way easier to read than the actual FCC document, just google the ARRL frequency allocations chart and print it out, way clearer than staring at part 97 tables

congrats and welcome. my first QSO was a complete disaster, i forgot to say my callsign at the end and the other op had to ask me twice lol. dont sweat the small stuff youll get the hang of it fast the jump to HF is worth it when youre ready, nothing quite like working somebody in europe on 20m with a wire antenna you threw up in a tree

yeah 10m has been really good on and off for a few months now, we're climbing toward the solar maximum so the SFI has been regularly getting up into the 150s and even touching 200 on good days. the simple rule i use is if SFI is above 120 or so it's worth at least checking 10 and 12, and if the K index is 2 or below the bands are generally behaving themselves. when K goes above 4 thats usually when things get rough regardless of how good the flux is because of geomagnetic disturbance messing everything up. 15m has honestly been my favorite lately, the openings to Europe in the morning from here in the midwest have been pretty consistent. give it a shot, you might be surprised. 12m is kind of the sleeper band that nobody monitors so when its open you can work stuff with almost no competition

Great after-action report! Having that Quick-Start plan really helps with consistent procedures during activation. I've been through several hurricane activations and each one teaches you something new. Consider documenting your lessons learned for your local ARES group - it'll help prepare the next wave of new members.

honestly the memorize approach isnt terrible if you're in a hurry but yeah for the math stuff it really does help to actually get it or you'll forget it the second you pass. the antenna length calculations are pretty straightforward once you just do a few of them, its basically just 468 divided by frequency for a dipole and you'll see that same formula come up enough that it sticks. what helped me was hamstudy.org, its free and it drills you on the actual question pool and tracks which ones you keep getting wrong. i probably did like 2-3 practice exams a day for a week before i sat for it. the operating procedures and regulations questions are honestly the easiest once you read through them once, most of it is just common sense if you think about it from a safety standpoint. the RF exposure stuff tripped me up at first but once i understood why those rules exist it clicked. good luck, the test really isnt that bad

CQ WW is honestly one of the best ones to start with even if your station isnt super competitive because theres just SO much activity you'll be hearing stations from everywhere. The exchange is simple too — you send your signal report and your CQ zone, thats it. Zone 5 if youre in the midwest, zone 4 or 3 if youre further east, etc. Look up the zone map before you start so you're not fumbling around for it during a pileup. For logging just grab a free copy of N1MM+ before the weekend, theres a learning curve but plenty of tutorials on youtube and it handles the dupe checking and multiplier tracking automatically so you dont have to think about it. Your G5RV will work fine, especially on 40 and 80 where propagation can be pretty forgiving. Dont stress about your score, just work as many stations as you can and enjoy the experience. First contest is always kind of chaotic but thats part of the fun. SOTA is a totally different animal, more of an outdoor activator thing, you go hike a summit and operate portable. Still great but not really the same energy as a contest weekend. Do CQ WW first and then maybe check out a SOTA activation in the spring when weather is nicer.

so ive been licensed about 8 months now and just got into chasing DX a little bit. a buddy at the club mentioned i should be using the cluster spotting networks to find active stations but honestly the whole thing is kind of confusing to me still. like i get the basic idea — someone spots a DX station and it shows up on the cluster and then you go tune to that frequency — but theres so many different sites and apps that all seem to do the same thing? right now ive got qrz.com open basically all the time anyway for lookups, and i noticed they have spots on there too. then theres dxwatch which a few people told me about, and i downloaded an app called DX Toolkit or something like that on my phone. are these all pulling from the same data or are they separate networks? sometimes i see a spot on one that doesnt show up on the other for a few minutes and it throws me off when im trying to work someone quick. also is there a way to filter by band because right now im only on HF with a pretty modest setup — g5rv in the attic, ic-7300 — and seeing spots for bands i cant use is kind of cluttering things up. appreciate any help, still learning all this

i was in the same boat when i started and honestly just pick LoTW first and get that sorted. eQSL you can do anytime its like a 5 minute signup. the certificate thing for LoTW sounds scary but i just followed the instructions on the ARRL site and it worked fine, took maybe a week to get the cert back in the mail if i remember right. one thing nobody told me when i started — a lot of the FT8 guys upload to LoTW pretty regularly so you might already have confirmations waiting for you once you get your account set up. that was a nice surprise for me, logged in the first time and had like 20 something confirmed already.

so i've been meaning to try satellite work for probably two years now and yesterday i finally just did it. used my handheld and a cheap arrow antenna, az/el from heavens-above which i know isnt the best but it was what i had on my phone. managed to hear a bunch of stations on the downlink pretty clearly but i dont think anyone heard me, or at least no one came back to me. anyway my main question is about the doppler shift stuff. i was manually adjusting my VFO during the pass but i honestly wasnt sure if i was doing it right or fast enough near AOS and LOS. like do you really need to be hitting it constantly or is there a range where it kind of plateaus in the middle of the pass where you can leave it alone for a bit also i noticed what sounded like a really loud buzzing carrier kind of sitting on the downlink frequency the whole time, was that someone kerchunking or is that just something that happens. pass was maybe 8 degrees max elevation so maybe that had something to do with it

yeah on contest weekends its phonetics every single exchange no exceptions, conditions can go south fast and you dont want someone logging the wrong call. but a casual ragchew on a clear frequency with good signal? nah i usually just say my call normal after the first few exchanges. nobody's gonna ding you for it

yeah my first activation was a disaster too, knocked over my whole setup twice because i didnt stake the pole down properly and the wind just demolished it. honestly 4 contacts still counts so dont sweat it, the minimum is 4 for a reason. i use a cheap waterproof notepad from amazon now, the ones made for scuba divers work great in rain. also might want to look at a linked dipole instead of the EFHW if youre gonna do multi-band stuff, way easier to tune in the field imo

yeah what he said about LoTW is right. one thing i'll add is that WSJT-X can actually be set up to upload to LoTW automatically if you configure it right, theres a setting in the reporting tab i think. saves a lot of manual steps once you get it dialed in. congrats on the JA contact by the way, that never gets old

JS8Call is definitely worth trying if you want actual QSOs instead of just log entries. its basically FT8 underneath but slowed down so you can type longer messages and have a back and forth. the tradeoff is its maybe 3-4dB less sensitive than FT8 because of the wider bandwidth and shorter symbol time comparatively, so its not quite as magic but still way better than SSB on a marginal band opening as for the audio setup, no conflicts at all if you just make sure WSJT-X isnt also trying to grab the soundcard at the same time. i have mine set up with VAC on windows and just switch which program gets the virtual cable. on linux its even easier honestly. activity is real but not FT8-level, 40m and 20m have decent traffic especially on weekends, and theres an HF email/store-forward thing called Winlink adjacent community that sometimes overlaps but JS8Call has its own spots frequency around 14.078 or so PSK31 is not dead but its pretty thin. you'll find people on 20m around 14.070 on weekends, older guys mostly who like the fact that you can actually type in real time and see the other persons words appear character by character. its actually kind of fun for that reason but you need decent SNR, maybe -10dB or so, nowhere near FT8 territory

yeah the Q code thing can be overwhelming at first but honestly you only need maybe a dozen or so for everyday use. QTH is your location, QSL means acknowledged or confirming a contact, QRM is interference from other stations (man-made), QRN is natural static and noise, QSB is signal fading, QRZ means who is calling me, QRO is increase power and QRP is low power or decrease power. those right there will cover probably 90% of what you hear in casual conversation. as for 73 yeah thats just the traditional sign-off, best regards basically. 88 means love and kisses, its usually used between close friends on air or sometimes when talking to a spouse who also has a license. you'll also see 55 sometimes which means good luck. none of those are Q codes though theyre just traditional amateur abbreviations that go way back to telegraph days honestly. the FT8 stuff is a bit different because thats so automated most of the abbreviations are just part of the software protocol, you dont really need to memorize those the same way

It's all about making the next QSO as quickly as possible. Master the art of zero-gap operating - your CQ should start transmitting the instant you log the previous contact. Also, work multipliers first before spending time on other stations. A new mult is worth way more than another QSO point.

yeah the band plans can be a bit confusing at first because theres the FCC allocations which are the actual legal limits, and then theres the ARRL band plan which is more of a gentlemans agreement about who operates where. for 40m as a general your phone privelege starts at 7.175 and goes up to 7.300 which is the top of the US allocation. the cw and data stuff is down lower. the reason people say watch the band edges is because if your signal is wide or your rig is slightly off you can accidentally splatter outside the allocation which is a rules violation. 7.125 specifically is kind of a gray zone because theres some international stuff going on around there and you can hear DX stations working outside what we'd consider normal domestic phone territory. its not that complicated once it clicks but i remember being in the same spot when i first upgraded

so ive been running a mag mount dual band on my truck for about two years now and honestly its been fine for local stuff but i keep noticing the signal just isnt as clean as i want it to be, especially when im moving. the mag mount slips a tiny bit on the roof and i think thats causing some of the weirdness im seeing on the waterfall when i use it with the SDR. anyway my buddy keeps telling me to just drill the roof and put in a proper NMO mount and run the cable through the door jamb or down through the headliner. he says the ground plane difference alone is worth it. i believe him but im also not thrilled about putting a hole in a truck i still owe payments on lol. has anyone gone through this and regretted it or had issues with the install? also wondering if it makes more sense to do a through-hole on the lip of the roof or actually center of the roof. ive seen both and not sure which is cleaner for VHF/UHF specifically. the antenna im looking at is a Tram 1185 or maybe a Comet SBB-5 if i can find one locally.

the inverted-V angle is fine at 100 degrees, honestly anything above 90 is workable and you're not going to notice the difference on 40m from a flat dipole at that height anyway. 25 feet apex on 40 is pretty low so youre mostly getting nvis radiation which is actually great for regional contacts, explains the ontario qso probably. as for the resonance being low, that's almost certainly because of the inverted-V configuration itself, the legs being angled down effectively makes the antenna act electrically longer than a flat dipole of the same length. pretty common to need to trim a bit when you go from calculating for a flat dipole to actually hanging it as an inverted-V. if the tuner handles it i wouldn't stress too much, but if you want to clean it up just trim maybe half inch at a time off each end, re-check with the analyzer, repeat. don't trim too aggressively, easier to take off than add back. stranded wire is fine btw, some people swear by solid but ive never noticed a real world difference at hf frequencies.

okay so first thing, dont panic, the technician exam is genuinely not that bad if you put a little time into it. the question pool thing just means the FCC publishes all the possible questions in advance so you're basically studying from the actual test, nothing is a surprise if you prep right. most people use hamstudy.org which is free and it just drills you on questions over and over until you're getting them consistently. i'd say spend maybe 2-3 weeks on it, maybe 20-30 minutes a day, and you'll probably be fine. some people knock it out in a weekend but depends how much the electronics theory trips you up. the regulations stuff is mostly just memorizing things like frequency limits and power limits, it clicks after a while. you dont need a class, plenty of people self study no problem. find a local club through arrl.org when you're ready to take the test, they run exam sessions pretty regularly and the VEs are usually pretty chill about it, nobody's trying to trick you or anything.

i built up a small EME station a couple winters ago, 2x9el cross yagis on 2m with the 9700 and a chinese LNA i replaced pretty quick after i actually measured its NF and it was... not what they claimed. anyway once i got a proper SSB electronic preamp in there the difference was pretty obvious just listening to the moon noise, which is one of the ways you sanity check your system actually. the tracking thing is genuinely important more than i expected. i tried doing it manually at first just running the rotator by hand following an app on my phone and it works but youre constantly fiddling with it instead of operating. got a G-5500 secondhand and wired it up to PstRotator and now it just follows the moon and i can actually pay attention to the screen. made my first EME contact about 3 weeks after getting the tracking sorted which felt pretty wild honestly. station in germany decoded me on the first attempt which i was not expecting at all

yeah what he said about hackrf receive being kind of meh is accurate. i have one and i mostly use it for transmit experiments and signal replay stuff, not for actual monitoring. if you just want to receive better the RSP1A or honestly even the RTL-SDR V3 with a good upconverter for HF is a more sensible path. one thing i'll throw in — have you tried running the RTL with SDR++ instead of whatever youre using now. the noise floor handling and DC spike suppression in SDR++ is noticeably cleaner than older software and sometimes people think the hardware is the problem when its the software pipeline. not saying dont upgrade, just maybe worth a try first so you know what youre actually gaining when you do buy something new.