David Johnson45

Just received my Raspberry Pi 5 and planning to migrate my current Pi 4 setup that runs WSJT-X, fldigi, and a custom Python script for automatic antenna switching based on band selection. Has anyone tested Andy's Ham Radio Linux on Pi 5 hardware yet? My current Pi 4 setup occasionally drops PTT timing on FT8 during high CPU usage. I'm particularly concerned about audio interface reliability - several club members have had problems getting audio out from Pi to transceiver, with radios going into TX but no signal being received. Looking for real-world performance comparisons and any GPIO timing improvements with the Pi 5.

so ive been a ham for about 3 years now and kept telling myself id get a proper go-kit together and never did. then last month we had that big windstorm and the power was out for almost two days and i was just sitting there with my HT and a half charged battery pack feeling pretty useless. woke me up a little. so im trying to actually do this now. i have an IC-7300 which i love but its obviously not the most portable thing in the world, and i have an older Yaesu FT-817 thats been sitting in a drawer. im thinking the 817 makes more sense for a kit but i honestly dont know what else needs to go in there. like power, antennas, cables, all of it. do people usually build around a specific case or just throw stuff in a bag? ive seen some really elaborate setups online that look like they took years to put together and i dont want to overthink it but i also want something that actually works when i need it. any advice from people who have actually used their kit in the field or for an emergency would be great. not looking for perfection just something functional.

honestly at four months and 18wpm youre not doing bad at all, but yeah theres a few things worth checking before you just grind through it. first thing id do is back off the contact spacing on the paddle — a lot of new guys set it too wide because it feels more forgiving but it actually fights you at higher speeds. you want just a tiny gap, like barely a business card thickness on each side. if its too wide youre working harder than you need to and your timing suffers. the weight setting on the keyer is also worth playing with more systematically. try setting it to dead center (50%) and see how that feels, then nudge it a tiny bit toward heavier if your dits are still dropping. and honestly the MFJ-464 is fine but it can be a little quirky, mine had a slight issue with the iambic mode where it would occasionally add a phantom dit at the end of a squeeze. you might try switching it to mode A if youre in mode B or vice versa and see if that changes anything. but mostly — slow back down and build clean. Koch method or just lots of plain QSOs at a comfortable speed, the fast stuff comes on its own when the muscle memory is there

After nearly 30 years on the air, I still see (and occasionally make) the same operating mistakes. Before starting any transmission, spend a few minutes listening to ensure the frequency is clear. This prevents interference with ongoing communications and helps identify the right moment to join in. Key points I've learned: Use your call sign legally and clearly at the start and end of your communications, as well as every ten minutes during a conversation, as required by regulations.Wait for your turn to speak, and refrain from interrupting ongoing conversations.Plain language is effective and inclusive, making communications clear to all, especially in emergency scenarios.What other common mistakes do you see newcomers (and some old-timers) making?

yeah the cluster world is a bit of a mess to sort out at first, totally get it. most of the big ones like DXwatch, the QRZ bandscope cluster thing, and DXsummit are all pulling from the same underlying ARRL/CC cluster network so youll see a lot of overlap but not always 100% identical because of how the nodes propagate spots and filter duplicates differently what i ended up settling on after way too much experimenting is just running a telnet connection directly to a good cluster node in DX4WIN or even just a raw telnet session and then using something like DXLab's SpotCollector to filter it. you can set it to only alert you for certain bands or DXCC entities you need and it plays a sound or pops up a window. its a bit of setup but once its running its pretty reliable. on mobile ive been using Ham Alert which lets you set really specific triggers -- like only notify me if ZL is spotted on 17m with a signal report above a certain threshold. that one changed everything for me honestly the 20 minute delay youre seeing in HRD is probably a polling interval setting somewhere, worth digging into that

oh dont stress about it at all, that happens to literally everyone especially early on and honestly even experienced ops do it sometimes when propagation is being weird or the repeater has a slow tail. the thing that helps me is after you hear someone unkey, count to about two full seconds before you start — like actually count it in your head, one-one-thousand two-one-thousand — and that usually gives enough space. some repeaters have a longer hang time than others so what works on one might be a hair too short on another. the fact that NCS just moved on is actually a good sign, he wasnt making a big deal of it. net controls have seen everything. if you were causing real problems somebody wouldve said something or he wouldve addressed it. you're doing fine, the fact that you were even nervous about it means you're paying attention to the right things. just keep checking in, it gets more natural pretty fast.

Congrats on your new license! For that reason it might be an idea to arrange a QSO with a friend, or someone else in your radio club. Start with someone you know from the club - it takes all the pressure off and you can practice proper procedures without worry.

honestly the SO2R learning curve is real but its not as bad as people make it out to be once you get the interlocking set up properly in N1MM. the bigger thing is you dont just flip a switch and suddenly your rate doubles -- it took me probably 3-4 major contests before i stopped losing QSOs because i was fumbling with which radio had focus. started by just using the second radio passively to find mults while i ran on the first one, not even trying to work two pileups simultaneously, and that alone probably added 15-20 contacts in a typical 4 hour sprint just from not having to give up my run frequency to go chase something. but honestly before you go down that rabbit hole -- your bandmap workflow matters a ton. are you actually sorting by dupe status and jumping to unworked stations fast or are you scrolling around? and whats your CQing strategy, like how long do you wait before calling CQ again when the pile dries up. a lot of guys sit on a dead frequency way too long. i used to do that, shaved probably 10 Qs an hour off my rate without realizing it.

the bounced reply thing happened to me too when i first set it up, turned out i had the address slightly wrong — i was using my callsign lowercase and i think there was a dot somewhere that shouldnt have been there. once i fixed it worked fine. also worth checking the winlink.org website directly, you can log in there and see if messages are actually hitting your account or getting dropped before that btw totally off topic but are you using VARA FM or just VARA HF? i ask because if you have a local gateway on VHF that might be way more reliable for just checking email stuff day to day, saves the HF hassle. i use 40m for when im away from home but locally its all 2m VARA FM and it connects in like 20 seconds usually

The NTIA says that hams planning to operate on 60 meters "must assure that their signal is transmitted on the channel center frequency." This means that amateurs should set their carrier frequency 1.5 kHz lower than the channel center frequency. For USB voice, dial in 1.5 kHz below the channel center. For digital transmissions, they must be centred on the channel-centre frequencies, which is 1.5 kHz above the suppressed carrier frequency of a transceiver operated in USB mode.

i just did this like two months ago, went from tech to general and the exam wasnt bad at all. i used hamStudy every night for maybe 3 weeks and felt pretty ready. some of the electrical theory tripped me up at first but once you see the same questions enough times it clicks. passed with only a couple wrong. the HF thing is honestly kind of overwhelming at first ngl, i got on 40m the first night and just listened for like an hour before i worked up the nerve to call anyone lol. but people are generally pretty welcoming especially if you say its your first HF contact

haha yeah mine wasnt pretty either. i was so nervous i forgot to let go of the PTT when the other guy was talking and just kept stepping on him. he was very patient about it. that was probably 12 years ago now and i still cringe a little thinking about it. the kerchunk thing happens to everyone, dont sweat it. welcome to the hobby

dont overthink the pi side of it honestly. i tried doing the full flrig integration thing and it was more trouble than it was worth for just switching antennas. ended up just doing a simple button box with a rotary encoder and an OLED display on the arduino itself, maps to which antenna is active, does what i need. the automation angle is cool but sometimes simpler is just better and more reliable especially if you ever want to hand the shack off to someone else or you just want it to work without debugging a python script at 2am during a contest.

Yeah you pretty much have it right. The filing window is 18 days and during that time anyone can throw in an application for the same call. When the window closes the FCC processes them and if theres only one applicant, boom, you get it. If there are multiple applicants it goes by preference — previous holder of that exact call gets first priority, then it goes by license class with Extra at the top. As a General you can still win a contested application if nobody with higher preference applied, which happens more than you'd think for less popular calls. And yes, 1x2 and 2x1 formats are Extra only. For General you're looking at 2x2 or 1x3 like you said. Honestly some of the 2x2 calls are really clean sounding, dont sleep on them. W6XX type formats can sound great on CW especially. The ae7lookup site or the callsign search on radioreference are good for checking availability. Just be patient with the FCC processing side — sometimes it moves fast, sometimes it feels like the application fell into a black hole for a few days before anything updates in the ULS.