David Thomas

so ive been messing around with an arduino uno for the past few weeks trying to get it to handle my antenna switching automatically based on what band the radio is on. the idea is pretty simple — read the band data output from my IC-7300 (its on the accessory port, CI-V stuff) and then fire the appropriate relay to connect whichever antenna is right for that band. got the relay board wired up and the basic sketch is working for manually triggering the relays but im stuck on parsing the CI-V data coming in over the serial connection. ive read through the icom protocol docs and i kind of understand the structure of the messages but the arduino keeps reading garbage. not sure if its a baud rate thing or im just not handling the byte stream correctly. running at 19200 right now which i think is the default for the 7300 but honestly not 100% sure. anyone done something like this or have a sketch they started from? dont want to reinvent the wheel if someone already figured out the CI-V parsing part.

yeah what he said about the noise, inverter gens are generally pretty clean but chargers can be a wildcard. i'd also make sure your genny is downwind of the operating position if you can manage it, exhaust smell gets old real fast and depending on how warm it is you'll be miserable by hour 3. one thing i'll add — have you thought about where the 7300 is sitting relative to the battery? i fried a DC connector once running too long of a thin cable from a 100ah and the voltage drop under transmit was enough to make the radio do weird things. probably obvious but worth double checking your wire gauge for whatever run length you end up with.

Getting ready to upgrade from Tech to General and trying to figure out the best study approach. I've seen folks recommend HamStudy.org for practice tests and ARRL Exam Review for chapter-by-chapter study. Others swear by the ARRL General Class License Manual which covers every question in the 2023 question pool. What worked best for you when upgrading? Should I focus on understanding concepts or memorizing the question pool? Need to get 26 out of 35 questions correct (74%) and want to nail it on the first try. Also curious about study time - I've read most people need 30-40 hours for General. Is that realistic coming from a solid Tech background?

oh man yeah the 13-15wpm plateau is real, i spent like 4 months parked right there and thought i was just not wired for it. what finally broke it for me was forcing myself to listen at 18 or even 20wpm even when i was only copying maybe 30% of it. sounds counterproductive but your brain starts recognizing the rhythm of whole words instead of individual letters and eventually something clicks. the Koch method talks about this, always train at or slightly above your target speed not below it. also the panicking and trying to write everything is exactly the wrong instinct, i know its hard to just let letters go but you really do have to get comfortable missing stuff. if you copy 60% of a qso you usually have enough context to fill in the rest. took me forever to actually believe that but its true. keep at it, the plateau does end

so ive been using WSJT-X for FT8 for a while now and just letting it log to its own internal log which i know is dumb but it worked well enough until i started caring about actually keeping a real log and tracking confirmations and all that anyway i finally started looking at proper logging software and im torn between N1MM and Log4OM. from what i can tell N1MM is really built around contesting and a lot of people swear by it for that but im not really a big contester, i do the occasional contest like field day or a state QSO party but its not my main thing. Log4OM looks way more like a general purpose logger with all the award tracking and stuff built in the thing im not sure about is how well each of these actually integrates with WSJT-X. i know WSJT-X can send UDP packets or whatever to external loggers but ive read some threads where people had issues with duplicate entries or the frequency not syncing right. does anyone run one of these day to day with WSJT-X and actually have it working cleanly? also does Log4OM do contest mode at all or is it pretty limited there compared to N1MM

yeah $850 sounds about right, seen them go for more lately. one thing i'll mention is check if he has the original box and the DC power cable because icom's stock cable on that rig is pretty thin for 100w sustained operation and some guys swap it out. not a dealbreaker just something to know about. also the menu system takes a little getting used to if youre coming from yaesu but after a week or so its fine

tail-ending works but you gotta be careful not to stomp on whoever the DX just finished working, ive seen people get pretty annoyed at that in dx nets and stuff. mostly though yeah the timing thing is the real skill. i'm still pretty new to serious DX chasing and honestly the pileup thing still intimidates me, i end up just giving up after a few calls and waiting for a less rare one lol

so i've been running a diamond x50 on the roof for a while now, about 50 foot of RG-8X going down through the attic and into the shack. works fine on 2m but i feel like im losing quite a bit on 70cm. been comparing notes with a guy across town and my signal reports on 440 are always a bit softer than i'd expect given the height and location. i've been trying to figure out if its worth pulling all that coax and replacing with LMR-400 or something comparable. the run isnt super complicated but its not fun either, goes through a couple of bends in the attic and i used one of those right angle adapters at the radio end which i know isnt ideal. probably should have used a proper sweep there but at the time i just wanted to get it working. anyone done a straight swap like this and noticed a real difference on 70cm specifically? not talking about marginal gains, like actually noticeable on the air difference. the x50 is pointed up at about 20ft agl so im not expecting miracles but i do hit a couple of repeaters that are borderline and it would be nice to nail those consistently.

So ive been seeing a lot of chatter about the IC-905 on various groups and someone at our club meeting last week was going on about it for like 20 minutes straight. I'll be honest I zoned out a bit but from what I gathered its doing some pretty wild stuff on the microwave bands which is not something I ever thought id be interested in but here we are. Also unrelated but kind of related — anyone been noticing 10 meters lately? We had a solid opening here in the midwest last thursday afternoon, worked a bunch of south american stations without even trying, was just sitting there with the radio on in the background and suddenly the band was just alive. Reminded me of why I got into this hobby in the first place honestly. Anyway back to the original question, has anyone actually put hands on the 905 or is this still mostly a "wait for stock" situation everywhere. And is the price as bad as people are saying or is that just the usual sticker shock that goes away after a week

so i've been putting off building my own dipole forever because i kept thinking i needed to buy something commercial, but last weekend i finally just did it with some #14 stranded wire i had sitting in the garage and a SO-239 chassis connector i pulled off an old project. cut each leg to about 33.5 feet based on the 468/f formula for 7.150, got it up in an inverted V config with the apex at maybe 28 feet off a fiberglass push-up mast. center insulator i just made from a chunk of PVC pipe with some holes drilled through it, nothing fancy. ran 50 ohm coax straight down to the shack. put the analyzer on it before connecting anything and it came back with an SWR of like 1.4:1 right at 7.150 which honestly surprised me, i was expecting to have to do a lot more trimming. bandwidth on 40 is usable basically across the whole band with the tuner helping at the edges. i did end up cutting about 4 inches off each leg to bring the resonant point up a tiny bit but thats it. anyway the point is i wish i had just done this years ago instead of buying that multiband trapped vertical. the wire probably cost me less than 8 bucks total. if anyone's been on the fence about doing a homebrew dipole just do it, the math really does work out pretty close to right the first time most of the time.

so ive been licensed about four months now (general) and i finally worked up the nerve to check into a local 2m net last tuesday. i waited for the net control to ask for check-ins, said my callsign phonetically like i practiced, and got acknowledged no problem. felt pretty good about that part. but then later in the net someone started a roundtable kind of discussion and i genuinely had no idea when it was my turn to talk or if i was even supposed to jump in. i keyed up once and apparently someone else was mid-transmission so there was a horrible squeal and i just kind of panicked and didnt say anything for the rest of the net. i felt really embarrassed. is there like an unwritten rule for when you can speak up during those informal parts? i know net control is supposed to run things but it felt pretty loose at that point. also is it rude to just check in and not really participate beyond that? some nights im just listening and learning but i dont want to waste anyone's time by checking in if im not going to contribute.

congrats on passing. honestly the first few QSOs are always awkward no matter what anyone tells you. i remember mine was on 2m simplex and i was so nervous i called CQ on the wrong frequency and didnt realize it for like 10 minutes. took me a while to figure out why nobody was answering. the cheap HT thing is fine for getting started but once you catch the bug you'll want to look at a proper mobile rig or even a base station eventually, the difference in audio quality is pretty noticeable especially on some of the busier repeaters where people can get a little picky about that stuff. anyway welcome aboard and dont stress the early mistakes thats just part of it

im kind of in the same boat as you honestly, got my ticket in 2020 and just recently started caring about confirmations. one thing i didnt realize until embarrasingly late is that not all QSOs on LoTW match up automatically -- both sides have to upload their log for it to confirm. had a bunch of contacts where i uploaded my side and waited forever and nothing happened. so if you worked someone and its been a while with no LoTW confirm, sometimes sending a direct QSL or even a card via the bureau is worth it just to have a backup.

According to the manual, you can use standard Cat5e/Cat6 up to 100 meters without issues. I'm running mine through my home network switch with no problems - the buffering handles any minor network hiccups perfectly.

oh man dont be nervous, everyone on that net was a first-timer once and most net controls are pretty patient with new folks. the basic thing is yeah, you wait for net control to call for check-ins — they usually say something like "are there any stations wishing to check in" or similar — and then you just key up and say your callsign phonetically or sometimes just the suffix depending on how casual the net is. like you might hear people just say "kilo four november foxtrot" or whatever. net control will come back and acknowledge you and you're in. if you miss the check-in window honestly just wait for a pause and key up quickly with your call and say youre a late check-in, most nets have a spot for that and net control will work you in. the guy who talked over the net probably just wasnt listening first which is the big rule — always listen before you transmit, even just a few seconds. you already know that though if youve been monitoring. seriously just do it next tuesday, worst case net control asks you to repeat and thats it

so i finally got my callsign in the ULS last night and i was so excited i basically ran to my radio and just started listening to the local repeater for a while. eventually i keyed up and said my callsign and somebody came back to me right away which was awesome but then i completely blanked on what to say next. like i had my signal report and everything but i just kind of fumbled through the whole exchange and forgot to say my callsign at the end like you're supposed to. the guy was super nice about it though and gave me a 59 which i think was probably being generous given how bad my audio probably sounded through that cheap HT i picked up. anyway just wanted to introduce myself i guess, been lurking here for months while i was studying and glad to finally be licensed. KD9 something something, you'll see me on here more i'm sure.

honestly i went through a phase where i was mixing in non-standard phonetics like saying "ocean" instead of Oscar because i thought it sounded clearer and an older guy on the net corrected me pretty quick lol. stick to NATO, especially if you ever work any international stations because they'll expect it and anything else just causes confusion. the whole point is that everyone agreed on the same words so theres no ambiguity. "Kilo" and "Lima" for example are specifically chosen because they dont sound like anything else in a pile of static

the timing thing is real and i dont think enough people talk about it. when propagation is marginal you sometimes have a window of maybe 15-20 seconds where your signal is peaking into wherever the DX is, and if you're not transmitting in that window you're just wasting time. i run a cluster spot combined with watching my own signal on a remote SDR near the DX location when i can, gives you a rough idea when your signal is actually hitting. on the power question, honestly after a certain point it's diminishing returns. going from 100w to a kw is meaningful, going from a kw to 1.5kw, ehhh. antenna is almost always the better investment. the guys who consistently break tough pileups usually have stacked beams or something up high, not just raw power. that said if you're running 100w and the other guy is running 800w and you have the same antenna he's going to win most of the time, so it's not irrelevant either. one thing i've found specifically with DXpeditions is they often have a rhythm to how they work the pile. some guys only take partial calls, some want full calls, some do geographic splits without announcing them. if you can figure that out from just listening you can play to it instead of just screaming into the void like everyone else.

the inverted-V configuration will do that, yeah. when you bring the legs down at 45 degrees the feedpoint impedance drops below the standard 72 ohms you'd get from a flat dipole — can land anywhere from 50 to 65 ohms depending on the angle and height, so 1.8:1 on 50 ohm coax honestly isnt bad at all. some guys put a 1:1 choke balun right at the feedpoint which can help clean things up a bit and also stops common mode current on the braid which might be part of whats messing with your readings. i built a 20m version of basically the same setup last spring and had similar numbers, threw together a quick ugly balun with a bunch of RG-8X wound on a paint can lid and it dropped down to 1.3. also worth checking if theres any water getting into that SO-239 — even a little moisture in there will do weird things to your readings especially on transmit.

yeah the inverting transponder thing trips everyone up the first few times, dont feel bad. the doppler correction in gpredict through hamlib can be finicky depending on how you have the rig control configured — if its only correcting one radio youre going to drift off fast especially near AOS and LOS where the doppler rate is highest. what i do, and this isnt the elegant solution but it works, is start a pass by putting out a quick carrier on the uplink near the middle of the transponder passband and then sweep the downlink receiver maybe 5-10 kHz above and below where gpredict says you should be. once you hear yourself lock onto that and then let gpredict take over from there. the key is getting that initial acquisition done early in the pass while the doppler rate is slower. once youre over 20 degrees elevation and the satellite is closing fast the rate really picks up and chasing it manually is a nightmare. also check that hamlib is actually addressing both radios with the right COM ports, sounds like maybe it wasnt. AO-73 is a great bird to learn on, the linear transponder is low power but its definitely workable with your setup.

i just passed mine like two months ago so this is fresh. honestly the sub-bands were not my main reason either, i just wanted to finish what i started when i got my ticket. the theory is intimidating when you first look at it but its not as bad as it looks. i used hamstudy dot org almost exclusively and just kept doing practice exams until i was hitting 85 percent or better consistently. some of the questions about vacuum tubes and older circuit stuff felt pretty random but they come up so you gotta know em worth it? yeah i think so even if you never touch the extra portions of the bands. just feels good to have the full license

The WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 path is correct for mobile operation. Smart TNCs are capable of determining what has already happened with the packet and can prevent redundant packet repeating within the network. This two-hop path allows your packets to reach fill-in digipeaters first, then get picked up by wide-area digipeaters for better coverage without excessive repeating.

nice one on the VP6, thats a tough one. question though -- when you say you figured out they were moving their listening frequency up, were you just manually tuning around or do you have some way to visualize that? im still on a 7300 and i use the waterfall but in a big pile it gets so cluttered its hard to tell whos who. maybe im not interpreting it right

so our ARES group has a county-wide exercise coming up in about 5 weeks and im trying to figure out the best approach for our primary field station. we're going to be set up at a park for potentially 24-36 hours and i've been going back and forth on the power situation for a while now. right now i'm thinking a 100ah LiFePO4 battery as the main source with a small honda eu2200i as backup but my concern is whether the generator noise is going to be a problem for the HF stuff. last time we ran a genny near the radio it was picking up all kinds of hash on 40m. i know bonding and filtering helps but how much of a pain is this in practice when you're setting up fast under field conditions. also the antenna situation — i was planning to do an EFHW for 40/80 with the 9:1 unun up in a tree, probably 60-65 feet on the long end. anyone done this for extended emcomm ops and found it lacking, like did you wish you had something more robust. the other option i keep thinking about is just bringing the trap vertical but that means more stuff to haul and set up. not really asking about the radio itself we've got that sorted, just the antenna and power side of things is where i keep second guessing myself

Koch method is the way to go in my opinion, been recommending it for years. the basic idea is you start with just two characters at full speed, like 20wpm, and you dont move on until you can copy them at 90% accuracy or whatever threshold you set. the trap most people fall into is learning at slow speed and then having to relearn everything faster later because your brain memorized the rhythm wrong. Farnsworth is kind of a middle ground where the characters themselves are sent fast but there's extra space between them, some people like it but Koch purists will argue with you about that all day. for actually practicing, LCWO dot net is what i started with and its free and it does the Koch method properly. just do 15-20 minutes a day consistently and dont skip days, that part matters more than how long your sessions are. also dont try to write down every letter at first, just let it wash over you for a bit. the recognition has to become automatic or you'll always be behind.