James Wilson

yeah nets definitely vary a lot. the tuesday night rag chew net our club runs is super casual, people just kinda toss their call in whenever there's a gap, but the emergency preparedness net we do on thursdays is much more structured and NCS gets a little twitchy if you don't follow procedure exactly. so context matters a lot. one thing that helped me when i was newer was just listening to a net for a few weeks before actually checking in. get a feel for how that particular NCS runs things. also some nets have a written preamble they post on the club website which is super useful.

so the short version is the FCC allocation is the law and the band plan is basically a gentlemens agreement that most people follow. as a general on 40m your phone privileges run from 7.175 up to 7.300 MHz, that's the actual legal limit. anything outside that and you're technically in violation regardless of what anyone tells you. the band edge thing is about your signal not your carrier. if you're running SSB and you're at 7.300 your signal is going to have sidebands extending above that into territory you're not allowed to operate in. the convention is to stay a few kHz inside the edge just to make sure your whole signal is within your allocation. most people say 7.295 or so to be safe on the upper end, and on the lower end for generals on phone 7.178 or so gives you a little breathing room from the extra class only segment below. honestly just watch the band for a few weeks and you'll start to see where people actually congregate. the band plan makes a lot more sense once you see it in practice.

went through it last spring. honestly the theory scared me too when i first looked at the question pool but after a few weeks with the hamstudy website it started clicking. the math isnt as bad as it looks because most of the questions are really just testing if you recognize what the formula is, not like actually solving problems from scratch. the transmission line stuff and the filter Q factor questions tripped me up at first but if you just drill the questions enough the patterns become familiar. the extra privileges are worth it imo. the phone sub-bands are nice but the real reason i wanted it was cw at the bottom of the bands, thats where all the good stuff is. took me about 6 weeks of casual studying maybe 20 minutes a night and passed first try. dont overthink it just start with hamstudy and see how youre scoring after a week or two.

took mine last spring after putting it off forever. the math looks scarier than it is once you actually sit with it for a bit. theres enough pattern recognition in the question pool that you can pass without being an electrical engineer, not saying you dont learn anything but its not as brutal as it looks at first glance. i used hamstudy dot org and just drilled questions for like 6 weeks maybe. the extra privileges on 75 meters are what i really wanted, theres a bunch of nets down there that are technically in the extra segment and i kept getting told i couldnt check in. so that was annoying enough to finally push me to do it lol

PL tone and CTCSS are the same thing, yeah — PL is just the Motorola tradename that kind of stuck around forever. for accessing the repeater you only need to set the tone on transmit, the receive side CTCSS is a different thing where your radio will squelch until it hears a specific tone coming back at you. most people leave receive CTCSS off so they can hear everything coming through the machine. as for the no-response thing that's pretty normal honestly. a lot of repeaters especially in smaller areas are just kind of quiet and people monitor but dont always respond to a random callsign. what usually works better is saying something like your callsign and then "monitoring" or asking if the frequency is in use before you start a conversation. some clubs also have specific nets on certain days so you might have better luck catching one of those. dont get discouraged, just takes a bit of time to figure out the local scene

the ARRL has a page on ARES training levels if you havent seen it already, theres like a basic through advanced progression with specific courses tied to each level. IS-700 is another one they usually want besides the ICS ones you already did. your EC (emergency coordinator) for your county should be able to tell you whats required locally because it does vary. one thing i'd say just from watching new folks come into our group — dont overthink the gear situation right now. they need warm bodies who know basic radio procedure and can show up reliably way more than they need someone with a big fancy station. if you can copy a message, pass traffic, and not panic when things get busy youre already useful.

Congrats on the new license! LoTW confirmations count for ARRL awards like DXCC and WAS, while the ARRL does not recognize eQSL for awards credit. Both are free to use - I'd suggest setting up both since some hams use one while others use another, so if you're only on one you'll miss confirmations. Start with LoTW for awards, add eQSL for more coverage.

i passed mine last year and the antenna stuff was definitely the hardest part for me too. what really clicked was when someone explained that most of the antenna questions are just asking "which antenna is better for this specific job" rather than making you calculate anything complex. also dont skip the operating procedure questions, there are quite a few of those and theyre way easier than the technical stuff. i probably got 6-7 questions just on proper operating practices and band privileges. good luck!

i was in your exact spot about 8 months ago and ended up with the ft-70dr and im really glad i did. yeah its like $160 or so but the audio is way better than my friend's baofeng and it just feels solid in the hand. i dont even use the digital fusion stuff that much but its nice knowing i can if there are fusion repeaters around. the menu system takes some getting used to but nothing horrible

so ive been putting this off for like two years because i kept telling myself id just buy a commercial antenna but wire is cheap and i finally just did it last weekend. cut a center fed dipole for 40m, used 14 gauge stranded copper from the hardware store, picked up a SO-239 chassis connector and just soldered directly to that through a piece of scrap PVC i had sitting around as an insulator/center piece thing. nothing fancy at all. the math worked out to about 66 feet total, split 33 each side, which i know is the standard half wavelength calc. got it up in a rough inverted V shape, apex maybe 25 feet up tied to a tree in the backyard. ran about 40 feet of RG-8X down to the shack. my SWR on 40m is sitting around 1.4:1 at the bottom of the band and creeps up to maybe 2.2 or so at the top, which seems reasonable to me but im not sure. also curious if i should be using a choke balun at the feedpoint — right now theres nothing and i realize that might be a problem. ive read conflicting stuff about whether it matters for a basic backyard setup. using an FT-891 if that changes anything.

shot in the dark but is your radio set to WGS84? sounds dumb but ive seen people have issues when something in the chain is using a different datum. probably not the problem but worth a look before you go too deep into the weeds on the digipeater side of things.

100w to a dipole is gonna be tough for the really big pileups like this one. i was struggling too until i switched over to my 3 element yagi, made all the difference. also try listening to exactly where theyre coming back to people - sometimes theyre working a pretty tight split and if you're not in the right window they wont hear you at all patience is key though, ive spent 3+ hours working some of the bigger dxpeditions before finally getting through

so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (tech class) and ive been listening to the local repeater a lot but i still feel really nervous about actually transmitting. like i hear people having conversations and im not sure if its rude to just key up and say hi or if you have to wait for a specific moment. one time i tried to break in and i said my callsign but nobody responded and i wasnt sure if they heard me or if they were just ignoring me or if i did something wrong. also the local club has a net on wednesday nights and ive checked into it a few times but i still get confused about when the net control says stuff like "is there any traffic" or "any stations with priority business" — like what does that actually mean in practice? do i just say my callsign if i want to say something or what sorry if this is a dumb question im still figuring all this out

oh man i was in the exact same spot like a year ago. what finally clicked for me was finding a 2m net my local club runs on sunday evenings — super low key, net control just goes around and everyone says hi basically. way less scary than jumping onto HF traffic nets cold. the special event thing is fun to try even early on, you just call them like any other station. picked up a W1AW operating event contact my second month and they were totally normal about it lol

yeah im going, my buddy W4RKL is tabling there and selling off some of his old gear so ill be there early. usually get there before 8 to beat the dealers who pick everything good before the doors even open lol. dont know about the antenna build thing though, havent heard anything about it this year

Your path looks correct. Try reducing beacon interval to 5 minutes temporarily and monitor with UI-View to see actual packet flow. Dysfunctional digipeaters can buffer packets for long time before retransmitting, and broken digipeaters can mangle packet contents so duplicate detection fails.

yeah the waterfall on that radio is genuinely addictive, i found myself just watching it for like 20 minutes when i first got mine trying to identify what everything was. the built in scope really does change how you operate, at least it did for me. for settings i run the TX bandwidth pretty wide on SSB, like around 2.4k, and i backed off the compression to almost nothing because i was getting reports that it sounded processed. if you havent already go into the set menu and mess with the AGC time constants, the default fast AGC on SSB was bothering me on strong signals. slow AGC feels way more natural to my ear. also make sure you updated the firmware if you havent, theres been a few revisions that fixed some minor things. attic dipole is totally workable by the way, dont let anyone give you grief about it. ive worked europe on 40 from worse situations

the timing thing trips up pretty much everyone when they first start checking into nets, dont feel bad about it at all. what usually works for me is waiting until net control finishes their full sentence and then leaves a noticeable pause before keying up. like they need to actually release their PTT and the repeater tail needs to drop or at least start to drop. if you jump in the moment you hear them stop talking you're probably going to collide with someone else who did the same thing. for the traffic question, honestly that depends on the net. some nets are pretty loose and "announcements" or club news absolutely counts as passing traffic, especially informal local nets. the more formal ARRL style nets are more strict about what counts as a radiogram versus general announcements. i'd just listen to how other people handle it for a few more weeks. if you hear others saying things like "i have an announcement for the club" and net control just rolls with it, you're probably fine doing the same. if in doubt you can always ask net control directly after the net closes, most of them are happy to chat about procedure stuff off-net.

your homebrew serial over IP setup — is that basically just a ser2net or socat thing? because if it is, i would just document it now before you forget even more of it lol. i had the same situation with a remote i set up during covid and by the time something broke i had zero memory of why i'd made certain choices. ended up just rebuilding the whole thing with a Raspberry Pi running RemoteHams server software and a dedicated audio interface and that actually simplified everything a lot compared to what i had before. one thing i'll say is that if youre doing FT8 remotely the timing has to be solid, like the clock sync at the remote site matters more than latency honestly. make sure you have chrony or something keeping NTP tight on whatever computer is out there or youll have decode issues that are really hard to track down because they look like RF problems.

yeah what he said about receive-only igates is a big one, tripped me up for weeks when i first started messing with messaging. the tracker part just works because you only need one direction but messaging needs both sides to line up which almost never happens perfectly lol also are you sending the messages from the radio keypad or through a connected device? i had weird behavior on mine once where the TNC was basically queueing things wrong and some messages were never actually hitting the air, they just looked like they were sent on the display. connected a laptop with APRSIS32 and could actually see what was and wasnt going out. might be worth monitoring your own RF output just to confirm the packets are actually transmitting when you think they are

cold hands are no joke when youre trying to tune and log at the same time. i do a lot of POTA too and honestly the setup time is what kills me every time, i keep thinking ill get faster but there's always something. what logging app were you using out there

yeah what he said about TQSL, i put off setting it up for like six months and then it took me maybe 20 minutes once i just sat down and did it. the ARRL has a pretty decent walkthrough on their site. main thing is you request the certificate, they mail you a postcard with a code, you enter that and you're good. then you just export your log as ADIF and sign it through TQSL before uploading one thing i'll add — some logging software like Log4OM or WSJT-X can upload to LoTW automatically or semi-automatically which is really nice once its configured. saves a lot of manual steps. i do FT8 mostly and having it just handle confirmations in the background is great

so ive been chasing a pretty rare one for a while now, one of those entities that only gets activated maybe once every few years, and the pileup was absolutely insane. we're talking probably 500+ stations calling simultaneously on 17m. i've read all the usual advice about split operating and timing your calls but honestly most of it felt pretty abstract until i actually sat there and worked through it. what ended up working for me was listening to where the DX operator was actually coming back to — not just the frequency they said they were listening on, but like specifically where in that range they kept pulling calls from. there was definitely a pattern, he kept fishing around 3-4 up from his announced listening freq. so i parked there and cut my call down to just my suffix, sent it once, and waited. took maybe 20 minutes but i got through. the other thing that helped a lot was just having a decent signal to begin with. im running a TS-890 into a 4 element yagi up about 45 feet and conditions were actually pretty good that day, so that obviously helps. but ive broken pileups with way less too so it's not all about power and antennas. curious what techniques other people have actually found work in the real world, not just the textbook stuff. especially for ssb pileups which i find way harder than cw honestly.

so I finally got activated for a real ARES deployment last weekend, not just a drill. local county had some severe weather come through and the EOC wanted us on standby for about 6 hours in case the PSTN went down. nothing dramatic ended up happening thank god but it was still a totally different feeling than any of the training nets or simulated emergency tests I've done before. I think what caught me off guard was how much hurry-up-and-wait there is. I had this idea in my head from the SET exercises that it would be constant radio traffic and logging and passing formal messages. in reality I sat at my assigned station for like 3 hours barely touching the mic. then when traffic did start flowing I had to shake the rust off real quick and I stumbled over a couple of the prowords which was embarrassing. the EC was really patient about it though. also realized my go-bag setup has some gaps. my HT battery only had maybe 60% charge when I showed up which was dumb, I knew better. and I forgot a notepad. an actual paper notepad. been so used to logging digitally during normal operations that it didnt even occur to me until I needed it. anyway just wanted to share in case anyone else is prepping for their first real activation. the training is worth doing even when it feels repetitive. just maybe double check your battery situation beforehand lol

With K=1 and that high SFI, you're looking at excellent conditions! 20M will be solid well into the evening, but don't overlook 17M and 15M - they should stay open longer than usual tonight. Great time to work some new DX!