Robert Kim

so i've been licensed about 8 months now and i keep hearing people talk about chasing DX and awards and honestly im a bit lost. like i know DXCC is the big one everyone talks about, 100 countries confirmed, got it. but then theres WAS which is all 50 states and WAZ which is the zones thing and i cant figure out if theres like a natural order people go in or if you just kinda chase whatever comes up in the pile. i've been logging everything on LoTW since my first QSO which i think was smart based on stuff i read here, and i already have like 34 states confirmed and maybe 40-something entities toward DXCC but i havent actually applied for anything yet. do you apply once you hit the minimum or wait til you have more? and does it cost money every time you update? someone in my club said you pay per application and then credits just accumulate but i wasnt totally sure what he meant. also is WAZ actually harder than DXCC because some of those zones seem really tough to get into from the midwest

so i passed my technician exam last saturday and the VE team told me i'd get a callsign in a few days but i'm not really sure how the whole thing works. like does the FCC just assign me whatever is next in line or can i pick something? my buddy has this really clean 2x1 call and i asked him about it and he said something about vanity calls but i didnt totally follow what he was saying. also i saw on reddit that there's a sequential callsign system and a separate vanity system and they're kind of different processes? just trying to understand what i'll get automatically vs what i have to apply for separately. and is the vanity thing expensive or is it free through the FCC

Welcome to paddles! The spacing issues are totally normal - your timing instincts from the straight key don't quite match the paddle rhythm yet. Try slowing down to 12 WPM and focus on clean letter spacing. Practice single letters repeatedly before attempting words.

The free resources are excellent - HamStudy.org and KB6NU's No-Nonsense study guide (free PDF) are top-notch. With your electronics background, 30 minutes daily for 6-8 weeks should be plenty - you need 26 correct out of 35 questions (74%). Start with practice tests to identify weak areas, then focus study time there.

yeah the bands have definitely been doing some funky stuff, you're not imagining it. we're actually climbing toward solar maximum right now which in theory should be great but it doesn't always behave in a nice predictable way on the way up. solar flux index is basically a measure of how active the sun is — higher numbers generally mean better HF propagation, especially on the higher bands like 15 and 10m. anything above 150 or so and 10m starts doing things that'll make your jaw drop if you haven't seen it before. but here's the thing that trips people up — it's not just the flux number. you also have to watch the K-index and A-index, which tell you about geomagnetic activity. a high solar flux sounds great but if you've also got a geomagnetic storm going on, the bands can be completely messed up. that's probably what you've been experiencing — some days the flux is decent but a CME hit and scrambled everything. DXWatch and the NOAA space weather site are worth bookmarking, once you start correlating what you hear on the air with those numbers it starts to click pretty fast.

The RTL-SDR panadapter can match performance of raw audio output, even producing less signal splatter on strong signals. For the 745, tap after the first mixer at the 9MHz IF - use a 10pF coupling cap to avoid loading.

hey welcome to POTA, you're gonna love it. okay so the 10 contacts thing is correct, thats the minimum for a valid activation regardless of which park you're at. paper logging is totally fine, most people do it that way and then upload a ADIF file later through the website. HAMRS exports ADIF and its pretty straightforward once you get used to it, the GPS weirdness probably doesnt matter as long as your park reference is right when you upload. For calling, most folks just call CQ POTA on whatever frequency they land on — 40m is usually your best bet for daytime regional contacts, maybe 20m if you want a bit more reach. Definitely spot yourself on pota.app once you're set up, that's honestly the biggest thing. Hunters are constantly watching the map and you'll get a pileup pretty quick once your spot shows. I did my first activation last spring with just a vertical and a 10ah lifepo4 battery and had 10 contacts in like 15 minutes after spotting. The 705 and a wire in a tree is a solid setup, you'll be fine.

I've got a Kenwood TS-590SG that's putting out full 100 watts on 6 meters but only about 60-70 watts on the HF bands. The finals appear to be getting proper bias and the ALC circuit isn't limiting. Before I start pulling boards, what's the logical diagnostic sequence here? I suspect power supply voltage drop under load, but want to confirm the methodology before diving deeper into component-level troubleshooting.

Yesterday I decided it was time to do the MARS mod - wide-band HF transmit modification - to my IC-705. There was nothing special about yesterday, other than the fact that I finally screwed up the courage to open up the little radio and git 'er done! After completing it successfully, I want to share some key safety points. If you want a MARS modified radio your best and safest bet is to buy a new one from the major distributors like HRO or GigaParts. They are authorized by the manufacturers to do the mods, have all the technical data, equipment and experienced personnel to do the job, and your radio retains the original manufacturers warranty. Just take the usual precautions - use an anti-static wrist band, work on an anti-static work surface, use the appropriate tools, and you should be all right. Oh, and take lots of pictures to document your process in case you forget what board, ribbon cable or screw goes where.

i went 7300 about 18 months ago and zero regrets, thing just works. the roofing filter argument is real but unless youre in a contest environment or your local band is absolutely packed i think most people wont notice in practice. and the resale value on the icom is pretty solid too if you ever want to move on.

the Farnsworth thing is genuinely the way to go, i wish someone had told me that earlier instead of spending like 6 months slogging at slow character speeds. your brain learns the rhythm of the letter as a sound instead of counting dots and dashes and that makes all the difference when you try to speed up. i was in your exact spot probably 2 years ago and what finally broke me through was just making myself get on the air before i felt ready. like seriously just called CQ on 40m at 8wpm with a really slow sending speed and a few people actually came back to me. the live QSO pressure is different from practicing alone and it kind of forces your brain to engage differently. also dont underestimate just listening to code in the background while you're doing other stuff. not active copying, just having it on. sounds silly but it helped me a lot with recognizing letter sounds without thinking about it. took me about a year to get comfortable around 15-16wpm and i kind of plateau'd there for a while but it did eventually move. dont give up on it.

so this has been bugging me for a couple weeks now. I can see my station showing up on aprs.fi just fine, position updates coming through every few minutes, path is WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 which should be fine for my area. but whenever i try to send a message through APRS — either from the radio itself or from APRSdroid on my phone via bluetooth to the TNC — the messages just seem to disappear. recipient never gets them and i never see them show up in the raw packets on aprs.fi either. I'm running a TM-D710G into a Mobilinkd TNC3 when i'm using the phone, and just using the built-in TNC mode when i'm on the radio directly. tried both. same problem. my digipeater path looks correct to me but honestly i might be missing something obvious. the weird part is I received a message from another station last month no problem, so the receive side at least seems to work. anyone dealt with this before? feels like a TX issue somewhere but the beacon packets go out fine so i dont get it

yeah the touchscreen thing took me a while too, i ended up turning off the touch sensitivity for the main tuning area or whatever that setting is called, you can dig it out in the display menu. made a big difference for me. also if you havent already go look up the HDSDR or SDR# panadapter setup with the USB port — theres a way to get way more screen real estate on a laptop running alongside it which sounds redundant but actually isnt when youre trying to work a pileup and monitor a split frequency at the same time. my NR is set pretty low tbh, like NR1 around level 3 or so, anything higher and voices start sounding phasey to me. the NB and notch filter are where the real magic is for me on 40 at night when the noise floor gets ugly.

Check out the "DX Spots" app - it's available for both iOS and Android. Shows live feed from the DX cluster network with all current amateur radio spots and has decent filtering options. The QRZ lookup feature works well too.

so ive been licensed for about 6 years now, mostly HF stuff with some 2m weak signal when conditions are good, but ive always been kind of obsessed with the idea of EME. like the idea that youre bouncing a signal off the actual moon is just insane to me and i want to try it before i get too old to climb the tower lol anyway i started doing some reading and im already kind of overwhelmed. i know you basically need a big antenna and a lot of power, but how much is enough? ive seen guys doing it with a single yagi on 2m using JT65 and ive seen other stations with these insane dish setups. is the dish stuff basically required for 70cm and up or can you squeak by on 2m with like a 4 yagi array and an amp? my current setup is a 5 element yagi and a 100w radio so im obviously nowhere near ready but trying to figure out what the realistic path looks like also the noise figure thing, i keep reading about preamps at the feedpoint and how much that matters. is this like a massive difference in practice or is it more marginal than the forums make it out to be? i have a masthead preamp already but its rated for HF up to 2m and i honestly dont know if its any good for weak signal stuff

oh man i remember my first activation, it was a flood support thing maybe 8 years ago now. honestly the biggest thing nobody told me was just how much waiting there is. you show up all pumped up and ready to radio and then you sit in a parking lot for two hours waiting for assignment. bring food, bring water, bring something to sit on if you dont have a camp chair already in the car. the other thing — and this sounds obvious but i completely blanked on it — write down your frequencies, your EC's call, the EOC contact info, all of it on paper. dont rely on your phone. i had mine die on me halfway through and suddenly i felt completely cut off even though i had a perfectly working radio sitting right there. also just listen way more than you talk at first, you'll figure out the flow of how your group operates faster that way than any training will teach you. you're gonna do fine, the fact that you're asking these questions means youre already better prepared than some folks who show up.