James Thomas

I'm comparing tracking software options for serious linear transponder work on AO-7, FO-29, and AO-73. Currently using Gpredict with CAT control to my FT-847, but considering upgrading to Ham Radio Deluxe for better linear transponder support. HRD claims to handle inverting transponder Doppler correction more accurately - it applies offsets from center frequencies then Doppler correction, rather than simple frequency tracking. The key difference seems to be proper handling of the inverted spectrum where LSB uplink becomes USB downlink. For those running Linear transponder tracking with CAT controlMultiple satellite operationsPrecision Doppler compensation for SSB/CWWhat's your experience with software accuracy and ease of use?

yeah the pending thing threw me off my first time too lol. it goes away. and nice work on getting the 10, i remember my first activation i was so stressed i almost packed up at 8 contacts and drove home but stuck it out. HAMRS is what most people in the POTA groups online seem to use, its pretty straightforward. just make sure you put the park reference in before you start logging or it doesnt attach to the contacts automatically and then you have to go fix it which is annoying.

yeah DXwatch is solid, i use it pretty much every day. the filtering is decent once you figure out where all the settings are, you can definitely narrow it down by band which will help you a lot. i usually have it set to show me just 17 and 20 when conditions are decent and it keeps the noise down. QRZ's logbook is nice but their spot page always felt a little clunky to me, like it loads slow sometimes and the layout isnt as clean. that said plenty of people use it just fine so maybe im just being picky. the underlying spot data is kind of the same anyway since a lot of these sites pull from the same cluster network. for phone apps i really like HamSphere's DX stuff and there's also one called Cluster DX that does the job when im away from the desk. if you're on android there's a few good free ones, just search cluster in the play store and you'll find something. the key thing is just getting in the habit of glancing at it before you sit down to operate, saves a lot of spinning the dial hoping something interesting pops up

so ive been working on my CW for about 8 months now and i hit this wall at around 13wpm and just cannot seem to break through it. started back when i was doing 5wpm with the Koch method and honestly that part felt pretty natural, like each week i was adding a letter and it was clicking. but somewhere around the time i had all the characters down and started pushing the speed up it just... stopped working the same way. right now i practice maybe 20-30 minutes a day with the LCWO site and sometimes just copy random QSO recordings i find online. i can get most of it but i have to write everything down as i go and if i miss a character i kinda panic and lose the next few too. someone told me i need to get off pencil and paper and start just listening but that feels really uncomfortable and i keep second guessing myself. anyone gone through this and actually gotten to 20wpm? feels like that number is impossibly far away right now honestly

the ALC thing is probably your biggest clue right there. on the 7300 if your ALC is pinning on voice peaks you're almost certainly overdriving the mic input and that'll make your audio sound compressed and harsh on the other end. the mic gain on that radio is super sensitive with the PR-40 because that mic has a pretty hot output to begin with. try dropping your mic gain down to like 30-35% and see where your ALC sits. ideally you want it barely moving on average speech, maybe ticking up on loud consonants but not slamming to the top. also check your TX monitor if you havent already, the 7300 has a built in one. it wont sound exactly like what the other station hears but it'll give you a rough idea. and keep the mic about a fist's width from your mouth, not right up on it. the PR-40 is a large diaphragm condenser and it picks up everything, breathing, room echo, all of it. a lot of guys use too much compression trying to fix gain issues and it just makes things worse.

Address the NCS with their call sign followed immediately by your call sign - no need to 'unkey' between calling the NC and identifying yourself. Most nets welcome newcomers, so don't worry about making mistakes. The NCS will guide you if needed.

yeah the battery thing is such a classic drill discovery lol. we had almost the exact same situation at our SET last fall — someone had a "fully charged" gel cell that turned out to be basically dead. now our EC has everyone bring their backup power to a monthly meeting once a year just to load test everything before it matters. takes like an hour and has already caught two more bad batteries since we started doing it. on the message handling issue, what worked for us was doing short practice sessions at the end of our regular nets. like not a full drill, just five minutes where someone has to pass a formatted ICS-213 verbally and the net control writes it down. repetition is everything with that stuff. new hams especially tend to think it's more complicated than it is but they just havent done it enough times to feel natural. once it clicks it really does click though

so ive been licensed for about two years now, mostly just ragchewing on 40m and doing some local stuff with the club. a buddy of mine keeps telling me i should try CQ WW this fall and honestly it sounds kind of intimidating. like i get the basic idea, you work as many stations as possible, different countries and zones count for multipliers etc, but i dont really know the actual flow of it. do people just tune around calling CQ or are you supposed to search and pounce the whole time? and what about Field Day, ive done that once with the club and it was a blast but i was just logging for someone else so i wasnt really operating. also someone at the hamfest mentioned SOTA and i know thats not technically a contest but it seems related somehow? like people activating summits count toward scores or something? im probably getting that mixed up. anyway just trying to figure out what the on-ramp looks like for someone who hasnt really done serious contesting before. any upcoming events worth targeting for a first timer would be great too

the eu2200i parallel float setup works fine but watch your grounding situation when you do it. i ran almost the exact same config at a RACES exercise a couple years back and picked up a ton of noise on 40m that turned out to be the inverter generator interacting with the battery charger — both were technically fine individually but together they were doing something ugly. ended up moving the charger about 15 feet away from the radio table and running a longer DC cable and it cleaned right up. not saying you'll have the same issue but worth having that in your back pocket. on the antenna question, just bring the NVIS fan dipole. i know it's more work but if you're doing any kind of realistic served-agency sim you want the antenna thats actually right for the propagation, not the one thats easiest to throw up. nothing worse than spending 6 hours demonstrating to your partners that you can almost make contacts. the extra 20-30 minutes of setup time is nothing over an 8 hour exercise.

oh and dont forget to check if theres a local sota group or reflector for your association, sometimes people post activation reports and you can get a feel for what the trail conditions are like or whether theres a good spot at the top for the antenna. found that super useful before my first one. also sotawatch app on the phone is way easier than the website when youre up there fumbling with gloves on or whatever

so ive been interested in ham radio for probably like two years now but kept putting it off because it seemed complicated and i wasnt sure if i even wanted to commit to studying for a test. well i finally decided to just go for it and now im kind of overwhelmed with where to start. like i know there are different license classes and you have to pass a test but thats about it. someone at a local electronics swap meet told me to just get the technician first but i dont know how hard the test actually is or how long i should study. i looked online and theres a bunch of different apps and websites and i honestly dont know which ones are worth my time. also how does the actual test work, do you just show up somewhere or do you have to schedule it way in advance? any help would be appreciated, just trying to figure out the first steps here.

POTA is definitely more beginner-friendly and suitable for less athletic participants. It's family-friendly too, so others can enjoy the park while you operate. Plus POTA allows driving to your site and operating from your vehicle, which SOTA doesn't.

Skip the ARRL manual initially - it's 470 pages of dense material that can overwhelm you. The ARRL manual is superbly researched but difficult to wade through in just a few weeks. Start with question pools and explanations, then reference the manual only for topics you're struggling with. Understanding beats memorization every time.

Don't forget about monitoring your own signal! If you are transmitting remotely, look for a remote receiver to monitor your output - plenty of HF SDRs are listed at kiwifruit.com/public/. Nothing worse than thinking you're working stations but actually off frequency or having audio issues.

so i just passed my technician exam last month and im trying to figure out what handheld to get as my first radio. ive been going down a rabbit hole for like two weeks now reading reviews and watching youtube videos and honestly i feel more confused than when i started. everyone seems to love the baofeng UV-5R because its cheap and i get that, but then other people say get a yaesu or kenwood and dont waste time with the cheap stuff. my budget is probably around $150 maybe a little more if something is really worth it. i mostly want to use it for local repeaters and maybe talking to people at hamfests and stuff, nothing super complicated. does anyone have a recommendation or at least help me figure out what features actually matter versus what sounds impressive but i wont ever use?

yeah im planning on it, got a bunch of old coax and some misc connectors i want to unload and hopefully find a decent mic for my 706. the fleamarket has def been shrinking but you still find good stuff if you get there early enough. what time you usually show up

Just got my Extra last month and I'm hearing conflicting advice about DXCC applications. Some elmers say I should use LoTW to save on postage costs and make verification simple, while others insist paper QSL cards are the "real" way to do it. I know there's no charge for getting a LoTW certificate or uploading QSOs, only when applying for awards. Which route should a new DXer take, and can I mix both methods? I'm at 67 countries confirmed and want to get my first DXCC for 100 countries right.

dont overthink it, seriously just get on during CQ WW and start calling. worst that happens is someone doesnt hear you or asks for a repeat on your zone number. everyone was new once. i did my first contest from a dipole in an apartment and still managed to work like 40 countries so the bar isnt as high as it seems

welcome to the rabbit hole haha. okay so first thing — you definitely dont need a radio before the test, that comes after. for studying most people use HamStudy.org which is free and it drills you on the actual question pool, the technician test is 35 questions and you need a 26 to pass. some people also use the ARRL technician manual which you can get on amazon but honestly hamStudy alone got me through it. the test itself isnt too bad if you put in maybe a week or two of practice, some of the electrical theory questions are a little weird if you havent done much of that but they show up enough times you just kind of memorize the answers. to find a testing session near you look up a VE session through the ARRL or ARRL affiliated clubs, the fee is usually around 15 bucks give or take. your neighbor is probably a ham too so he might be able to point you to a local club which is honestly the best way to get plugged in once you pass.

Congrats on passing the exam. Honestly the baofeng will work fine for getting started and there's nothing wrong with picking one up to learn the ropes — you'll figure out pretty quick what features you actually want vs what the marketing people tell you you want. That said if you've got $150-200 to spend the Yaesu FT-65R or even the FT-60R used is a really solid step up and you'll notice the difference in receive quality right away especially on busy repeaters. The build quality is just better, feels better in the hand, the buttons make sense. I started on a UV-5R years ago and it did the job but i switched to a Yaesu after about six months and kind of wished id just done that first. For APRS you'd eventually want something like the FT3DR anyway but thats a whole other conversation and you dont need to worry about that yet. Just get on the air first.

so ive been running SSB on 20m mostly, occasionally 40m in the evenings, and ive gotten consistent reports that my audio sounds kind of muffled or like im talking through a pillow. running an IC-7300 into a dipole, nothing exotic. mic is the stock HM-219 hand mic that came with the radio. ive messed with the TX bandwidth a bit and the treble/bass settings in the menu but honestly i cant tell if im making things better or worse because i cant hear myself on the other end obviously. my buddy across town has the same radio and he gets great audio reports consistently. starting to wonder if its the mic itself or something in how ive got the processing set up. RF power is around 80w, compression is off for now because i read somewhere thats usually better to start without it. anyone gone through this with the 7300 specifically or just SSB audio in general, im kind of lost on where to start tweaking

this was me about six months ago lol. the inverting transponder thing is confusing and i dont think gpredict makes it super obvious in the UI. one thing that helped me was just doing a few passes where i wasnt even trying to make contacts, just found a clear spot in the passband, sent a carrier, and watched where it went while gpredict was correcting. gave me a feel for how much manual intervention i actually needed vs what the software was handling. AO-73 is a good bird to learn on though, passband is decently wide and the transponder seems pretty robust.

yeah i went through exactly this about two years ago. ended up keeping both installed and honestly its not that big a deal, N1MM stays closed unless im actually in a contest weekend. Log4OM handles my day to day logging fine and the WSJT-X integration is pretty solid once you get the UDP port configured right — i had the same duplicate issue you're describing and it turned out i had both WSJT-X and Log4OM trying to log the same QSO through two different paths simultaneously, took me embarassingly long to figure that out. for actual contests though i wouldnt try to use Log4OM, at least not serious ones. the dupe checking and run/SP mode stuff in N1MM is just too good and muscle memory at this point. if youre doing like a casual state QSO party maybe Log4OM is fine but anything where rate matters just use N1MM.

the cooling mod is worth it imo but only if your shack runs warm or you do long digital sessions. i run JS8Call and FT8 a lot and my 7300 was getting pretty warm to the touch during summer. swapped the fan and also added a small external fan blowing across the back of the chassis and temps dropped noticeably. probably overkill but whatever it makes me feel better. one thing i'll throw out there — if you haven't already, look into the SDR panadapter tap some people do with the 7300. i know it already has a built in waterfall but i saw someone tap the IF output and feed it into an external SDR for a wider view and it looked really useful for contesting. havent done it myself but its on my list

yeah that first real activation is something else. i remember mine was a flood event probably 12 years ago now and i made every rookie mistake in the book, missed a message, forgot to log a time, the whole thing. but you learn way more in 4 hours of a real event than in months of drills honestly. sounds like your EC runs a tight training program. a lot of groups let the nets get pretty sloppy and then wonder why people struggle under pressure. glad it went well, these served agency relationships take a long time to build and every good activation helps cement the trust with the OEM folks.