James Thomas

Been struggling with CAT control on my IC-9700 for AO-73 linear transponder operations. Currently using SatPC32 but considering switching to Gpredict. The Doppler compensation seems to drift during high elevation passes - my uplink stays put but I can hear myself sliding across the downlink passband. Anyone using Gpredict with modern rigs notice better tracking accuracy? Particularly interested in experiences with inverting transponder LSB/USB convention and how well the software handles the coordinated frequency adjustments during satellite approaches.

totally get the confusion, i was in the same spot a couple years ago. the good news is yes, the same QSO can count toward multiple awards — so if you work a station in Wyoming on 20m that logs it on LoTW, that contact can count for WAS, DXCC (if it's a valid entity which Wyoming obviously is as part of US), and WAZ for whatever zone Wyoming is in. you dont have to do anything special, just make sure both sides confirm on LoTW and the credits stack up automatically in your account. honestly for your setup i'd start with WAS just because chasing states is a lot more forgiving when you dont have a huge antenna farm. you can work a ton of states on 40m and 20m without needing to squeeze every last dB out of your setup. DXCC is great fun but some of those rarer entities need you to be there at the right time with decent signal, so having some experience under your belt helps. WAZ kind of comes along for the ride once you're doing the other two. LoTW is definitely the way to go these days, paper cards still work but processing time is forever and you have to pay for each credit confirmation with ARRL. get your LoTW account set up if you havent already and just start logging everything, you'll be surprised how fast the credits add up

i had almost the exact same situation last year, similar lot size. ended up going with a linked dipole so i could use it on 40 and 80 without a tuner on each band. not perfect but way better than i expected for the space. ran it kind of in an inverted V shape off a 33 foot fiberglass pole in the middle and the ends are only about 8 feet off the ground and i still work europe pretty regularly when 40 is open in the evenings. so yeah dipole vote from me, the inverted V helps with the space problem if you dont have two good anchor points at the same height anyway.

ooh nice, ive been eyeing that radio for a while. way out of my budget right now but living vicariously lol. does it do anything on the regular VHF/UHF bands or is it pretty much focused on the microwave stuff? i keep reading conflicting things and the icom page isnt super clear to me as a newer guy

so ive been a General for about two years now and a buddy of mine keeps bugging me to just go ahead and take the Amateur Extra exam. i passed the General on my first try without too much studying but the Extra pool just looks... intimidating i guess. like i can follow along with basic antenna theory and ohms law and all that but some of the questions in the pool i looked at had me completely lost. stuff about filter design and transmission line theory and some of the operating stuff near the bottom of the frequency allocations that i never really think about. i guess my question is whether its actually worth grinding through all that advanced theory or if most of it is just memorize the pool and move on. i know some people say the Extra privileges are barely worth it depending on what you do but im mostly interested in HF so maybe it matters more? not sure what i dont know here really, if that makes sense

okay so i've been wanting to get into ham radio for a while now, my neighbor is licensed and he keeps telling me to just do it already. so i finally decided to start studying but honestly i dont even know where to start. i looked up the question pool online and it's just... a lot. like 400+ questions? do i actually have to memorize all of those or is there a smarter way to do this. also i saw some people mention the ARRL study guide and others say just use hamstudy.org and skip the book entirely. is one better than the other or does it just depend on the person. i'm not totally new to electronics, i took a class in high school like 15 years ago so some of the basic stuff isn't completely foreign to me but the regulations and frequency stuff is kind of confusing. anyway just looking for some direction before i waste money on a book i dont need