Carlos Gutierrez

yeah hamstudy.org is honestly the move if you just want to pass and get on the air. the questions on the actual exam are word for word from the pool, they dont reword anything, so once you can consistently score 80+ percent on the practice tests you're probably ready. I studied maybe 2-3 weeks doing like 20 minutes a night and passed fine. the electrical theory stuff tripped me up at first but there's only so many of those questions and most of the test is rules and operating procedures which you kind of pick up just from reading.
the ARRL tech book is good if you actually want to understand why things work the way they do but its not necessary just to pass. some people like having the book though, kind of depends on how your brain works.

so i've been putting off building a QRP rig for probably two years now, kept telling myself i'd do it when i had more time, more bench space, whatever excuse i could come up with. finally just sat down last weekend with a QCX Mini kit i'd had sitting in a box since like early last year and just... did it. took me most of saturday and a chunk of sunday morning to finish it up.
first contact was a guy in ohio, im in vermont, and i was running maybe 4 or 5 watts into a random wire out my window. i just sat there for a second after the exchange because i could not believe that actually worked. like intellectually i knew QRP was a thing and people do it all the time but there's something different about actually doing it yourself on a rig you built from scratch.
anyway i guess the point of this post is partly just to share that because it felt like a big deal to me, but also im curious what people are running for antennas when they go portable with QRP stuff. i want to take this thing out hiking this summer. i've seen people talk about EFHW setups and also just basic wire dipoles and i can't quite figure out which makes more sense when you're trying to keep weight down.

so i just passed my technician exam last week and im trying to figure out what handheld to get. ive been reading threads for like two hours and i keep seeing the same names come up — baofeng, yaesu ft-65, kenwood th-d74 — but the price range is all over the place and i honestly dont know what matters and what doesnt for just getting started.
my main thing right now is i just want to be able to hit the local repeaters and maybe do some simplex with a buddy who lives about 4 miles away. nothing crazy. but i also dont want to buy something cheap and regret it in six months when i actually know what im doing, you know?
is the uv-5r really that bad or do people just hate it for the programming headache? i saw someone say the receive is terrible on it but then another person said theirs has been running for 5 years no problem. really confused on where to land here.

had almost the exact same thing happen to a friends 746 a few years back. turned out to be the TX/RX relay — it was stuck in receive mode basically, switching transistor on the relay driver was cooked. radio received perfectly, keyed up fine, ALC was even moving a little on voice peaks but zero RF out. worth checking that relay first since its an easy thing for a nearby strike to mess with through the antenna connection without frying the finals entirely.
on the 7300 i believe its relay K1 on the RF board but double check the service manual, icom has those available if you hunt around. you can usually hear the relay click when you go from RX to TX, if you dont hear it or it sounds weak that's probably your culprit. replacement relays are like a few bucks.

just going to throw this out there -- have you tried just jumping on the air at speeds that scare you a little? i know that sounds backwards but i was in the same boat and what actually pushed me through was tuning into the CWT sprints on Wednesday evenings and just trying to copy whatever i could even if i missed half of it. you dont have to transmit, just listen. your brain starts adapting to real signals way faster than computer-generated tones and honestly the contest exchanges are short enough that even a beginner can grab callsigns and signal reports if you stick at it. took me maybe three or four sessions before i noticed i was keeping up with stuff i would have totally lost before

CI-V on arduino is totally doable, i use a nano for my shack automation and have it talking to a kenwood but same general idea. one gotcha — make sure youre using SoftwareSerial for the CI-V side and keeping hardware serial free for debugging, otherwise you cant see whats happening and troubleshooting is a nightmare. just a tip that saved me a ton of time early on.

dont stress too much about CQ WW, ive been doing it for years and i still occasionally blank on my zone number when im tired haha. zone 5 by the way if your ever in a qso with me and im being slow about it.
one thing i wish someone had told me early on is just use N1MM or whatever logging software and let it handle the dupe checking, trying to do it manually during a busy contest is a nightmare. the software also helps with the exchange format so you dont have to keep the rules page open the whole time.

nice, im jealous. ive been meaning to do my first activation for months now but i keep talking myself out of it because i dont have a good portable antenna sorted yet. what kind of random wire length did you end up using? im trying to figure out if i should just build something or grab one of those end fed things everyone seems to use for POTA.

yeah what the other guy said, also just worth knowing that 40m can get pretty crowded especially in the evenings and a lot of the lower end gets taken over by dx and some of the higher frequencies get busy with stateside ragchewing so just spin the dial and listen for a bit before you transmit, youll get a feel for it pretty quick. i remember being totally lost on this stuff when i upgraded too