Jessica Miller

the stock mic on the 7300 is honestly not great, that's your first problem. the HM-219 or whatever they ship with it is pretty mediocre for SSB voice work. but before you go buying anything, try adjusting your TX bandwidth first — a lot of guys leave it at the narrowest setting because they read it helps with interference but it just makes you sound muffled. i run mine at something like 100-2900 Hz and it made a noticeable difference. also mic positioning matters way more than people think. dont talk directly into it, talk slightly across it or position it off to the side of your mouth a few inches. reduces plosives and thinens out that boxy sound. as for compression, i actually do run a tiny bit of the COMP on the 7300, maybe 5-8 dB, it helps with readability especially on a noisy band without making you sound over-processed. the key is watching the ALC — you want it barely moving, not pegged. if your ALC is slamming on every word youre overdriving somewhere upstream of it.

so ive been a tech for about two years now and honestly i mostly just use my HT for local repeaters and the occasional APRS stuff but i keep hearing people talk about HF and working DX and it sounds pretty cool. problem is i looked at the General question pool and it seems like a LOT of material. like there's stuff about propagation and electrical principles and operating practices and i dont even know where to start. i guess my main question is how long did it take you guys to actually feel ready for the exam and is there a particular study method that worked. i tried hamstudy.org for a bit and it seems good but im not sure if just doing flashcards is enough or if i should actually understand the theory behind everything. also is there stuff on the test that i should just memorize vs actually understand, because some of the electrical formulas look kind of rough and i never took physics in school

so ive been messing around with an RTL-SDR v3 for about a year now and im pretty happy with it for most stuff, ADS-B, weather sat, poking around the ham bands, whatever. but i keep running into the dynamic range wall especially when im near strong broadcast FM and theres a bunch of birdies all over the place that i cant seem to get rid of no matter what i do with the gain settings in SDR# or even trying gqrx on linux. anyway i started looking at upgrading and now im kind of stuck between the SDRplay RSP1A and a HackRF One. the price difference isnt massive but its not nothing either. the HackRF does TX which sounds cool but im already licensed and i have real radios for that so i dont know if i actually need it. the RSP1A spec sheet looks way more impressive on paper for receive — 12 bit ADC vs the 8 bit on the hackrf, better noise figure, hardware notch filters. but i dont really know how much of that translates to real world difference sitting at my desk tuning around. anyone actually used both or switched from one to the other? im mostly doing HF monitoring with an upconverter right now and some VHF/UHF stuff, not any serious TX experiments. just want cleaner receive honestly.

js8call is genuinely different from ft8 in a way that took me a while to appreciate. its not trying to do the same thing. ft8 is basically just exchange callsigns and signal reports as efficiently as possible, js8 is slower and weaker signal capable but you can actually type back and forth like a conversation. the latency is annoying at first but you get used to it. sensitivity wise its somewhere between ft8 and jt65 from what i remember, not quite as deep in the noise as ft8 but still pretty impressive. your 100w into a vertical should be totally fine for it. the bands arent super busy but 40m late evening you'll usually find some activity, especially on 7.078 which seems to be the most populated calling freq around here in the northeast anyway. as for running both at once with one signalink — yeah thats gonna be a headache. the signalink only presents as one audio device to the computer so you'd need to do some virtual audio cable routing to split it, and honestly its more trouble than its worth unless you're really into that kind of thing. most people just switch between programs. i run wsjtx in the background and switch to js8call whenever i actually want to talk to someone.

oh man i had the exact same experience with the logging, first time i did one i was just scrawling callsigns on the back of a receipt i found in my car lol. i use HAMRS now on my tablet, it has a WWFF mode built in and you can set the reference at the start and it just tracks everything. exports fine and the upload process isnt too bad once youve done it once. the wwff website does look a bit old school but it works.

gradual degradation over weeks on the receive audio side, not transmit... that actually points pretty strongly toward a cap issue in the AF chain or possibly the IF filter stage starting to go. the 7300 uses DSP pretty heavily so it could also be firmware related but you'd expect that to be more sudden usually. before you crack it open i'd try a full factory reset if you havent already, like the proper one from the menu not just resetting individual settings. also check if the noise reduction or NR setting is somehow getting applied, ive seen people accidentally leave NR on a weird setting and it does exactly what you're describing on voice. go to the receive settings and just make sure NR is completely off and the passband is set wide. if none of that fixes it then yeah you're probably looking at the hardware side and honestly the IF filtering caps on these rigs do degrade, seen it a few times on older icom gear.

Koch method is honestly the way to go, stick with it even when it feels like nothing is clicking. the whole idea is you start with just 2 characters but you hear them at full speed right away, like 20wpm, instead of slow beeps that sound nothing like what youll actually hear on the air. your brain learns the sound not the pattern. LCWO is fine for Koch, just set it up properly and give it more than 20 minutes lol — it took me probably 3 weeks before i stopped feeling completely lost the other thing nobody tells you is that daily practice matters way more than doing a long session once a week. even 10-15 minutes every single day will get you further than an hour on the weekend. i used the Morse Trainer app when i was commuting and that helped a lot just for keeping the characters fresh. for actually copying callsigns and stuff, honestly just start tuning around 40m around the QRP calling frequencies and listen even if you cant copy it yet, your ear starts to adjust after a while

haha yeah this trips up a lot of new hams, dont worry youre not alone. short answer is you dont need all three but each one has its place depending on what you care about. LoTW is run by the ARRL and its the gold standard if you ever want to go for DXCC or Worked All States because those programs require LoTW confirmations. the setup is a pain, i wont sugarcoat it, but once you get your certificate loaded into TQSL and figure out the workflow it becomes pretty automatic. theres a good guide on the ARRL site and honestly just searching for tqsl setup tutorial will get you through it. eQSL is way easier to use and a lot of DX stations upload there but like your contact said, most of the big awards dont accept it. its still nice to have just for the satisfaction of seeing confirmations roll in. physical cards — yeah people absolutely still send them, especially for a nice DX contact or a first from a new entity. you dont have to send one for every contact though. a lot of people just respond to requests via the bureau which is way cheaper than direct mail. the ARRL bureau is like a few bucks a year and cards come through eventually, just slowly. for rare DX you might want to go direct with a return envelope and a couple green stamps (dollar bills) to cover the other guys postage.

I did a lip mount on the rain gutter edge of my SUV instead of drilling and its worked pretty well, not as good as a proper NMO center of roof but way better than mag mount. might not work on all trucks depending on the body style though. also seconding the thing about mag mounts on fiberglass — i tried that for like two weeks and gave up, the SWR was all over the place depending on where exactly the mount was sitting.

ok so i just got my general ticket a few weeks ago and ive been trying to figure out 40 meters but honestly the band plan stuff is really confusing me. like i understand theres a difference between what the FCC actually licenses you for vs what the band plan says but i dont really get how that works in practice. someone at my club told me to stay away from the lower end of the band but didnt really explain why and i also keep seeing stuff about 7.125 and 7.175 and phone vs data segments and i just dont know where to start. also what does it mean when people say dont operate too close to the band edge, is that a legal thing or just like courtesy or what

yeah that nervous energy is real, i remember my first one vividly and i've been doing this for almost 12 years now. it was a search and rescue support operation and i completely blanked on the phonetic alphabet mid-transmission which i had literally done hundreds of times in practice. brain just went sideways on me. you'll get more comfortable with each activation but honestly a little bit of that tension is good — keeps you focused and professional. the ICS-213 thing is super common for newer operators, dont beat yourself up. the format looks simple on paper but when you're tired and the served agency is asking you questions while you're trying to write and receive at the same time it gets complicated fast. our group started doing more realistic message handling drills specifically because of feedback like yours. if your EC does any AAR sessions after activations definitely bring that up, that kind of honest feedback is exactly what makes the training better for everyone coming behind you.

yeah the fix is pretty straightforward, you just need to add wire. resonance being high means the antenna is electrically too short, so add a few inches to each leg at a time and re-measure. the inverted-V configuration also shortens the effective electrical length compared to a flat-top so that factors in too, people forget that. the legs being angled down effectively lowers the resonant frequency a bit but the formula doesn't account for any of that, plus being close to ground has effects, nearby metal, the feedline running near the antenna... it all adds up. your balun sounds fine honestly, 8 turns on a 43 mix is pretty standard for HF and should give you decent common mode rejection. id rule that out and just start adding wire. also double-check your connections at the center insulator, ive seen more bad SWR readings from a slightly loose connection than from anything else.

CQ WW is honestly a great one to jump into even as a newcomer, the bands are absolutely packed that weekend and you'll have no trouble finding stations to work. the scoring can look confusing at first but basically each contact gives you points and the DXCC zones count as multipliers so working new zones is where the big score jumps come from. dont stress about optimizing your score the first time, just run search and pounce, meaning tune around and call stations rather than trying to hold a frequency and run people, way less pressure that way. your 7300 and G5RV combo is totally fine for a first contest effort. 10 and 15 meters tend to be the money bands during CQ WW when propagation cooperates. just make sure you have N1MM or some logging software set up before the weekend because logging on paper gets old fast and the software handles the dupe checking and multiplier tracking automatically. SOTA is its own separate thing by the way, totally different program, its about activating summits and the contacts you make count toward the SOTA database not toward CQ WW. though some people do SOTA activations during contests just for fun and count the contacts in both systems if the rules allow it

so ive been licensed for about 8 years now mostly doing HF stuff, some 2m weak signal when conditions are good, but ive always been kind of obsessed with the idea of EME. like the concept that you can bounce a signal off the moon and have someone on the other side of the planet hear it is just... i dont know it never gets old to me even after reading about it for years. anyway i started actually pricing this out and talking to a few guys at the club who have done it and i'm getting pretty overwhelmed. one guy says you need at least a 4 yagi array on 2m to have any realistic chance, another says you can do single yagi with JT65 if youre patient. im running an IC-9700 already so the radio side should be okay i think, but the antenna situation is my main question. also heard you need a pretty low noise preamp right at the feedpoint and the coax run needs to be short or youre throwing away gain. is that accurate? and whats a realistic expectation for first contacts, like how long did it take you guys before you actually logged an EME qso

yeah im kind of in the same boat actually, hovering around 11-12wpm and been there since like august. one thing i started doing is the word training on lcwo instead of just characters, like practicing common cw words and abbreviations so i recognize whole chunks instead of building letter by letter. cq de and 73 and stuff like that just pop out now without thinking which feels like progress at least. not sure if it'll get me to 20 but its way less boring than the plain character drills

ok so ive been licensed for about 6 months now and im starting to think about qsl cards. seems like there's lotw, eqsl, and regular paper cards but im not really sure what the differences are or which one i should use. i see some guys talking about uploading logs to multiple systems but that sounds like alot of work. do i need to do all of them or can i just pick one? also saw something about bureau cards being cheaper but takes forever - is that worth it or should i just do direct mail mainly interested in getting confirmations for awards like WAS eventually but dont want to spend a fortune on postage if i dont have to

I only do this mod on radios that are out of warranty, and I do it only on radios I own - I don't do this as a service for others. Smart policy. Also remember the legal aspects - having MARS capability doesn't give you license to transmit outside amateur allocations without proper authorization. The mod is reversible on most rigs if needed.

Nice work getting out there. W4T is a great association to start in, lots of accessible summits. I was chasing you actually, well not specifically you but I was on 40m that morning working a pile and might have caught a W4T activation around that time — small world maybe. The 5 watt thing stops being surprising pretty fast once you get a decent antenna up. The linked dipole is probably doing more work than you realize. I run QRP almost exclusively for activations now and honestly the hardest part is the hike not the radio part. What are you thinking for your next summit, anything with a bit more elevation?

The power sharing aspect is critical - I've seen guys running 100W completely stomp on everyone else in the passband. Your setup should be plenty with 10-25W EIRP. Listen first, use minimum power needed.

Yes! I had the same experience around 12 WPM. But whatever tool you choose the key is repetition, repetition repetition. A quality 2 mins three times a day will be vastly more beneficial than an hour of slogging through a class. And of course, get on the air. POTA activations are perfect for this - everyone's patient and you get real practice.

there are a few PDF lists floating around online if you just search for ham radio Q code reference, ARRL probably has one. but honestly i was in the exact same boat when i started and i just kept a little notepad next to the radio and wrote stuff down as i heard it. took maybe a month or two before it started feeling natural. QRN, QRM, QSB were the ones that tripped me up the most at first too

honestly the JS8Call activity on 20m has been kinda dissapointing in my experience, tried it for a few weeks and the waterfall was pretty quiet most of the time. maybe im on at the wrong times or the frequency offsets i was checking werent right idk. didnt help that i couldnt figure out if my audio levels were set correctly, the whole setup felt fiddly compared to just letting WSJT-X do its thing

Great post! For us newer hams, could you explain what you mean by "pattern distortion"? I understand the gain numbers but not sure how to interpret the radiation pattern changes you mentioned.

yeah it absolutely gets easier but that feeling never fully goes away and honestly i think thats a good thing. keeps you sharp. my first one was a search and rescue assist back maybe 12 years ago now and i showed up with my go bag and realized i had packed three different coax adapters but forgot a notepad. a literal notepad. had to borrow paper from a firefighter which was a little embarrassing. the frequency thing you mentioned is a real common one, i've seen experienced operators get caught out by that too especially when the IC decides to go off script. what a lot of our group does now is laminate a small card with the primary and all backup freqs including the national simplex calling freq and just zip tie it to the HT or go bag strap. low tech but it works. also if your group doesnt already do ICS-205 forms for every exercise make sure they do, because having that sheet in front of you during a real event is genuinely useful and not just paperwork busywork. sounds like you did fine though, the fact that you were paying attention to what went wrong means youll be better next time.

The RCForb client does have panadapter support but honestly it depends a lot on what SDR you have on the server side. If youre running something like an SDRplay or an RTL-SDR dongle alongside your transceiver it can display the spectrum but the refresh rate over a slow connection is kind of rough. I had mine set up with an RSP1A feeding the panoramic display while the 590 handled the actual TX and it worked okay, not great. The audio compression they use is pretty good for SSB, way better than trying to push raw audio over OpenVPN which is what I was doing before. The Allstar idea is doable but its gonna be a mess to wire up. You'd basically be coming out of your remote station audio chain and feeding it into an Allstar node on the same machine or a separate pi. People do it but its a lot of moving parts and if one thing hiccups your whole link falls apart. I did something similar for a while connecting to a local club repeater remotely but I eventually just got a hotspot and called it a day.