Patricia Kim

yeah your elmer is right about the edges and heres the thing that took me a while to get too -- the FCC allocation says 7.175 for the lower edge of general phone on 40m but your transmitted signal isnt just on one exact frequency. if youre doing SSB your suppressed carrier might be at 7.175 but the actual sidebands extend a few kHz above that, so if youre too close to the edge you could technically be putting energy outside your allocation without meaning to. most people just stay a few kHz inside to be safe, like dont set your dial below 7.178 or so and youre probably fine. the ARRL band plan thing is just a gentlemens agreement basically, the FCC rules are the actual law. the band plan is more about keeping digital modes and CW and phone from stomping all over each other which it mostly works okay. for casual ragchewing on 40m phone youre gonna find most activity between 7.200 and 7.280 anyway so you wont even be near the edges most of the time

PoLo has been solid for me! When I spot myself it posts to both POTA and WWFF networks simultaneously - huge advantage for dual activators. For QRZ issues, try downloading offline reference files in the settings.

dont forget 73 and 88 which technically arent Q codes but everyone uses them anyway. 73 is best regards and 88 is love and kisses which some people think is cheesy but whatever. there are also a lot of abbreviations that are just old telegraph shorthand that got carried over, stuff like OM (old man, basically means any guy youre talking to), YL (young lady), XYL is like the wife. it sounds kind of dated honestly but its just part of the culture. took me a while to not feel weird calling someone OM when i first started lol

oh man i remember that storm! same thing happened to me, had all this gear and no clue what to do with it when it actually mattered. after that i started monitoring the local repeaters more regularly just to learn who the regular emergency coordinators are. turns out theres a whole network of people doing this stuff but they dont advertise it much. also learned that having battery backup is one thing but having enough battery backup for several days is totally different

congrats on getting it done, the first real mobile install is always a bit of a project. on the head cable question -- yeah Yaesu does sell an extension for the FTM-400, its the CT-110 i think, adds another meter or so. should be able to find it pretty easily. i ran into the same issue when i put mine in my truck, the cable just barely cleared the center console and i didnt love the bend on it. also good call going straight to the battery with fused leads. i see so many mobile installs where people tap into the fuse box and then wonder why they have noise issues or voltage drop under transmit. your way is the right way. the Tram antenna is decent enough for local stuff, if you ever want to reach out a bit further on 2m look at the Diamond NR770HB or the Comet SBB-5 when you're ready to upgrade, both are solid performers for the price.

so ive been running a diamond x50 on the roof for about two years now and its been fine for hitting the local 2m and 70cm repeaters, no real complaints. but lately ive been reading more about yagis and how much better the gain is and im starting to wonder if im leaving performance on the table. the thing is my main use is just rag chewing on the local linked repeater network, occasionally some simplex when conditions are good. not doing any serious dx or contest stuff on vhf. the repeater is maybe 18 miles away with a decent shot, no real terrain in the way. my x50 hits it just fine, full quieting most of the time. so my question is really whether theres any practical reason to swap to something like a 5 or 7 element yagi pointed at the repeater. obviously id lose the omnidirectional coverage which is kind of nice to have. or is there some middle ground im not thinking of. someone mentioned a collinear with more elements would get me a few more db without giving up the omni pattern but i dont know if thats actually worth the money and the climb back up on the roof. running about 50w from an ic-2300h if that matters

Started using FT8 from my apartment with just an end-fed in the attic. Many operators make global contacts using 25–50 watts or less and it's true! Worked VK and ZL last week on 20m when SSB was completely dead.

so ive been sitting here spinning the dial on 40 meters for the past couple evenings and its just... dead? like way quieter than usual. got a few qsos in last weekend but this week nothing. not even the usual lids ragchewing around 7.200. wondering if its just my antenna acting up again or if propagation has just been garbage for everyone. checked pskreporter and i can see im getting out ok so its not that. maybe everyone switched to FT8 and i just didnt get the memo lol

yeah i did almost exactly this about two years ago with an uno and an IC-7100. the CI-V stuff on icom radios can be a pain because its half duplex and if your timing is even slightly off the radio just stops responding. what worked for me was adding a pretty generous delay after sending any command before i tried to read back, like 50ms or more felt excessive but it stopped the lockups. also make sure your address byte is right, the 7300 might be different from the 7100 but same idea. on the relay question — i wouldnt run 100w through those cheap amazon relay boards. the contacts are rated for AC mains current which sounds like a lot but RF is a different story, the contact geometry isnt designed for it and you can get arcing especially on SSB peaks. i eventually swapped to some surplus omron RF relays i found on ebay and the difference in feel was noticeable, coax connectors on them and everything. worth the effort if you're going to use this seriously.

might also be worth pulling up aprsdroid on your phone with an SDR dongle just to see if your own packets are actually being heard by anything locally before blaming the path. aprs.fi only updates when an igate actually receives your packet from a digi, so if theres a gap in coverage you could be hitting a digi but the nearest igate is offline or something. happens more than people think, some of these igates are running on old raspberry pis at guys houses and they go down all the time lol

the self spotting thing tripped me up too when i started. i waited like 20 minutes on my first one hoping someone would spot me and almost gave up lol. just spot yourself, hunters are literally sitting there watching the app waiting for someone to show up. youre doing them a favor not the other way around

ft8 killed psk31, rtty, hell it basically killed most of the hf digital scene if we're being honest. i still fire up fldigi sometimes just to see whats there and its pretty sparse compared to 2015 or so. the efficiency argument makes sense technically but the hobby lost something in the trade i think js8call is on my list to try, just havent gotten around to it. curious what frequencies you're finding the most activity on

so i finally got off my butt and drove up to W4V/SH-001 yesterday with my KX2 and a random wire thrown up in a tree. took me like 45 minutes to get 4 contacts which i know sounds bad but the band conditions were pretty rough in the morning and i had to switch from 20m to 40m before anything started happening. the summit is only like a 20 min hike but man carrying even a light pack with the radio, battery, and all the coax gets heavy quick. anyway i got my 4 contacts and qualified but honestly expected it to be easier lol. anyone else find 20m totally dead before like 11am on weekdays? might just be my location

Had the exact same issue with my G90 and Digirig. JS8Call-improved was founded by Chris AC9KH to move development forward from v2.3.1 - the new codebase might have changed some timing parameters. Roll back to 2.4.0 temporarily to isolate whether it's version-specific.

dont rule out the PA bias drifting — ive seen that cause exactly what youre describing. the 7300 has a bias trimmer and if it walks off for whatever reason the output just falls off a cliff. might be worth looking up the service adjustment procedure before you start swapping parts, could save you some money if thats all it is.

hamstudy.org is honestly all you need if youre short on time. i did my tech in like two weeks just doing flashcards on there during lunch breaks. the site tracks which questions you're getting wrong and keeps drilling those which is really helpful. the question pool for tech isnt that bad, a lot of it is just basic electrical stuff and some rules/regulations, and some of it you'll just pick up naturally as you read. i wouldnt stress too much about understanding every single thing deeply for the test, some of the electronics questions you kind of just pattern match your way through, the real learning happens after you get on the air anyway. gordon west books are fine if you like having something physical to read through but i personally found the flashcard approach way faster

so our club is trying to organize a carpool thing for the hamfest up in the dayton area next month and i was just curious if anyone else from around here is planning on making the trip. last year i went solo and honestly kind of regretted it, way more fun when you have people to wander the flea market with and someone to help you haul back whatever junk you inevitably end up buying. i came home last time with an old drake that needed work and two boxes of connectors i definitely didnt need

not a dumb question at all, this stuff genuinely confusing when you first start out. short answer is you dont really NEED all three but a lot of people use at least two of them. LoTW is run by the ARRL and its the gold standard for most major awards like DXCC and WAS. its a bit of a pain to get set up because of the certificate process but once its going its pretty much automatic if youre logging with something like WSJT-X or Log4OM. worth the headache upfront. eQSL is easier and more casual, a lot of operators use it especially for digital modes, but its not accepted for DXCC so keep that in mind. some awards do accept it though. paper cards are honestly kind of a tradition thing at this point for most people. i still send and receive them and i love getting them in the mail, theres something nice about a physical card. if you work a lot of DX you might want to look into the outgoing bureau through ARRL eventually but dont worry about that yet. for now id say just get LoTW going and maybe sign up for eQSL too since its free and painless, you can always add paper cards later when you figure out what you enjoy about the hobby.

made that exact jump about 18 months ago and honestly the dual receive is something i use more than i expected. during contest weekends running S&P on one band while monitoring another for openings is genuinely useful, not just a gimmick. the noise floor on the 7610 also feels a bit cleaner to me but that could be placebo, hard to A/B test when youre swapping rigs not just toggling a setting that said if youre doing casual HF and FT8 the 7300 is not holding you back at all. the 7610 is a nicer radio but its not a transformative upgrade the way going from like a 100w barefoot to a decent amp is. if the dual RX is genuinely solving a problem you have then go for it, but if youre just looking at the spec sheet and dreaming, the 7300 will keep doing the job fine

so ive been trying to get into CW for about three months now and i finally passed my general so i figured id actually try to use the HF privileges for something other than just phone. bought a cheap dual-lever paddle off amazon (i know i know) and hooked it up to my old Kenwood with the built in keyer. the problem is my dits and dahs just sound... sloppy? like i know what im trying to send but when i play it back it doesnt sound like what i thought i sent. ive been practicing with the Koch method on an app and im fine copying at like 15 wpm with good spacing but when i actually try to send that fast my hand just doesnt cooperate. feels like im squeezing too hard or something. im at maybe 10-12 wpm sending comfortably but even then its not clean. is this just a practice thing or is there something technique-wise i should be looking at? also does the paddle quality matter that much at this stage or am i just making excuses

I'm setting up my first APRS mobile station using a Kenwood TM-D710G and getting conflicting information about path settings. The recommended path for mobiles or portable stations in North America is now WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1, but I'm seeing older documentation suggesting just WIDE2-2. Can someone explain when to use which path? I understand the New-N paradigm was implemented to reduce network congestion, but I want to make sure I'm not causing QRM with improper path settings. Also, should I be using different paths for stationary vs mobile operation? My QTH is in a suburban area with good digipeater coverage.

ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (tech) and i finally got my baofeng programmed to hit the local 147.something repeater. i can hear people talking on it fine but when i key up nobody seems to hear me, or at least nobody responds. i checked the repeater directory and it says the tone is 100.0 hz. i think i have it set right in chirp but honestly im not 100% sure if i set it as a tone or a tsql or whatever the difference even is. also i noticed sometimes there are two different groups of people talking at different times and they seem to kind of just... take turns? like is there some kind of schedule or do people just know when to jump in? i dont want to step on anybody. one of the guys on there sounds like he does a net every tuesday or something. should i wait until after that before i try to check in or is it ok to just say my callsign at some point? sorry if these are dumb questions, just trying to not be that guy who ruins everyone elses QSO

yeah spotting makes a massive difference, also dont underestimate putting your activation on the SOTA reflector or even the subreddit a day or two ahead of time. some of the dedicated chasers actually schedule around planned activations. i usually get 20-30 contacts now compared to like 8 when i first started mostly because i started alerting in advance and spotting immediately when i hit the summit. good job getting it done though, its a great feeling submitting those logs

so the FCC allocation for general class on 40m phone is 7.175 to 7.300 MHz, that part you had right. 7.245 is fine, the guy probably just had a bee in his bonnet about something. now the "band edge" thing is a seperate issue -- the concern there is that if youre running USB on say 7.300 and your signal has any width to it at all, sidebands can bleed above 7.300 which is out of band. most people say stay at least 3khz inside the edge to be safe, so like 7.297 max for the upper end. on the lower end at 7.175 same idea, dont park right on 7.175.000 because your signal isnt a perfect knife edge. the arrl band plan is just a gentlemens agreement, it doesnt have the force of law like the fcc allocations do. its more like suggestions for where different modes tend to cluster so people can find each other. doesnt mean you CANT operate outside those suggestions, just means you might be in the middle of a net or a pileup you didnt know about

honestly for hitting local repeaters youre probably not gonna notice any difference at all. the off-center thing matters more if youre trying to do something like weak signal work or you care about the pattern being perfectly symmetrical in every direction, which most mobile operators just dont need. ive had mounts all over the place on different vehicles over the years and the real world difference on VHF FM to a repeater is pretty minimal as long as you have decent ground plane under the mount and your coax run isnt a disaster. the one thing id double check is how you did the NMO mount itself, make sure the coax connection underneath isnt exposed to water getting in around the seal. that can sneak up on you and cause weird intermittent issues months later. other than that sounds like a solid first install to me.