Emily Miller

yeah this is basically the eternal ham software problem and i dont think theres a clean answer tbh. i ran a similar setup for a while, N1MM for contests, WSJT-X for digital, and DXKeeper for the main log and it was a constant juggling act. what finally helped me was just accepting N1MM as the master log for everything contest-related and doing a careful ADIF export right after the contest ends before i do anything else. set a reminder on your phone if you have to, seriously. for the WSJT-X and Log4OM thing, i think the issue a lot of people hit is that Log4OM's UDP listener can drop packets if the timing is weird or the PC is busy. theres a setting in WSJT-X under the reporting tab where you can point it at the Log4OM port, make sure the IPs match exactly and that nothing else is grabbing port 2237 or whatever you have it set to. also make sure Log4OM is actually open and has focus at least once before you start a WSJT-X session, sounds dumb but it matters sometimes.

so i finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend, went out to a state forest area that has a reference number and set up a simple wire dipole strung between two trees. overall it went pretty well, got way more contacts than i expected honestly, people really do hunt these references. but i have a few things im still confused about. when i self-spotted on pota.app i noticed some hunters were also logging it as a WWFF contact, is that normal? like do the two programs just kind of overlap for a lot of parks and forests? and also how strict are the rules about being actually within the boundaries? i was parked at a trailhead that was technically just outside the main reference area but i could basically see the boundary. felt a little sketchy so i packed up and hiked in about 10 minutes before starting, just wanted to make sure i did it right. also whats the deal with uploading logs, do i go through wwff.cc or is there another way now? i saw something about a different portal but couldnt find clear info. the whole logging side of this is honestly more confusing than the actual operating part lol

so ive been messing around with a raspberry pi zero w for the past few weeks trying to get it to handle some basic shack automation stuff and honestly it's been a rabbit hole i did not expect. started out just wanting it to log my contacts automatically from my IC-7300 via the USB connection and maybe flip a few relays for antenna switching but now im knee deep in python scripts and i cant stop adding features to the thing. right now i have it pulling band data from the radio over CI-V, deciding which antenna to connect based on what band im on, and logging to an sqlite database that syncs to ADIF every hour or so. also added a little 2x16 LCD so i can see basic status without having to look at the computer. the whole thing runs headless and just comes up when i power on the shack strip. my question is more about the antenna switching side - im using a 74HC595 shift register to drive 8 relays through only 3 GPIO pins which works great on the bench but i keep seeing weird behavior when i key up. wondering if anyone else has seen relay chatter or logic glitches from RF getting into the GPIO lines. i added some bypass caps but not sure if thats enough or if i need proper optoisolation between the pi and the relay board.

so ive been messing with this 80m dipole for about three weekends now and i cant figure out what's going on. cut it to roughly 130 feet total according to the standard formula, center fed with RG-8X running about 65 feet down to the shack. the swr dip is showing up around 3.4 MHz instead of where i want it which is closer to 3.7 or so for phone. i trimmed it back a little thinking maybe i'd cut it long by accident but the resonant point barely moved, like maybe 20 kHz which doesnt make sense if i took off a foot on each side. the antenna is basically an inverted V with the apex at about 35 feet off a pushup mast and the ends are only maybe 8 feet off the ground, which i know isnt ideal but thats what i can do in my yard. wondering if the low end height is loading it and pulling the resonance down? also have a 1:1 balun at the feedpoint that i built from a type 31 core, dont think thats the issue but who knows. any ideas before i start over from scratch, which at this point im tempted to do

welcome to the addiction haha. seriously though S&P is absolutely the right call for your first CQ WW, dont even worry about running a frequency yet. just tune around, work whoever you can hear, and log everything. N1MM+ is what most serious contesters use and yeah it takes a little setup but there are like a million youtube tutorials and the defaults are actually pretty reasonable once you get the basics in. your 891 and a wire antenna will do more than you think on 40m especially at night when the DX starts rolling in from europe. i did my first CQ WW with a dipole at 25 feet and still managed a few hundred QSOs over the weekend. the pile-ups are wild but if you just target the stations everyone isnt already calling you'll be surprised how many contacts you can rack up. the multipliers are what make it fun — every new country or zone is like a little dopamine hit. also check the 3830 scores page after the contest, lots of people post their results and writeups and it gives you a sense of what's achievable from different setups

congrats on the general by the way. i went through the vanity process about a year ago and got lucky on my first try for a 1x2. just want to add that you can submit multiple applications at once for different callsigns and the system ranks them by preference order i believe, so its worth applying for a few options rather than just one in case your top choice gets grabbed by someone else at the same time. the filing windows are like simultaneous so its not really first come first served within that window from what i understand anyway. ae7q is definitely the site to bookmark, i probably checked it every day for like two months waiting for the one i wanted to pop up lol

1.4:1 at your target freq is totally fine, i wouldnt mess with it. the 468 formula is just a starting point anyway and you got lucky landing that close on the first cut. honestly if your radio is happy and youre making contacts just leave it alone, trimming half an inch at a time to chase a 1.1:1 SWR is one of those things that will drive you crazy and the real world difference at 100w is basically nothing. on the wire gauge thing, the difference between 14 and 12 gauge at HF is so small its not worth worrying about. the skin effect at 7 MHz means current is mostly flowing on the surface anyway and even pretty thin wire has more than enough surface area. people have been working DX on wire antennas made from stuff thinner than that for decades. the rocky soil might have a small effect on your takeoff angle but with an inverted V at 30 feet youre not exactly doing low angle DX work anyway so it probably doesnt matter much for your use case.

yeah what he said. also dont worry about the weather thing, half the time thats exactly what people talk about on our local net anyway haha. our Wednesday net basically turns into a weather and ragchew session after the formal part is done. just jump in, worst case you stumble over your words a little and nobody cares at all, we were all new once.

honestly the height matters way more than the configuration in my experience. an inverted V at 35 feet is going to outperform a flat top at 20 feet pretty much every time. the pattern difference is real — flat top has more low angle radiation which helps for dx, inverted V is a bit more high angle so it can actually be better for regional stuff on 40m depending on what you're trying to do. but were talking maybe a few db difference in specific directions, not night and day. i ran both for a while when i had a temporary second support up, did some back to back comparisons on 40 during a few evenings. flat top was maybe marginally better into europe from my qth but it wasnt like the inverted V was embarassing itself. if the inverted V is working for you and raising it higher isnt in the cards, i wouldnt lose sleep over it. get the apex as high as you possibly can and call it done.

so i dont know if anyone else has been noticing but 6 meters has been absolutely wild the past couple weeks. im talking coast to coast contacts on FT8 with signals i wouldnt normally dream of working, had a guy in Arizona calling me from here in upstate NY and it was like he was next door. Es season seems early this year or maybe im just paying more attention now that ive actually got a decent antenna up finally. anyway while i was down the rabbit hole reading about propagation i stumbled across some chatter about Icom supposedly announcing something new in the IC-705 line or maybe a successor, couldnt find anything super concrete but there were a few posts on some japanese ham forums that got translated and it sounded legit. anybody seen anything more solid on that? i know icom has been hinting at stuff at hamvention but i havent been in a couple years so im kind of out of the loop on what was shown this year if anything. also if youre not already watching the dxmaps and pskreporter this time of year you're really missing out, the band opening visualization stuff is just so much better than it used to be.

I did a pixie build last year and had the same chirp issue, drove me absolutely crazy for a while. ended up being my power supply which was a cheap switching wall wart and it was just injecting noise into everything. switched to a battery and it got way better, not perfect but definitely better. for SOTA that actually works in your favor because youll be on battery anyway. the pixie type rigs are pretty sensitive to all that stuff but theyre fun to build. what did you use for the audio filter stage? im always looking for ideas to clean up the audio on simple rigs like that

im running both on a pi4 with a kenwood TM-V71A and it works pretty well. one thing i noticed is if you go the digipeater route keep an eye on your TX delay setting in direwolf, had mine set too high at first and it was causing all sorts of collisions that i didnt notice until a buddy of mine checked aprs.fi and pointed out my packets were mangling other peoples stuff. dropped it to around 150ms and things cleaned up a lot. also just a heads up aprs.fi doesnt always show you whats really happening on RF, its worth having a second receiver just listening and using a waterfall to see whats actually going out. i use an rtl-sdr for monitoring while the main rig transmits.

so ive been messing with my APRS setup for a few weeks now and im not sure my packets are actually making it very far. running a TM-D710G into a mag mount on the truck, using WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 which is what everyone seems to recommend but i live kind of rural and i think there might only be one igate within like 40 miles of me. been watching aprs.fi and sometimes my beacon shows up fine and sometimes it just disappears for like 20-30 minutes at a time while im driving. i bumped the beacon rate down to every 2 minutes from the default which helped a little i think but honestly not sure if that made a difference or if it was just coincidence. also noticed when i drive through town it picks up way better obviously. should i be adjusting the path for rural vs town or is that more trouble than its worth with a mobile setup. and does anyone actually use WIDE1-1,WIDE2-2 out there or is that considered bad form these days

so i've been chasing a 3B8 for about two years now and last weekend i finally got through on 17m and i'm still kind of processing how it happened honestly. i've been reading all the usual advice about timing your calls, listening to where the DX is actually pulling from, working split properly etc but i feel like none of that really clicked until i just sat there for like 45 minutes and watched the pattern before i even touched the mic. what i noticed was the DX op was consistently coming back about 2-3 khz up from where most people were piling on, and he had this rhythm where he'd work two or three stations then pause for like a full second before saying QRZ. i started timing my calls to hit right after that pause and on maybe the 8th or 9th attempt he came back with my suffix. genuinely couldnt believe it. anyway my question is really about DXpeditions specifically — like when you've got a massive one going, VP6 scale or whatever, is there any technique that actually works beyond just patience and good ears? i run about 500w into a 3 element yagi at 45 feet so i'm not exactly a pistol but not a barefoot dipole guy either. feels like there has to be something im missing because some guys seem to bust these pileups way faster than makes sense for their signal.

so ive been licensed for about three weeks now (got my tech) and everyone keeps telling me to just grab a baofeng to start but then other people say dont bother and get something better from the start. i dont really know what i need it for yet, probably just local repeaters and maybe some simplex if anyone in my area even does that. my budget is like $80-120 maybe a little more if it makes sense. the yaesu FT-60 keeps coming up but thats pushing the top of my budget and i also saw the wouxun KG-UV9D which looks interesting. does the extra money actually matter that the end of the day or is a uv5r going to do basically the same thing for local repeater use? i dont want to regret buying cheap but i also dont want to spend money i dont need to spend. any thoughts appreciated