Emily Wilson23

yeah what he said about LoTW — seriously just get that set up first before anything else. i waited way too long and had like a years worth of contacts that i had to go back and try to get confirmed through QRZ or eQSL which is hit or miss. the ARRL application process for LoTW is a little annoying with the certificate stuff but once its done its done and everything just kind of flows from there. also 60 entities in 8 months on FT8 is not bad at all, you might actually be closer to DXCC than you think if you can get those confirmed. some of the entities are super easy to get but the last 10-15 to hit 100 confirmed can take a while depending on propagation and what DXpeditions are active. theres a site called DX Watch or you can use the DX cluster to see whos on and where

congrats on the first activation, 43 contacts is a solid outing especially if you werent sure what to expect. for the log submission you do want to upload to the WWFF logbook separately at wwff.co, its not automatic from LoTW or anything like that. you just export your ADIF and upload it through the system, pretty painless once you do it once. LoTW is still worth uploading to separately for general confirmed contacts but the WWFF credit comes from their own database. and yes re-spotting absolutely matters, a lot of the hunters are watching the cluster and if you drop off they genuinely may not know youre still out there. i try to re-spot every 20-30 minutes or if i switch bands. some guys set a timer on their phone so they dont forget. the WWFF Spotter app on android makes it pretty quick to do from your phone without breaking your operating rhythm too much. europe on 40m during a daytime activation here in north america usually means late afternoon their time, so youre probably catching the gray line or close to it, that path can be surprisingly good. anyway sounds like you caught the bug, welcome to the program

i did the same mod on mine probably two years ago and honestly dont remember noticing anything weird with the ALC but i wasnt running a linear at the time so maybe i just wouldnt have seen it. running barefoot into a dummy load for testing everything looked normal on the scope. might be worth logging your ALC voltage over a few QSOs and seeing if theres actually a pattern or if its just random variation day to day, sometimes propagation and band conditions make linears act funky and we blame the radio.

yeah what he said but also i'll add that during any kind of nets, especially traffic nets or emcomm stuff, phonetics are basically expected all the time regardless of conditions. i did a served agency exercise last year and the net control was pretty firm about it even when signals were perfectly readable. i think the idea is you practice it the same way every time so when things go sideways you dont have to think about it. casual ragchewing on a repeater is different obviously, nobody's going to call you out for just saying your callsign normally

ok so ive been listening to the local 2m net for about three weeks now and i finally worked up the courage to check in last tuesday. the net control called for check-ins and i just said my callsign like i heard other people do, and he came back to me and acknowledged me, so i think it went ok? but then later in the net he asked if anyone had traffic and i wasnt sure if i was supposed to say something even though i didnt have any traffic, or if you just stay quiet. i ended up just staying quiet and i think that was right but honestly i have no idea. also at one point someone said they were mobile and gave their callsign twice and i wasnt sure if thats a thing you always do when youre mobile or just sometimes. i dont want to be that guy who does something wrong on the air and embarrasses himself. been licensed since march so still pretty new to all this.

could be a few things causing that extra drain. first thing id check is if you have any op amps or other always-on circuitry thats not being accounted for in your calculations. also check for any pull-up resistors that might be larger than they need to be. had a similar issue with my mountain topper and it turned out to be the display backlight circuit pulling way more than expected even when dimmed

Check out HamExam.org for sample practice exams and HamStudy.org has an app so you can take tests on your phone anytime. I recommend doing at least one practice test daily until you're ready.

thats awesome, ive been thinking about trying WWFF but honestly im still not totally clear on how the logging works after the activation. do you just upload to ADIF or is there a specific portal? i did a couple POTA activations and that system made sense to me but the WWFF side of things seems like it might be different or maybe i'm overcomplicating it

What are the most common pronunciation errors hams make with NATO phonetics that cause confusion on-air? I've been hearing some variations that don't sound right - like "Lee-mah" vs "Lee-ma" for Lima, and operators mixing up similar-sounding phonetic words. Are there specific pronunciation guidelines we should follow? Which letters cause the most confusion?Any tips for clear enunciation in noisy conditions?

i started EME about two years ago with a single 4m long yagi on 2m, made maybe a dozen contacts total but they were real contacts and it was one of the coolest things ive done in ham radio honestly. the frustrating part is the moon windows are short and scheduling matters a lot, like you cant just point at the moon randomly and expect someone to be there. the EME2 logger and the online scheduling tools are kind of essential, people post their activity times and you can plan around mutual moon windows. patience is the other thing, ive sat for two hours on a scheduled sked and had nothing happen because of unexpected QSB or the other guys equipment issue or whatever. but when it works its just unreal to think about where that signal went

Just wanted to share some success with FT8 during these moderate solar flux days. The mode offers operators the ability to communicate despite unfavorable conditions with signal-to-noise ratio as low as −20 dB. In my first week of operating I worked 180 countries using just a simple dipole at 30 feet and 50W. It's widely used by amateur radio operators who want reliable contacts with minimal power, limited antennas, or difficult propagation conditions, especially popular among DXers and stations operating from restricted locations. Anyone else finding FT8 opens up DX that would be impossible on SSB or CW?

so i finally stopped putting it off and just built a 40m dipole from scratch. used some 14 gauge stranded wire i had lying around from an old extension cord project, center insulator was a piece of PVC i drilled out and ran the coax through. honestly it came together pretty fast once i stopped overthinking it. my question is about the feedpoint impedance situation. im running it as an inverted V with the apex at maybe 28 feet, legs going down at roughly 45 degrees. i know the impedance drops when you do the inverted V thing versus a flat top, closer to 50 ohms which is actually kind of convenient. but when i did a sweep with my nanoVNA the SWR at resonance is sitting around 1.4:1 which i thought was fine but then i started reading about it and now im second guessing myself. is that normal for this kind of config or did i mess something up at the feedpoint. the solder joints look ok to me but i didnt do anything fancy with the coax shield braid, just soldered it straight to one leg. also the resonant frequency came out a little high, around 7.15 instead of where i cut it for which was more like 7.1. does wire stretch or settle over time or do i just need to add a few inches to each leg.

yeah the timing thing is huge and i dont think people talk about it enough. most guys are just mashing the key the second they hear the DX station stop transmitting and you end up with this wall of noise. if you can actually predict the rhythm of the operator — some of them are very consistent with their timing — you can place your call so its landing right as the others are fading out. one thing i'd add is tail-ending, which is controversial i know, but done right it can be effective. you wait until someone else finishes their exchange and you drop your call in right at the tail end of their last transmission. the DX op sometimes catches the last signal they hear and that can be yours if you time it right. its not cheating, its just understanding propagation and timing. i also pay a lot of attention to what frequency within the stated split range the op is actually pulling from. a lot of times they work their way up or down the range in a pattern and if you can figure out where they're headed next you can be there waiting. took me a few DXpeditions to notice that pattern but now i always chart where the contacts are happening relative to the split edges.

The current Technician pool was revised in 2022 and is valid until June 30, 2026. The new Technician pool becomes effective July 1, 2026 and will be valid until June 30, 2030. I'm planning to take my exam this spring - should I be studying with the current pool or wait for the new one? Each question pool is reviewed and updated on a four-year rotation, so I want to make sure I'm using the right materials.

SimpleHRR is perfect for beginners - I set it up in under an hour following their guide. The web interface is intuitive and ALL SimpleHRR Web applications are free to use. No ongoing costs makes it attractive for occasional use.

Thanks for posting this - I hadn't been watching the trend closely. Are you using any particular sites for tracking these long-term patterns? I'd like to start paying more attention to the solar cycle progression.

so ive been noticing some really strange stuff on 10 and 12 meters the past few weeks. one afternoon it'll be completely dead, like i cant even hear any noise floor activity from europe, and then two days later ill be working stations in japan like theyre next door. checked the solar flux index and its been bouncing around between like 140 and 190 which i guess is pretty high? im still fairly new to understanding how all that translates to actual band conditions on the ground. had a buddy tell me to watch the K-index too for geomagnetic stuff but honestly i dont fully understand how a geomagnetic storm wrecks 20 meters while maybe helping 160 or something. feels backwards to me. anyway been having a blast when 10m opens up but i never know when to even bother checking it. is there some pattern people go by or do you just kind of check it constantly and hope for the best

oh man i remember being exactly where you are lol. the one that tripped me up forever was QRZ because on CW nets people use it like "who's there" but ive also heard people say it when theyre just finishing a transmission and i was like wait which is it. turns out people kind of just use it however they want sometimes which is annoying when youre trying to learn the actual meaning. also heads up there are some abbreviations that arent Q codes at all, like 73 means best regards, 88 is hugs and kisses (usually only sent to close friends, just so you know before you accidentally send it to some grumpy old timer on a net haha), and "de" just means "from" -- like W5XYZ de K4ABC means K4ABC calling W5XYZ. those arent Q codes they're just CW shorthand that carried over into voice and digital modes

honestly the best thing you can do is just jump in, seriously dont overthink it. CQ WW is huge and can feel chaotic for a first timer but thats actually kind of fine because everyone is so busy working pile-ups they dont care if a newcomer fumbles through an exchange. the exchange for CQ WW SSB is just your callsign, a signal report, and your CQ zone, so for most of the US its zone 3 or 4 or 5 depending where you are. if you want something a little more chill to start, ARRL November Sweepstakes is a good one because its all domestic contacts and the exchange teaches you a lot about structured logging. and Sweepstakes has this whole tradition around it that makes it feel kind of special. SOTA isnt really a contest in the same sense, its more of an award program where people activate summits and others call them from home, but it can feel very contest-like on a busy weekend and its super friendly. for the calendar, contestcalendar.com is pretty much the go-to, also WA7BNK has one i think. your IC-7300 and a dipole on 40 will do just fine, i worked my first Sweepstakes with less than that

yeah same honestly. i think for me it was after field day last year i just kinda burned out a little. took a break and messed around with SDR stuff on the computer for a while which felt like less pressure somehow. came back to HF after maybe 6 weeks and it felt fresh again.

so we have a county-level ARES exercise coming up in about 6 weeks and im trying to nail down the power situation before we get there. last time we ran this kind of thing a couple guys showed up with generators and honestly it was kind of a mess — noise on the HF bands, interference everywhere, one guy's cheap inverter generator was just killing the 40m net we were trying to run. my current thinking is to go full battery for at least the first 12 hours and only bring the generator as a backup charger overnight if needed. i've got a 100ah lifepo4 that runs my IC-7300 pretty comfortably in the field, running like 50-60w which keeps me well under the discharge ceiling. but the exercise is supposed to be 18-20 hours and i honestly dont know if i can stretch that without a recharge somewhere in the middle. on the antenna side i'm planning to bring my linked dipole and set it up as an inverted V off a 31ft jackite pole. works fine for 40/20/15 and honestly thats probably all we'll need for this exercise. my question is more about whether anyone has found a good way to run a small generator far enough away from the operating position that you're not picking up all that RFI but still close enough to run a charge cable. like what's the actual minimum distance where it stops being a problem in your experience

ive been dealing with basically the same thing lol, im at like 11wpm and just falling apart when i miss something. someone told me to just accept the missed characters and keep going instead of trying to go back and figure out what i missed, which sounds obvious but i really wasnt doing that. gonna try the farnsworth thing the other person mentioned too, hadnt heard of that before.

Many new DXpeditioners fail to appreciate propagation often determines who they should be listening for as priority - listen for eastern Europe and Russia first, saving western Europe for late afternoon, then turn attention to North America. Work with propagation, not against it.

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now (tech then upgraded to general pretty quick) and i keep hearing people talk about cw and how great it is for dx and weak signal stuff. i want to learn but honestly have no idea where to even start. like do you just memorize the dots and dashes on paper or is there some better way to do it i downloaded a couple apps but they all seem kind of different in how they teach it and i dont know which approach is actually gonna stick. someone at my local club mentioned the koch method but didnt really explain it. also not sure what speed i should be trying to learn at, ive seen people say dont start too slow but then other people say start slow so you actually hear the letters. kind of confused honestly any advice would help, just want to know what actually worked for real people not just what sounds good in theory

congrats on the activation, 47 Qs on your first one is really solid especially if conditions werent great. and yes 44 is the magic number for a valid activation so you're good. for the logging stuff — HAMRS export should work fine, just make sure the ADIF has the POTA_REF field populated with the reference number, the WWFF system is pretty forgiving but ive seen people have issues when that field is blank or formatted wrong. when you submit to wwffdxhf.adif or wherever you're uploading just follow the instructions on the main wwff page and it usually goes through within a day or two for validation. as for spotting, you really want to self-spot if you can, either through the WWFF spotting page or just post to POTA spots since a lot of hunters monitor both. if you dont spot yourself you're basically hoping someone stumbles across you or that another ham spots you which does happen but its hit or miss. i usually spot about 10 min after i get set up and start calling CQ, gives people time to see it and tune in.