Amanda Foster

Hey everyone! I'm diving into my first QRP homebrew project - trying to build a simple 20m CW transceiver based on some circuit ideas I found online. I'm struggling with getting the Class E power amplifier stage working efficiently. Class E amplifiers are supposed to be incredibly efficient but are difficult to get right. My calculations show it should work, but I'm only getting about 60% efficiency instead of the theoretical 90%+. Has anyone built a successful Class E PA for QRP? What are the most common mistakes beginners make? I'm using a 2N7000 MOSFET and trying to get about 2-3 watts out on 14 MHz. Any tips on component selection or layout would be much appreciated!

so ive been on 17m and 20m a lot the past couple weeks and something weird is going on. some days i can work europe no problem from the midwest, other days its like the band is completely dead and i cant even hear any signals at all. checked the solar flux and its been bouncing around quite a bit, was up around 180 something last week then dropped back down. im not super experienced with reading all the propagation indices so im not totally sure what im looking at half the time honestly. i guess my question is — is there like a good way to know in advance when the bands are gonna be open or is it mostly just luck and checking the DX cluster constantly? i feel like im missing openings because i dont know when to even bother sitting down at the radio. been licensed about 18 months so still figuring all this out.

so ive been trying to get my mobile APRS setup working for about two weeks now and im losing my mind a little. running a TM-D710G in the truck with the internal TNC, beacon interval set to 2 minutes, path is WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 which i thought was pretty standard. i can hear other stations digipeating just fine on 144.390 and my radio is definitely transmitting because i can see the TX light flashing on the right interval. but i go to aprs.fi and search my callsign and nothing. not even an old packet from when i was testing last week. my buddy K4something drove past an igate that he said definitely works because his icon shows up fine. so im wondering if theres something wrong with my path settings or maybe the symbol i picked is causing issues somehow? i dont think symbols matter for digipeating but i honestly dont know also worth mentioning im using the APRS feature through the radio's built in GPS, not an external one, and the coordinates look right on the display so that part seems fine

Looking to get started on 2m EME and have narrowed down to a 4x17 element long boom yagi array. Station specs suggest four 16 Element long boom yagi's computer optimized for extreme weak signals but I'm finding 17-element designs with better F/B ratios. Power budget is 1kW SSPA into 0.5-0.8 dB NF preamplifier at the antenna input point. Question: Is the extra element worth the mechanical complexity, and what's the minimum sky temperature threshold I should target for decent copy? For successful EME contact on 144MHz, sky noise in direction of the Moon has to be less or equal 500°K. Should I expect reasonable results with this configuration using JT65/Q65?

yeah im planning on it, went last year and honestly the swap tables were a little thin compared to what i remember from a few years back. still worth going if you're looking for random connectors and coax and that kind of stuff, always someone selling boxes of that. just dont expect to find a specific radio unless you get lucky. get there early thats the main thing

man i remember my first activation, it was a real event not even a drill and i was so nervous i almost forgot to log the time on my first message. the good news is that if youve been doing the nets and you know your phonetic alphabet cold and you can copy a message without panicking, youre probably more ready than you think. for the go bag stuff i would honestly add a notepad beyond just the ICS forms, sometimes you just need scratch paper and its dumb to not have it. also a pen that actually works in the cold, learned that one the hard way. headlamp is always in mine even for indoor activations because you never know. some kind of snack too because depending on the exercise you might be there longer than expected and nobody wants to be the hungry operator making mistakes. on the baofeng thing, for a county EOC exercise its totally fine. theyre not glamorous but they work. the EC will let you know if there are specific requirements for your group but most ARES groups just want you to be on frequency with a working radio. once you get more active you might want something with better audio or a mobile rig if you end up doing a lot of deployments but dont stress it for now.

The ads aren't obtrusive at all on DX Spots - just a small window at the bottom with basic filtering and a nice UI. For free it does what I need for casual spotting while mobile.

so ive been meaning to do this for a while and finally sitting down to think about it seriously. our local ARES group has been pushing everyone to have a go-kit ready and honestly i feel kind of embarrassed that i dont have one yet, been licensed for almost 3 years now. my problem is i dont even know where to start. like do i build around a specific radio or just throw everything in a bag and hope for the best? i have a Yaesu FT-857D that i use at home and a couple of HTs, one of them is a Baofeng which i know some people have opinions about but it works fine for local stuff. i also have a little 20ah lithium battery pack i picked up last year. what does your go-kit actually look like in real life, not the ideal version, the one you actually grab when something comes up. and how often do you test it or like... rotate the batteries and stuff. that part seems like it could get away from you pretty fast

so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (technician) and ive been listening to the local 2m net on tuesday nights for a few weeks. the net control always asks if theres any stations with traffic or emergency business first, then goes through the check-ins. i get the basic flow but im still not totally sure when its appropriate to just say my callsign and check in vs waiting to be called or whatever. last week i tried to check in and i think i stepped on someone else because net control asked me to repeat and i felt pretty embarrassed. is there a general rule for timing your check-ins? like do you wait for a specific pause or just go when it feels right? also is it rude to check in and then say you have no traffic? i always feel like im wasting everyones time if i dont have anything to say but i see people do it all the time so maybe thats fine. just dont want to be that guy who fumbles around and annoys the experienced ops on the net

Just got back from the local hamfest and managed to snag a clean FT-857D for $200 from an SK sale table. Guy said it belonged to a local silent key and his family just wanted it to go to someone who'd use it. Sometimes the best deals come with the best stories. What's your best hamfest find this year? Looking forward to our club's annual swap meet next month - always curious what gear shows up there.

JS8Call is definitely not as populated as FT8 but its not dead either, you just have to know when to look. 40m late evening seems to work okay for me, usually see a decent cluster of activity around 7.078 like you said but also try 7.079, people scatter a bit. the HF nets that run on it are probably your best bet for actually getting a response — there are a few that run scheduled times and theyll respond to pretty much anyone who shows up. normal mode is probably your best starting point, turbo is faster but the SNR advantage shrinks and honestly if the other station isnt running turbo you'll just confuse things. i run normal at 40 watts into a dipole and work stations pretty regularly, nothing exotic. the thing that got me was the heartbeat feature — once you set that up your station kind of announces itself automatically and you start seeing responses without even actively calling CQ, which is nice when youre just monitoring. PSK31 scratches that same itch if you havent tried it, way more conversational feel and the waterfall activity on 20m can still be pretty good on weekends. old school but it works.

Yeah those pacific runs can be brutal, especially with propagation the way its been. One thing that helped me was really listening to the pattern of who theyre working. Some dx ops have a preference for certain areas or they work in geographical order. Also try calling less - i know it sounds backwards but sometimes when you call every 3-4 cycles instead of every single one you actually stand out more. And make sure your audio is clean, lot of stations running way too much processing and the dx just cant copy them through the qrm