Sarah Rodriguez

congrats on the 7900, solid radio for a first mobile. for the antenna on a Tacoma i'd actually vote for the bed rail mount or a tailgate lip mount rather than the cab roof just because you get a decent ground plane off the bed and it looks clean. mag mount is totally fine to start though, dont let anyone tell you its a bad option -- i ran a mag mount for like 2 years before i bothered doing a permanent install and had no real issues. on the power cable question, i know it sounds like overkill but seriously just run it to the battery. ive seen guys tap into random fuse blocks under the dash and they end up with all kinds of noise on the radio or weird voltage drop issues when they key up. the firewall grommet thing is annoying but once its done its done. most Tacomas have a rubber plug somewhere on the firewall thats not too bad to work through, might be worth poking around for a bit before you give up on it. just make sure you fuse it close to the battery on both leads and youll be good.

so i passed my technician exam back in march and just kind of sat on it for a while because honestly the whole thing felt overwhelming. finally got a baofeng set up on the local 2m repeater last week and today i actually keyed up and somebody came back to me. i was shaking the whole time lol. guy named Dave gave me a signal report and we chatted for maybe 3 or 4 minutes about nothing really, just weather and what radio i was using. but man it felt like i'd done something huge. anyway just wanted to tell somebody who might actually get it because my wife just kind of nodded when i told her

im basically in the same boat as you, been licensed 14 months and still figuring out the cluster stuff. one thing that helped me was the HamAlert website, you set up triggers for specific callsigns or DXCC entities and it sends you a push notification on your phone when something pops up on the cluster. changed everything for me because i cant stare at a screen all day but now i at least dont miss the rare stuff

JS8Call is not a ghost town but its definitely not FT8 busy either, you kind of have to know when people hang out there. 14.078 is the right spot for 20m, and there's usually some activity in the evenings US time. the thing people dont realize is JS8Call has these store-and-forward message features where you can leave a message for someone and another station relays it, its actually pretty clever for a weak signal mode. the sensitivity is somewhere between FT8 and a normal SSB conversation, like you can work through some pretty rough propagation but youre not going to pull signals out of the noise the way FT8 does. its more like -10dB or so threshold vs FT8 hitting -24dB. but you get actual words back so theres that. PSK31 comparison is a fair question. PSK31 needs a much better signal to work, its not even close on sensitivity. but the typing feels more natural because theres no wait cycle, you just type and the other person sees it coming in real time character by character. nostalgic almost. i still fire it up sometimes but yeah for actual weak signal work JS8Call wins pretty easily. your 7300 and that EFHW should do fine, just make sure your audio levels are sane going into the soundcard.

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i keep hearing people talk about how 10 meters is gonna be amazing this solar cycle but i honestly cant tell when its actually open vs just dead. like i'll tune around and hear nothing and then randomly catch someone from brazil at like s9 and then its gone again 20 minutes later. i've been checking dxmaps and sometimes the solar flux index is like 180 and i still hear nothing on 10, other times its lower and theres stuff everywhere. am i misunderstanding how this works? also whats a good SFI number to even bother turning the radio on for 10m DX? i have a pretty basic vertical so maybe thats part of it too

haha yeah man i remember mine, i fumbled the whole phonetic alphabet and just said my callsign like three times because i panicked and forgot what else to say. the other op was super patient about it. dont sweat the baofeng thing, we all started somewhere and honestly for learning the ropes on a local repeater its perfectly fine

so ive been doing these hilltop activations for a while now, mostly 2m SSB and some 70cm when conditions are decent, and im trying to figure out if its worth dragging a yagi up there versus just sticking with my collinear. right now im using a diamond X50 which is fine for local stuff but it feels like i'm leaving gain on the table when i'm up at elevation with good takeoff angles in all directions the thing is with a yagi you gotta know where you're pointing it and on a windy hilltop thats not always easy, and if i want to work stations in different directions i'm constantly rotating it by hand. been looking at a 9 element M2 for 2m but the boom length is getting into awkward territory for hiking in. anyone actually done this comparison in a real portable context, not just on paper? curious if the extra gain is actually noticeable in practice or if the elevation itself is doing most of the heavy lifting

so i finally bit the bullet and built my first dipole from scratch this weekend. been putting it off forever because i kept thinking it would be more complicated than it is, but honestly once i just sat down and did it the whole thing took maybe two hours including running the feedline. i used some 14 gauge stranded wire i had leftover from an old project, cut each leg to about 16.5 feet for 40m, and used a choc block connector in the middle as a temporary center insulator which i know isnt ideal but it was what i had lying around. fed it with about 30 feet of RG-8X into my tuner. threw it up as an inverted-V with the apex at about 25 feet off a pushup mast. swr on resonance came out around 1.4:1 which i was pretty happy with for a first go. trimmed about 4 inches off each leg to get it there. resonant at 7.15 which is right in the middle of where i operate most anyway. made a contact into ohio from upstate new york first time i keyed up so i figured that was a good sign. wondering if anyone has thoughts on what to do for a proper center insulator — i see people use SO-239 connectors with a piece of pvc or a section of cutting board. is there a preferred way to do this or does it really matter as long as its weatherproof?

yeah what he said. i built basically the same antenna last spring and 30 feet works fine. i used a 1:1 choke balun at the feedpoint too which might be worth adding if you havent, keeps rf off the coax shield. made a noticeable difference for me on receive anyway, less noise.

the simplex thing is so real. we had almost the exact same problem in our drill a couple years back. people get so used to the repeater being there that they honestly forget simplex is even an option until suddenly it isnt. after our exercise we started doing a simplex-only net once a month, just 20 minutes, nothing fancy. the difference in confidence after even a few months was noticeable. the battery thing I've seen go wrong too many times to count. someone always shows up with a dead battery or a radio that hasnt been touched since the last drill. we actually started doing a quick radio check the night before any exercise now, just a 5 minute net where everyone confirms their gear is working. catches about half the problems before they become problems on the day. sounds like overall though your group did the right thing by actually running the exercise instead of just talking about it. a lot of groups never get past the planning stage and then something real happens and they're completely unprepared. the stuff that breaks in a drill is way better than finding out during an actual event.

yeah what he said. i made the same mistake when i upgraded, was operating around 7.150 on phone for like two weeks before someone on the air politely told me i wasnt supposed to be there lol. embarasing but whatever, you learn. just save the ARRL band plan PDF to your phone honestly its way easier than trying to remember it all

the jump from RTL-SDR direct sampling to the RSP1A on HF is not marginal, its pretty significant. the RSP1A has a proper frontend for HF, actual filtering, and the noise floor difference is noticeable right away. i made the same move about two years ago and the 40m and 80m reception basically became usable instead of frustrating that said if you're mainly interested in HF and want the absolute best bang for buck specifically for shortwave and ham bands, the Airspy HF+ Discovery is kind of in its own class for the price. the dynamic range on that thing is really impressive and it handles strong broadcast stations without desense killing everything around them. SDRplay is more of a general purpose wideband receiver and it does that well, but if HF is your priority the Airspy is hard to argue with. i use SDRuno with the RSP1A and its fine once you get used to it, SDR# feels a bit more polished to me personally but thats just preference

yeah field day is kind of its own weird thing, its technically a contest but the club social aspect makes it feel different. real contesting is more you sitting at the radio for hours which sounds boring but gets strangely addicting fast lol. my first contest i did like maybe 80 contacts and felt like i'd run a marathon, good luck

so ive been running a mag loop on 40m for the past year because i live in an HOA nightmare but finally got permission to put up a wire antenna as long as its "not visible from the street" which basically means i can run something in the backyard between two trees. figured this was finally my chance to just build a dipole from scratch instead of buying one. i cut the wire to the standard formula, 468 divided by freq in MHz, targeting 7.150 for the center of the band. came out to about 65.7 feet total so roughly 32.8 each leg. used some 14 gauge stranded copper i had lying around from an old project, center insulator is just a piece of PVC i drilled through, and ran 50 ohm coax down to the shack. problem is when i sweep it with my NanoVNA the resonant point is coming in around 7.05 instead of where i wanted it and the SWR at 7.150 is sitting around 2.1:1 which isnt the end of the world but id rather get it closer. i know the standard answer is just trim a little off each side but before i do that i wanted to ask — is it possible the wire type or the feedpoint height is causing this? its only about 18 feet up at the center which probably makes it kind of an inverted V shape since the ends droop down to maybe 8 feet. does the inverted V geometry change the resonant frequency compared to a flat top?

so i finally did my first SOTA activation last weekend, W4C/WM-038 if anyone knows it, and man i was not prepared for how much harder the hike would be with a full pack. i thought i was being smart bringing my KX2 and a 40m EFHW but i forgot the counterpoise at home which i didnt realize until i was already at the summit sitting there sweating through my shirt. ended up just throwing some wire on the ground and it seemed to tune up okay? got 4 contacts which i guess counts but felt like i was leaving a lot on the table. next time im definitely doing a full gear checklist the night before instead of morning of.

so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, my neighbor has a big antenna setup and got me curious. decided to finally just go for it and get my tech license but honestly the question pool is kind of overwhelming when i first looked at it. theres like 400+ questions?? and i dont even know which ones actually show up on the test vs which ones are just in the pool for completeness or whatever. i downloaded the arrl study guide PDF someone linked me but im not sure if thats the best way to go about it or if i should just use one of the online practice test sites. also some of the electrical theory stuff is really tripping me up, like i get ohms law okay but when it gets into the antenna and propagation questions i just glaze over. anyone have a method that actually worked for them, not looking for like a 6 month study plan just want to pass the thing reasonably soon

hamstudy.org is honestly all you need for the tech exam, i wouldnt even bother with the book unless you really want to understand the why behind everything. the question pool is public so the site just drills you on the actual questions that will be on your test. once youre consistently getting like 85% or better on the practice exams youre probably ready to go sit for it. the math isnt that bad, theres maybe a handful of ohms law questions and the formula is literally V=IR, if you can remember that and do basic multiplication youll be fine. the decibel stuff is mostly just memorizing that 3dB is double the power and 10dB is 10x, you dont have to do any real log math. i passed mine in like 2 weeks just doing hamstudy for 20 minutes a night

so i finally did my first POTA activation last weekend at a state park about 40 mins from me, been putting it off forever because i kept convincing myself i needed more gear or a better antenna setup before going out. anyway i threw the KX2 in my backpack with a 20m EFHW and just went. set up on a picnic table near the parking lot which probably wasnt the most scenic but whatever. first issue was the antenna, i strung it up between two trees but one end was way too low and i kept getting SWR around 2.8 which the KX2 tuner handled but i was not happy about it. made 10 contacts in about 45 minutes though so it counts as an activation, logged them on paper and uploaded when i got home. second activation done right would be better but honestly it felt good just to actually go do it instead of sitting at home planning forever

i had the exact same experience when i started on the linear birds, felt like trying to pat my head and rub my stomach while someone was slowly moving the floor. what helped me was just doing a few passes where i only listened and tracked my downlink tuning manually in gpredict without even trying to transmit. just getting comfortable with how fast things drift at different elevation angles and then adding the tx part later. low elevation passes are almost worse because the doppler rate of change is higher when the satellite is coming over the horizon weirdly enough, it levels off near max elevation. anyway dont get discouraged, AO-73 has pretty good uplink sensitivity so once you get the doppler thing sorted you wont need to push the 818 hard at all.

the TCXO upgrade on the 857 is worth it if you do any digital stuff at all honestly. stock oscillator on those is fine for voice but when youre trying to hold a tight FT8 decode window and the rig drifts even 5-10 hz over a long session it starts to matter. i put the TCXO in mine about two years ago and the difference was immediately obvious in WSPR — before the mod i'd see the trace wander on the waterfall, after it was basically a straight line. the fan mod you mentioned is probably more practically useful day to day though. those rigs really do cook themselves if you push them on digital. i had one that went intermittent on TX and it turned out to be a thermal issue, never ran it hot again after that.

Congrats on passing your exam! For a new Tech, 128 channels is more than enough to get started. You'll probably program in 10-20 local repeaters plus some simplex frequencies, so you won't come close to filling 128 slots. The UV-5R is a solid starter radio - just budget for a programming cable to make entering frequencies easier than using the keypad.

yeah tech is fine dont stress about it. when i joined our ARES group i was a tech for like another year before i upgraded and nobody cared, i was doing health and welfare traffic at a marathon and helping with net check-ins the whole time. general opens up more doors eventually but dont let it stop you from getting involved now. the ICS stuff tripped me up too at first, it sounds way more complicated than it is. once you do a drill or two it clicks pretty fast.

ha, welcome to the rabbit hole. honestly what you're describing sounds pretty normal for someone just starting with an iambic paddle. the mushy characters are almost always tension and/or gap adjustment on the paddle itself — if the contacts are set too close the keyer is seeing ghost closures you didn't intend. try backing the contact gap out just a tiny bit and see if it cleans up. also 12 wpm is fine but some people actually find it easier to start higher like 15-18 wpm with longer word spacing, the Koch method and stuff like that. your brain starts recognizing sounds instead of counting dots. the other thing i'd say is dont fight the iambic thing right away. a lot of people starting out actually do better on a single lever or even a straight key just to get the rhythm before adding the squeeze keying complexity. nothing wrong with single lever for years honestly, plenty of great ops use them exclusively.

im planning on going, just to browse mostly. my buddy from the club said vendor tables are actually up from last year so hopefully more to look at. see you there maybe lol

The key is listening before transmitting and being flexible with your frequency. If you hear another QSO in progress, move up or down the band. Finding yourself on the downlink can be tricky for newcomers but with practice it becomes second nature.