Sarah Rodriguez

dont stress too much about it honestly, everyone fumbles a check-in at some point and net controls are used to it. the general thing is to wait for net control to specifically ask for check-ins, then key up and give your callsign phonetically if the repeater is busy or if its a formal net. some nets want name and location, some just want the call -- kind of depends on the net. if you listen for a couple weeks you'll figure out the pattern pretty quick. the net control will usually guide you if you miss something. as for the special event station, that varies a lot by club. some of them let any licensed ham who shows up operate under the special call, others keep it to members only. best thing is just to reach out to the club directly and ask. most clubs are thrilled when newer hams show interest in that stuff, it means the hobby isnt dying lol. the contacts made under those calls usually count for certificate programs too which is kinda fun if you collect those.

POTA is definitely more chill on the legs ha. I do both but honestly some of these SOTA summits are just brutal and im not as young as I used to be. the radio part is easy its the getting there thats the workout. what radio you running for POTA?

ok so ive been listening to some HF conversations and i keep hearing and seeing things like QSL, QRM, QSY, 73, and a bunch of other stuff i dont really understand. i know 73 means best wishes or whatever but the rest im kinda lost on. is there like a standard list somewhere or do people just kind of pick them up over time? also some of the abbreviations dont even seem to be Q codes, like people say things like OM and YL and i have no idea if thats a Q thing or something else entirely. just trying to figure out how people are actually communicating because right now it sounds like a foreign language half the time

that intermittent drop thing got me for a while too. couple things to check — first, are you running any power saving settings on windows? USB selective suspend will absolutely kill a SignaLink mid-session, windows just cuts power to it randomly. go into device manager and disable that for every USB root hub, not just the one the signalink is on. took me way too long to figure that out. also check your RF power level. i know it sounds backwards but running too hot can cause issues with some RMS nodes if youre hitting them with a strong signal and they're not expecting it. try dropping to 30-40 watts and see if the sessions stay connected longer. Vara HF especially seems happier with a cleaner lower power signal than a hotter one with any distortion. and make sure your ALC isnt moving at all on the 7300, that meter should be basically dead still during a Vara session or youre overdriving something.

yeah the broadcast thing is super common with DC receivers, they're just inherently wide open at the front end before the filter does its thing. a few things jump out at me reading your description. first, T50-2 is fine for that frequency range but make sure your winding is tight and consistent, any sloppiness in the coil geometry will shift the cutoff and kill your stopband rejection. also a 5 element LPF alone might not be enough if the AM station is that close and that strong, you might want to add a bandpass section tuned to 40m rather than just relying on the lowpass to do all the work. the hand capacitance thing is almost certainly shielding, breadboard DC receivers are basically antennas for RF interference. even just putting the RF front end section in a small tin or wrapping it in copper tape can make a huge difference. i built a similar thing a couple years back and it was basically unusable until i got it in a proper enclosure. the hum varying with signal is interesting, might be intermod between the 60hz pickup and the detected AM, which would be a really weird artifact. definitely get off the wall wart though, that's probably making at least part of it worse.

so i just passed my technician exam last month and ive been reading through part 97 trying to figure out what i actually have privileges for on HF. the band chart on the arrl site is kind of confusing me because it shows tech privileges on certain portions of like 10m and 15m i think but then i read somewhere that phone isnt allowed on some of those. im not totally sure i understand the difference between what modes are allowed where and whether cw counts toward any of this differently than phone does. also is there anything in part 97 specifically that says what power limits are for technicians on HF or is it just the same 1500 watts as everyone else? i feel like i read something about 200 watts somewhere but cant remember where. just trying to make sure i dont accidentally transmit somewhere im not supposed to before i get my general

The band plan organization makes so much sense once you understand it! The 20-meter band offers excellent propagation and supports everything from casual chatting to contesting and emergency communications. I stick to the established FT8 frequencies - WSJTx software defaults to the right spots automatically.

so ive been a ham for about a year now and finally decided to actually learn morse code properly. i can copy at maybe 5wpm on a good day if the sender is really clean but anything faster and i just fall apart. like my brain completely freezes up trying to remember what letter i just heard while the next one is already coming in. ive been using the LCWO website and doing some of the koch method lessons but im not sure im doing it right or if im just not practicing enough. i do maybe 20-30 minutes a day when i get the chance. my goal is eventually getting to 20wpm because i hear thats kind of the magic number where ragchewing on CW actually gets fun and you stop having to think so hard about every character. has anyone gone through this process and can share what actually worked for you? im worried im developing bad habits or something. also should i be copying by hand or typing it out, i keep going back and forth on this

AO-91 has been pretty reliable lately so probably not a dead bird situation. one thing that gets people a lot starting out is the doppler correction — if youre manually tuning you really need to be chasing that downlink frequency throughout the pass, it moves more than you'd expect especially when the satellite is coming up over the horizon. gpredict can drive your radio directly if you set up the hamlib interface, makes it way easier. also double check your antenna polarization. circularly polarized antennas are technically better for sats but two crossed yagis work fine if you have them. if both are vertically polarized you might be getting signal nulls depending on the orientation. the 72 degree pass should definitely be workable though, that's about as good as it gets for a LEO. what preamp are you using and where exactly in the feedline chain is it sitting?

dont stress about the attic antenna, just get on and make some noise. the worst that happens is you dont get a lot of contacts and you learn something. i did my first cq ww from a hotel room with a magloop once and still had a blast lol one thing id say is download N1MM+ before the contest and just poke around in it, logging during a contest by hand is technically possible but having the software handle your dupe checking and multiplier tracking makes such a huge difference especially when things get busy. theres a learning curve but theres good youtube videos for it

I went through this same process last year with my 100W station. Don't fear having to do difficult measurements, perform extensive calculations or file paperwork with the FCC - wrong on all counts. The ARRL RF exposure calculator made it simple to verify my dipole installation was compliant. Keep your evaluation records just in case.

yeah the multi-tab thing is pretty much where everyone starts, its kind of a rite of passage honestly. DXwatch and DX Summit are both pulling from the same underlying cluster network more or less so you'll see a lot of overlap, the differences are usually just how fast they refresh and what filters they apply by default. QRZ's spotting is decent but i find it a little slower to update than the dedicated cluster sites. for android i've been using DX Toolkit for a while and it does a pretty solid job of aggregating spots and lets you filter by band and mode which cuts down on the noise a lot. there's also HamSphere and a couple others but i keep coming back to DX Toolkit. the other thing that helped me was just setting a narrower filter — like if you only care about 20m just show 20m spots, the firehose of all bands at once is a lot to process when you're first starting out. and yeah 10 minute old spots are rough, anything older than 3 or 4 minutes is basically a coin flip on whether the DX is still there

so ive been licensed about 8 months now (general) and im just starting to really get into chasing DX. someone at my local club mentioned using cluster spotting networks to find stuff and i downloaded a couple apps and pulled up DXwatch in the browser and honestly i'm a little overwhelmed by all of it. like on DXwatch theres spots flying by constantly and i cant always tell which ones are worth paying attention to vs the ones that are just noise or dupes or whatever. and then on QRZ i found their logbook and DX spotting section too but it seems like it shows different stuff than DXwatch sometimes. are these pulling from the same cluster network or totally separate sources? also someone mentioned an app called DX Toolkit or maybe it was DXLab, i cant remember, that ties it all together. is that worth learning or should i just stick to the browser stuff for now while im still figuring out basic operating. feels like theres a whole second hobby inside the hobby just learning all the software lol

yeah what he said about Field Day. i was super nervous my first time actually sitting in the chair and within like 20 minutes it just clicks. the club environment means theres no pressure and honestly the other ops WANT you to make contacts because every QSO counts for the score. one thing i'd add — dont sleep on the smaller sprints either, like the QRP Fox hunts or the state QSO parties. they're lower key than CQ WW and you can actually hear whats going on instead of wall to wall signals. your end fed at 25 feet is totally workable, ive made plenty of contacts with less

i went through this same thing when i started lol. what helped me was just listening to how the regulars on my local repeater did it and copying that. the formal nets i check into are way more strict about proper phonetics and i get it there but yeah day to day rag chew stuff its pretty relaxed. one time i was on 40m trying to work a station in pretty bad QRM and i could not get my callsign through at all until i slowed way down and did every letter in NATO phonetics and then it clicked right away so thats when i really got why they exist

so i finally did my first summit activation last weekend, W6 summit up near the ridge trail, nothing crazy just a 2 pointer but i was super nervous about the whole thing. packed way too much gear honestly, brought the ft-818 and a linked dipole and a whole bag of stuff i didnt even touch. set up on the summit and started calling on 40m and within like 10 minutes i had my 4 contacts and qualified the thing. ended up staying almost 2 hours just working people, had a pile up for a bit which i was NOT expecting at all for such a low point summit. the linked dipole strung between my hiking pole and a small tree worked way better than i thought it would, got a few 59 reports from guys pretty far out. anyway just wanted to share because ive been putting this off for like two years and its really not as complicated as i made it in my head

yeah what he said about feedline loss is the thing people underestimate the most. i spent way too long wondering why my receive was mediocre and it turned out i had like 3dB of loss between the antenna and the preamp because i mounted the preamp at the shack end. moved it to the antenna and it was like someone turned up the volume knob on the moon. also just want to mention — check out the EME2 logger and the online JT65 EME coordination stuff, there's basically a whole community that calls skeds and you dont have to just randomly call CQ into the void hoping someone hears you. makes the whole thing way less frustrating when you're starting out

so ive been running a dual band mag mount on my F150 for about two years now, nothing fancy just one of those diamond NR770s stuck on the roof. works fine for hitting the local repeaters but ive been thinking about going to a proper through-hole or lip mount setup because the coax routing is driving me nuts and i keep worrying about scratching the paint under the magnet. anyway someone at the club last week was talking about screwdriver antennas and i kind of zoned out because i thought those were just for HF but apparently you can get them configured for VHF too? or maybe he was just talking about HF screwdrivers and i misunderstood. either way now i cant stop thinking about whether a properly mounted 5/8 wave or even a 5/8 over 5/8 collinear on a NMO mount would actually make a noticeable difference vs what i have now. the mag mount is centered on the roof so the ground plane situation isnt terrible but still. anyone gone through this and actually noticed a real world difference or is it more of a clean install satisfaction thing

cant speak to the SDR waterfall issue specifically but ive had RemoteHams running on a pi4 for a while now and the internet linking side of things is where it gets interesting. i actually have it bridged to an allstar node so people on the allstar network can key up through my remote HF setup which is kind of a weird hybrid thing but it works for our local club when we want to do HF nets without everyone needing their own HF rig. latency is the enemy there obviously, you get that double delay where allstar has its own codec latency and then the remote HF link adds more on top, so it sounds a little off but for casual ragchewing nobody really cares. the cable internet stability question is real though. i found that a lot of these issues come down to the upload side more than download — 20 meg upload sounds fine but if the cable node in your neighborhood is congested at peak hours your jitter goes up and these audio/control protocols absolutely hate jitter. might be worth running a jitter test at different times of day and see if the freezes correlate with evening hours or something.

i run a 7300 and a older Yaesu FT-857D and the difference is night and day tbh, not really a fair comparision since theyre different classes of radio but the SDR waterfall spoils you fast. one thing with the end fed — are you using the internal tuner a lot or mostly the LDG? i ask because ive heard a few guys say the internal tuner on the 7300 is a bit finnicky with higher SWR loads and they had better luck bypassing it and using an external. havent had that issue personally but my antenna situation is pretty well matched already so maybe i just never pushed it

ok so ive been licensed for about 4 months now (general class) and i keep getting confused about the 40 meter band. like i know theres a chart somewhere but every time i look it up i get a different answer depending on the website. some say phone starts at 7.175 and some say 7.225 and im not sure which one is actually current or if it changed at some point. also whats the deal with the band edges, like can i actually transmit right at 7.300 or do i need to stay a little below it? someone at my club mentioned something about keeping your signal inside the band but i dont really understand what that means in practice. like does my whole signal have to fit inside or just the carrier frequency or what just trying to not accidentally transmit somewhere i shouldnt be, figured someone here would know

so ive been studying for my technician for like three months and passed it about six weeks ago and honestly the radio just sat on my desk for a while because i was kind of intimidated to actually key up and say anything. my elmer keeps telling me just do it nobody bites but still. anyway this morning i finally just grabbed the mic on my baofeng (yeah yeah i know) and listened to the local 2m repeater for a bit and there was a guy doing a morning net and i just... did it. said my callsign and that i was a new ham checking in and this older guy came back to me immediately and we talked for like 20 minutes about antennas and how he got started back in the 70s. super nice dude. i know its just a local repeater contact and not some DX thing but it felt like a huge deal to me. anyway just wanted to share because i dont really have anyone in my life who would understand why im this excited about talking on a radio lol

so ive been running a remote station for about two years now using a combination of hamlib, a raspberry pi, and some custom scripts to control my IC-7300 over the internet. works fine most of the time but its a constant maintenance headache and every time my ISP does something weird i lose the connection and have to physically go out to the site to reset stuff. been looking at RemoteHams and also the SDR remote stuff they have, and honestly im torn. like part of me wants a more polished solution that just works, but i also dont love the idea of depending on a third party service or having latency issues through their relay servers. my site is about 40 miles from my house and ive got decent upload speed there, around 15mbps, so direct connection is usually fine when it works. anyone here actually used RemoteHams for a while and can tell me if its worth switching? specifically curious about the audio latency and whether the SDR remote side of things is actually usable for weak signal stuff or if its just kind of a toy. also does anyone know if you can link it into echolink or some other internet linking setup, ive got a 2m repeater at the same site and was thinking about tying it all together somehow.

Great write-up! I've been considering this same mod for my 745. Did you have any issues with the frequency stability? I've read that the IC-745 likes to drift when you pull cool air across the crystal, and there are two crystals that can contribute to drift for the 1st and 2nd local oscillators.

yeah the 10m opening was legit, i managed to catch about 45 minutes of it before it started fading on my end. worked a couple spanish stations and one guy in the UK which honestly made my whole week. 10m is just fun when its open, something about that band that feels different from 20. the audio just sounds clearer somehow i dont know how to explain it. on the icom thing, ive heard the same rumors. someone in the DX cluster chat was saying hamvention is probably where theyll make it official if its real. i really hope its not just a cosmetic refresh of the 7300 because that radio is already great, id want to see something actually new, maybe better roofing filters or a real improvement to the panadapter. guess well find out. hamvention is what, like 6 weeks away now?