Carlos Martinez

so i finally got around to building a basic half wave dipole for 40m, been meaning to do this forever. used 14 gauge stranded wire i had laying around in the garage, cut each leg to roughly 33.5 feet based on the 468/f formula. fed it with some RG-8X i had leftover from a previous project, center insulator is just a piece of PVC i drilled out and zip tied together which honestly looks janky but seemed solid enough. hooked up my analyzer and the resonant point is sitting somewhere around 6.9 MHz instead of 7.150 where i was aiming. SWR at 7.150 is reading about 2.4:1 which isnt terrible but i wanted to get it closer. the antenna is in an inverted-V config, apex is maybe 30 feet up on a tree, legs drooping down to about 8 feet at the ends. i havent trimmed anything yet because i was expecting to need to add length not take it away. is the low resonant frequency from the inverted-V configuration pulling it down? i know the angle of the legs affects things but i wasnt sure by how much. or is stranded wire just electrically longer than solid? ive read both things in different places and now im confused. any input appreciated, this is my first scratch build so im probably missing something obvious.

yeah JT65 absolutely changed what's possible for smaller stations, no question. back in the analog days you really did need multiple yagis or a dish with serious aperture just to have a fighting chance but now single yagi contacts happen regularly on 2m. that said i wouldnt call it easy even with JT65 -- the path loss to the moon and back is brutal, something like 252dB on 2m, and the moon is only a halfway decent reflector so you cant just throw any old antenna at it. for a realistic entry point on 2m most people suggest at least a 4 yagi array, something in the 16-17dBd range total gain, paired with a good preamp. a single long yagi like an M2 2M7 or similar might get you a handful of contacts with big gun stations on the other end but your options are going to be really limited. if you can swing a 4x array and around 500-800w at the feedpoint you'll be competitive enough to actually have fun with it. the preamp NF matters a lot more on EME than almost any other mode because your system noise floor is basically the whole game -- 0.3-0.5dB is definitely the target range, and no that's not just for CW, on JT65 your decoder is still fighting the noise floor so a crappy preamp will cost you contacts. SSB EME is a completely different animal and for that you really do need the big guns.

so ive been trying to get more serious about CW lately and finally broke down and bought a decent set of paddles (Begali Traveler, used, got a good deal) and im running them through my K3's built-in keyer. the thing is no matter what i do with the weight and speed settings it just doesnt feel natural when im sending. like i know what i want my fist to sound like in my head but what comes out sounds kind of choppy or rushed, especially on letters like C and Y where you need that dit-dah rhythm to flow. ive been practicing with the keyer set around 18 wpm because thats about where i want to operate but maybe thats too fast for where im actually at right now? i dunno. also been using Just Learn Morse Code on the computer for copy practice and thats going okay but the sending side is where i feel lost. anyone been through this and have advice for a guy whos been licensed for 3 years but only really started taking CW seriously this winter?

i had this exact thing happen when i did my 2m/70cm mobile setup last spring. turned out my negative wire was like 18 gauge which was just not enough for the current draw and it was picking up all kinds of garbage. went to 12 gauge all the way to the battery negative terminal and it was night and day. might not be your issue but worth checking what gauge you used for the negative side, a lot of kits and guides kind of skimp on that detail.

yeah PVC will degrade in UV, not immediately but after a year or two outside you'll start seeing it get chalky and brittle especially if you're in a sunny climate. the egg insulators are cheap enough that its probably not worth messing around with — you can get a bag of them for a few bucks and they last forever. that said a lot of guys use those plastic cutting boards from the dollar store, HDPE is what they're usually made of and it holds up really well outdoors. i've cut my own center pieces from that stuff and they work great, drill a hole in each end for the wire and one in the middle for the feedpoint connection. your 1.4 SWR on 40 is fine, most tuners will handle that no problem and even without one most modern rigs wont complain. if you want to trim it down a bit try pulling from the ends a few inches at a time and rechecking. also 25 feet is usable but yeah get it higher if you can, even 35-40 feet makes a noticeable difference on 40m.

so i just got my tech license about three weeks ago and ive been lurking on 2m with my baofeng trying to get the nerve to actually key up on the local repeater. last night i finally just did it, said my callsign and someone actually came back to me. guy named bill was super patient and we had a solid 10 minute QSO about nothing really, just signal reports and weather but honestly i was shaking the whole time lol. anyway just wanted to say hi to everyone here, been reading these forums for months trying to learn stuff before i even got my ticket. im KD9 something something, still not used to saying it out loud

honestly the technician test isnt that bad, i was pretty nervous going into mine but ended up passing first try. most people i know used HamStudy dot org which is free and has a practice test mode that drills you on the actual question pool. the real test is pulled straight from that pool so if you can consistently pass the practice tests you should be fine on the real thing. i think i studied maybe two or three weeks doing like 20-30 minutes a night, nothing crazy. the hardest parts for me were the electrical theory questions, stuff about ohms law and calculating things, but honestly even if you dont fully understand it you can kind of memorize the patterns after enough repetitions. the ARRL Technician manual is good if you want to actually understand the material rather than just memorize but you dont strictly need it. just look up a local club and they can point you to the next VE session in your area, thats where you actually sit the exam

so we have a county ARES exercise coming up saturday and im trying to figure out the best way to run the station for about 8 hours without shore power. we'll be at a park, probably 50-60 feet from the parking lot so running a cord isnt totally out of the question but id rather not deal with the noise. right now my plan is the IC-7300 running at 50 watts off a 100ah lithium battery with a 40w solar panel as a trickle charge since we'll have decent sun. done the math and it should be fine for the radio itself, but we're also running a laptop, a small fan (its gonna be hot), and maybe a second HT on a charger. starting to wonder if the battery alone cuts it or if i should just bite the bullet and bring the Honda eu2200i anyway. antenna side im thinking linked dipole up in an inverted V off a 31 foot jackite pole, have been pretty happy with that setup at past events but curious if anyone has had luck with a trapped vertical for this kind of thing — easier to set up solo and i might be running this mostly alone until the other guys show up. anyway the generator question is really what i cant figure out. the eu2200i is quiet enough that it doesnt bother me but in a public park setting i always feel weird about it. last exercise someone complained about the fumes near the shelter we were using. anyone dealt with this?

so i finally pulled the trigger on one of those QCX mini kits a few months back, took me a couple weekends to put together because i kept second guessing my soldering on the toroids. honestly the toroid winding was the part i was most nervous about but it came out fine, got it aligned and on the first real contact i made i was running 5 watts into a wire dipole strung between two trees in the backyard and worked a station in ohio from new england, which i know isnt exactly DX but something about knowing you built the thing yourself and its working makes it feel like you crossed the atlantic. anyway now i cant stop thinking about portable ops. been reading about sota and i took it out to a local hilltop last weekend with a little lipo pack and just a random wire with a 9:1 unun and made 4 contacts in about an hour. the efficiency thing is what gets me, like you really start to understand propagation when youre limited to 5 watts and you actually have to think about when and where to transmit instead of just cranking up the power. does anyone else find that qrp kind of rewired how they think about operating in general? curious if others went down this rabbit hole

so ive been trying to learn CW for about three months now and i finally broke down and bought a decent dual lever paddle last week. been using one of those cheap single lever things that came with a kit and i think it was actually making things worse for me honestly. anyway the new paddle feels way nicer but im still having trouble with my timing, like my dits and dahs are coming out kind of mushy sometimes, especially when i try to speed up past maybe 13 wpm or so. im using an old MFJ keyer that i borrowed from a buddy and i think the squeeze keyer mode is confusing my fingers more than helping right now. somebody at the club told me to just turn off iambic mode and treat it like a single lever for a while until my muscle memory catches up. is that actually good advice or am i gonna have to unlearn it later? i really want to get on the air but i dont want to build bad habits. any of you go through this when you were learning?

the lm386 with no bypass on pins 1 and 8 will absolutely do that — even if youre not trying to use the extra gain it still picks up garbage on those pins. slap a 10uf cap across them and see if it changes anything. also yeah the no enclosure thing is probably not helping, ive had open builds on copper clad that were basically antennas for every switching supply in the room. the hum tracking with signal strength is interesting though. that sounds less like a power supply issue and more like youre getting audio rectification somewhere, maybe in the detector stage itself. whats your product detector look like, are you using a diode ring or a Gilbert cell or just a single balanced thing? if the detector isnt well balanced you can get AM breakthrough and that can look exactly like what youre describing — louder signal means more detected carrier hum. worth checking your diode matching if thats the route you went.

so ive had the TS-590SG for about four years now and honestly its been a great radio, no real complaints, but ive been reading a lot about the IC-7300 and more recently the IC-7610 and i keep going back and forth in my head about whether theres actually a meaningful real-world difference or if im just convincing myself i need something newer. my setup right now is the 590 into a LDG tuner, running into a fan dipole up about 35 feet, nothing fancy. i mostly do SSB and some digital, FT8 mostly lately. i dont do contests seriously, maybe a few times a year just to hand out points. the shack is in a fairly RF-quiet suburb but not totally clean, i get some line noise on 40m from somewhere down the street. the main thing pulling me toward the 7610 is the dual watch and the waterfall — the 590s panadapter situation has always been kind of a workaround honestly. but then i think about whether ill actually use dual watch in practice or if its just cool to have. anyone gone from a 590 to a 7610 or even just a 7300 and felt like it was genuinely worth the money, not just different-but-same?

ran into the exact same thing a few years back trying to hit a 440 repeater about 18 miles out through some terrain. ended up just adding a cheap 7 element yagi on a second run of LMR400 and left the collinear in place. yeah it was another cable but once you do it its done and you stop thinking about it. the gain difference on 70cm from even a modest yagi pointed at a fixed path is pretty noticeable, especially if theres any hills or buildings in the way. i wouldnt pull the collinear down though, just run both if you can stomach the extra feedline. the one thing id say is make sure youre not losing all your gain back in crappy coax. if youre running RG8X up to the roof on 70cm youre already giving up a chunk before the signal even gets to the antenna.

dont overthink it too much, at your stage just use whatever feels comfortable. i used DX Summit for years before i even knew DXwatch existed and they work pretty similarly. the main thing is just getting a feel for what bands are producing spots and cross checking with like pskreporter or a propagation tool to see if the path is even realistic from your location. qrz spots are fine but i find them a little cluttered personally. matter of personal preference i guess

so ive been on HF for about two years now mostly doing FT8 but been trying to get into SSB more lately and i keep getting reports that my audio is kind of muddy or bassy sounding. running an IC-7300 into a dipole, nothing fancy. the mic is just the stock HM-219 that came with the radio. i watched a few youtube videos about the speech processor and compression settings but honestly came away more confused than before — some guys say max compression, some say none at all, some say a little. i set my ALC to be just barely moving and i thought that was the right thing to do but apparently my transmitted audio still sounds off to me when i record it on a SDR dongle across the room. the recording sounds like im talking into a bucket. tried rolling off some bass on the radio's TX equalizer but i dont really know what im doing there. is this a mic technique thing or a settings thing or what? any starting point would be helpful because right now im just kind of poking around in the dark with menu settings