Moon Bounce

Check your connections first - corrosion can build up pretty quick especially if you drive in salt areas. Also those NR770s have a reputation for the matching network going bad after a year or two of weather exposure. Might be time for a new one unfortunately

Welcome to the DX world! LotW confirmations can happen within minutes after a QSO, just as if you had exchanged QSL cards, which is fantastic when it works. But you're right that not everyone uses it. I'd suggest a hybrid approach - use LotW for what you can get, then go after paper cards for the tougher ones.

Congrats on passing the ticket, welcome to the hobby. Okay so here's my honest take — the Baofeng UV-5R is fine for learning the ropes and costs basically nothing, but the programming can be a headache and the receiver isn't great, meaning it'll pick up interference from all kinds of stuff that isn't actually on your repeater's frequency. It works, but you'll probably want something better within a year. The FT-60 is kind of the classic recommendation for a reason. It's built like a tank, the receiver is actually decent, and it's pretty straightforward to use once you get the hang of the menu system. The FT-65 is the newer version and it's fine but honestly the FT-60 is still what I'd tell someone to get if they can find one at a good price. For APRS — I'd hold off on worrying about that for now. Get comfortable with just talking on a repeater first, get your programming software set up, all of that. The D74 is amazing but thats like $500+ and you don't need that right now. Baby steps and all that.

nice work on getting out there. i did my first one last spring and totally understand the logging confusion, the wwff website isnt the most intuitive thing in the world haha. one thing i'll add is that some of the more active wwff hunters are also on the facebook group and they're really helpful if you get stuck with the upload process, someone walked me through it step by step when i was lost. also kind of off topic but did you have any wildlife encounter while you were out? i ask because half the reason i do these activations honestly is just being out in nature, the radio is almost secondary sometimes. last time i activated a wildlife refuge i had a great blue heron just standing like 10 feet from my antenna the whole time, kept looking at it like it was trying to figure out what this weird wire thing was

i was in the exact same spot about 8 months ago and ended up getting the UV-5R just to have something while i figured things out. works fine for hitting the local repeater, programmed it with chirp which took maybe an hour to get the hang of. no complaints for what i paid. but yeah i kind of wish id just saved up and gotten something nicer from the start because now i want to upgrade anyway so it ends up costing more in the long run probably

so ive been a Tech for about 8 months now and mostly just been messing around on 2m and some 70cm repeaters, did a little satellite stuff which was cool but honestly i want to get on HF and actually talk to people further away. my buddy who got his General last year keeps telling me its not that bad but i dunno, the question pool looks pretty intimidating when i browse through it. like theres a lot of stuff about ohms law and feed lines and propagation that i kind of glazed over for the Tech exam. i guess my actual question is how much time do people usually spend studying and is there like a recommended way to go about it? i tried looking at a couple youtube videos but some of them are pretty old and i wasnt sure if the pool changed recently. also is it worth trying to do Extra at the same time or is that overkill

yeah thats pretty much exactly what i do. N1MM stays installed purely for contests, i dont even open it otherwise. Log4OM handles everything day to day and the WSJT-X hookup is solid once its configured. i did mess around with trying to import N1MM ADIF exports into Log4OM after contest weekends but honestly the duplicate checking got annoying and i just gave up and keep them separate now. two logs, whatever, LoTW sees everything anyway so for confirmation purposes it doesnt really matter. the one thing i will say is Log4OM's cluster integration is nicer for casual DXing, N1MM's bandmap is better for contesting obviously but Log4OM just feels less hostile when youre not in competition mode if that makes sense

so ive been running a remote station off my home QTH for about two years now using a pretty cobbled together setup — basically a Raspberry Pi running some custom scripts, a RigPi board for CAT control, and I was using TeamViewer for the desktop stuff but that got annoying real fast with their licensing thing. works ok but its kind of a house of cards situation where if one thing breaks I have to physically drive out there to fix it which kind of defeats the whole point anyway a buddy at the club was showing me RemoteHams the other night and it actually looked pretty slick, especially the SDR side of it where you can have multiple clients tune around independently on the same wideband receiver. I hadn't really looked at it seriously before because I assumed it was more of a casual listen-only thing but apparently you can do full transmit control too depending on the node setup what I'm trying to figure out is whether anyone has actually migrated from a DIY setup to RemoteHams and whether the audio latency is acceptable for like actual SSB rag chewing and not just digital modes. also curious about the internet linking aspect — I saw somewhere you can tie it into like Echolink or AllStar nodes but I couldn't find much documentation on how that actually works in practice. is that a separate thing or built in somehow running an IC-7300 at the remote end if that matters

yeah youre right about the gateway just being a relay, thats exactly how it works. the CMS handles all the actual mailbox storage and there are like 5 or 6 redundant CMS servers around the world so they sync with each other. the RMS gateway just needs a working internet connection to talk to the CMS, so if the internet at that node is down then yeah that gateway is useless for getting to the wider network. but heres the thing - for actual served agency comms in a real event you dont necessarily need to reach the CMS. you can do direct peer to peer with Winlink Express using the RMS Relay mode, which lets gateways store and forward without needing internet. its called a Winlink hybrid network scenario. i did a ARES exercise last fall where we simulated total internet loss and used a local RMS running in relay mode to pass ICS-213 forms between the EOC and a shelter site like 40 miles away, worked fine. you do have to set it up ahead of time though, you cant really improvise that during an activation. also your IC-7300 plus SignaLink setup is solid for this, VARA HF makes a big difference over older modes like Pactor or even WINMOR if youre dealing with mediocre band conditions.

i just passed mine last month actually. the theory is intimidating looking but a lot of it is pattern recognition once you do enough practice tests on hamStudy or wherever. i wont pretend i deeply understand every question about op-amp circuits but i understand more than i did. the parts about propagation and antennas actually genuinely interested me so those went fast. the cw requirement being gone obviously helps lol. just do like 30 minutes a day on the practice exams and track which sections youre weak on, thats basically all i did

i went through the exact same thing when i first started trying to work dx, kept having like six browser tabs open and it was a mess lol. one thing that helped me was just bookmarking the qrz logbook search directly instead of going through the main page every time, saves a couple clicks. also clublog has a really nice "most wanted" page that you can cross reference with spots to prioritize what youre actually hunting for. havent tried the android apps the other guy mentioned but im curious now too actually

just passed mine last month so this is pretty fresh for me. the propagation questions were the ones i wasn't expecting, like stuff about why 10m opens up or what greyline is. i kind of knew it vaguely from listening but seeing it in question form made me realize i didn't actually understand it. spent an extra day on that section and it was worth it also fwiw the actual session went really fast, showed up nervous and was done in like 20 minutes. go for the next one, you got enough time

I recommend the Icom IC-7300 for new hams - it's easy to use and setup, has a built-in sound card, and the best metering for digital modes. The waterfall display is incredibly useful for finding clear frequencies during contests.

so ive had my tech license for about 8 months now and honestly ive been mostly just doing 2m and some 70cm stuff, some local repeaters, did a little DMR which was cool. but im starting to get curious about HF and everyone keeps telling me to just go get my General already. my question is how hard is it compared to the tech exam? i felt like the tech exam wasnt too bad but i definitely had to study for it like 2-3 weeks. is the General pool a lot bigger? and is there a bunch of math involved because i remember there being some formulas on the tech that i kind of guessed my way through lol. also is it worth it to just go straight for Extra or is that overkill for someone who doesnt even have an HF rig yet. i dunno just trying to figure out if this is worth the time before i go buying a radio i cant fully use anyway

yeah im kind of in the same boat as you actually, been using the morse toad app on my phone during my commute. its not perfect but its something. havent tried a real QSO yet tbh, still fumbling through the letters half the time. the just learn the sounds thing that everyone says is real though, when i try to think dots and dashes i lose it completely

your 15-20ah estimate is pretty optimistic i think, especially if youre running the laptop. the 7300 alone sitting in receive is something like 1.5-2A, TX at 100w is closer to 20A and even at 50w youre pulling maybe 10-12. if you average out a realistic traffic net with maybe 20-30% TX time you might land around 4-5A average for just the radio. add the V71 and a laptop and over 8 hours that could easily be 50+ah depending on what the laptop is doing. i run a 100ah LiFePO4 (its a battleborn) for ARES stuff and for a single-radio HF setup doing a 6-8 hour shift it usually comes back around 70-80% so thats roughly 20-30ah used but i'm not running two radios and a computer. honestly for what you're describing i'd want at least a 100ah pack, maybe two smaller ones you can swap or parallel, and the EU2200i as backup not primary. that thing is dead quiet and sips fuel, you could run it a few hours to top off the battery and then shut it down during nets. works really well in practice.

so i just passed my technician exam last week and im starting to look at handheld radios and honestly the amount of choices is kind of paralyzing. ive been reading threads here and elsewhere and everyone seems to have a strong opinion lol my main interest is just getting on the local repeaters and maybe doing some simplex with my brother who also just got licensed. budget is probably under $100 to start, maybe up to $150 if something is really worth it. i keep seeing the baofeng UV-5R come up constantly but then some people say the programming is a nightmare, and others mention the Yaesu FT-65 or the Wouxun radios but im not sure what the actual differences are beyond price does chirp work well with all these or is that something i have to figure out separately? and what does dual band actually get me in practice as a new tech? sorry if these are dumb questions

ok so ive been licensed for about three months now and I keep hearing people talk about nets and checking in and I finally found a local 2m net that meets on tuesday evenings. I listened last week but didn't actually check in because honestly I had no idea what to do and didn't want to mess it up or say the wrong thing. from what I gathered the net control calls for check-ins and then you just say your callsign? but do you just say it once or phonetics or what. and then after you check in do you just listen or is there stuff you're supposed to say. also I saw something about a special event station operating this weekend for some kind of state parks thing and I have no idea if thats different from a regular net or how that even works. any help appreciated, dont want to sound like a complete idiot on air