Jessica Davis18

yeah what he said. i was in the same boat when i started and honestly i just do all three now because different people use different systems and you never know. takes like 5 extra minutes to fire off an eQSL card after a contact and it makes some people genuinely happy to get them the physical cards thing — i actually really enjoy that part. theres something kind of nice about getting a piece of cardboard in the mail from someone in japan or wherever. i keep mine in a binder. probably completely unnecessary from a practical standpoint but its one of those hobby traditions that i didnt expect to care about and now i kind of do one tip for LoTW: make sure your location in the log is accurate including your grid square, because that matters for some awards and if it doesnt match what the other station logged it wont confirm

so this is gonna be a long one, sorry in advance. we had a pretty nasty storm roll through about three weeks ago and i had everything unplugged except apparently i forgot the ethernet to my router and also — embarrassingly — the coax to the 7300 was still connected to the antenna switch. didn't get a direct hit or anything, there was no fireworks moment, but ever since then the radio just hasn't felt right. the display is fine, it powers up, receives okay i think, but when i transmit on 40m the ALC is jumping all over the place and my power output is maybe 60-70% of what it used to be. i had it set to 100w and now im lucky to see 80 on a good day. on 20m it seems closer to normal which is weird. also noticed the fan seems to run more than it used to even at lower power levels. i already checked the obvious stuff — reseated the connectors, did a full reset, checked my coax for damage. the coax going to the antenna switch actually had a little scorch mark near the SO-239 on the switch so i replaced that whole run. but the radio still acts the same way. i dont have a lot of bench equipment, just a basic multimeter and an old MFJ antenna analyzer. anyone dealt with something like this or have ideas on where to start before i ship it to Icom?

handheld for uplink is gonna cause you problems on the linear birds honestly. you need to be compensating doppler on transmit too not just receive, and with a handheld thats pretty much not happening unless you're manually tuning which is basically impossible to keep up with during a pass. FO-29 is a bit more forgiving but AO-73 youll notice it. even a few hundred hz off on uplink shifts your downlink spot around and if you dont realize its you causing the drift you'll chase your own signal all over the passband. been there

The ID thing on nets is one of those areas where the practice varies a bit depending on the net. Technically you still need to ID with your own callsign at least every 10 minutes and at the end of your transmission — net control saying your call doesn't satisfy your own ID requirement, that's their ID not yours. In practice on a lot of casual local nets people are pretty relaxed and as long as you give your call clearly when you check in and at sign-off most folks won't say anything. But if you're on a more formal traffic net like NTS stuff they can be pretty particular about procedure. The phonetics thing — no there's no FCC rule that says you have to use standard ITU phonetics. It's just that standard phonetics exist because they were designed to be understood across language barriers and under poor conditions. The fun ones like "Kentucky" for K or whatever can be fine on a clear local repeater but if you're working someone through noise or they don't speak much English it can actually cause confusion. I'd say learn the standard ones cold so they come out automatically, then feel free to be a little loose when conditions are good and everyone's clearly copying you fine.

so i finally did my first activation last weekend, took the ft-818 and a linked dipole up to a local summit that was only about a 2 mile hike. wasnt sure what to expect but i got 12 contacts in maybe 25 minutes which i guess is more than enough to count. the hardest part was honestly just finding a decent spot to throw the antenna wire up, ended up just draping it over some scrubby little trees which was not ideal but it worked fine. one thing i wasnt prepared for was how cold it got once i stopped moving. brought gloves but they made tuning the radio kinda awkward. also my phone signal was garbage so spotting myself on the app was a pain, had to wait til i had a tiny bit of LTE to get a spot out and then the pile sort of happened all at once which was fun chaos. already looking at the next summit on the map, anyone done much SOTA in the northeast? wondering if the summits out here are mostly worth the drive or if some are kind of underwhelming

yeah the inverting transponder thing is exactly what's biting you i bet. AO-73 has an inverting linear transponder so when you tune UP on the uplink the signal comes DOWN on the downlink passband — so you have to tune them opposite directions to track doppler. a lot of guys set up their rigs so one VFO controls both and handles the inversion automatically but if you're doing it manually you really have to think backwards and it's confusing at first. 5 watts should be enough honestly, ive worked it with less into a handheld yagi, the key is the antenna pointing more than power. at 20 degrees elevation your path loss is higher and the yagi needs to be pretty well aimed. whats your beamwidth on that tape measure antenna, those can be pretty narrow. also are you in SSB mode on both ends? people sometimes forget and leave one end in FM which obviously wont work on a linear transponder.

1.5 on 2m with a lip mount honestly sounds about right in my experience, i had almost exactly that with a similar setup. i ended up going with a trunk lip NMO adapter thing on my car since i couldnt bring myself to drill either. its better than a regular lip mount because the NMO connector itself is cleaner and you can swap antennas fast. not as good as through the roof but its a reasonable middle ground if the drill is a dealbreaker for you. also worth checking your coax and connectors before assuming the mount is the problem — i chased an SWR issue for weeks and it was just a slightly loose PL-259 the whole time

dont overthink the duplicate thing, ADIF importers in basically every logging program have had dupe checking for years. Log4OM lets you set how it handles them on import. i went through the same thing when i started actually caring about my log being accurate and just spent one afternoon sorting it out and havent thought about it since. one thing i'd mention is make sure your WSJT-X is pointed at the right log file or UDP port depending on how youre doing it, because i had mine quietly writing to a separate log for like two months before i noticed and had to go back and merge stuff manually which was annoying

so ive had the IC-7300 for about three years now and honestly its been a great radio, no complaints really, but lately ive been doing more CW contesting and i keep running into situations where i wish i had tighter roofing filters. the 7300 does ok but the DSP can only do so much when there's a pileup next door running 100 watts and i'm trying to pull out a weak station 200hz away. been looking at the IC-7610 mostly because of the dual watch and the supposedly better front end, also looked at the Elecraft K4 but that's a pretty big jump in price and im not sure my operating justifies it. someone at the club also mentioned the FTDX10 but i havent heard much about how it actually performs in a crowded band vs on paper. anyone made a similar jump and actually noticed a real difference on the air, not just in the specs? my antenna situation is decent — 3 element yagi on 20 and a fan dipole for the low bands so its not like im fighting a bad antenna, the radio is genuinely the limiting factor here i think.

so ive been trying to get more into DX chasing lately and someone at my club mentioned i should be using the cluster spotting networks to find activity. ive been poking around on DXwatch and also the QRZ logbook has some cluster feed built in i think? but honestly im not sure if im using these things the right way or just wasting time refreshing pages. what i dont fully understand is whether the spots on DXwatch and QRZ are actually pulling from the same underlying network or if theyre totally separate. like sometimes i see the same DX station spotted on both within seconds of each other and other times theres stuff on one that never shows up on the other. probably a dumb question but is there like a master cluster i should be connecting to directly instead of using the web interfaces also been messing with the DX toolkit app on my phone which is kind of handy for alerts but the propagation stuff in it seems off compared to what im actually hearing. anyway if anyone has a workflow they like for this stuff id love to hear it, still pretty new to chasing DX seriously

yeah 40 has been weird lately. i had a good run last thursday around the same time, worked a couple stations in the southeast no problem, then it just went quiet. solar flux was up a bit that day i think. honestly i've had better luck dropping down to 7.150 area, seems like thats where everyone migrated for some reason. could also be the noise floor thing you mentioned, that kills 40m more than people realize

yeah the USB suspend thing bites everyone at some point. also — and this is a long shot — are you near any other 2m activity on adjacent freqs? ive had situations where a nearby repeater was close enough in frequency that it was confusing Vara or causing the radio to react weird mid-transfer. probably not your issue but worth mentioning. one other thing, when you say ALC looks okay what do you mean exactly? if the ALC is moving at all on a data mode like this something is off. for Vara you want to be running clean audio into the radio and letting the radio just transmit without the ALC doing any work. overdriving it even a little will trash your packet error rate and the gateway will give up on you.

yeah the predator generators are loud, thats just kind of what they are. the eu2200 is genuinely worth it if you do this stuff regularly, ive had mine for like 6 years and it just works. but i get it, its real money. one thing worth looking at is the Champion 2000W inverter generator, its not quite as quiet as the honda but its in a different league than the harbor freight stuff and you can usually find them around $400-450 on sale. i ran one for two seasons before i finally got the honda and it was pretty decent. the parallel capability is nice too if you ever need more headroom for a bigger radio setup or to run a second station. also -- and maybe you've already thought about this -- at 100w the 7300 is drawing what, maybe 20-22 amps? if your deployment is say 8 hours and you're not transmitting constantly the 100ah battery should honestly be getting you through most of a day depending on your duty cycle. are you actually running out or is it more of a range anxiety thing

i was in almost the exact same spot about 8 months ago and ended up with the Baofeng UV-5R just because i wanted to get on the air without spending a ton. honestly it worked out fine, got me through my first few months. just download CHIRP to program it, the manual is useless. one thing nobody told me — get a better antenna for it right away. the rubber duck that comes on those things is pretty bad and a decent nagoya antenna makes a noticeable difference on weak repeaters. like $10-15 on amazon.

yeah the hollow feeling with FT8 is real, i hit that wall maybe 6 months in. JS8Call is genuinely different in feel but youre right that the activity is patchy. i check 14.078 most weekend mornings and can usually find a few guys chatting, there's also a handful of nets that run on 40m in the evenings depending on your timezone. the store-and-forward relay stuff is actually pretty clever once you dig into it. the latency thing you just kind of accept after a while. its not a phone call its more like... a very slow text message conversation. once i reframed it that way it stopped bothering me. and yeah compared to PSK31 the weak signal advantage is real, ive completed JS8 QSOs when PSK31 would have been totally unreadable, the waterfall just doesnt lie. that said i still fire up PSK31 occasionally when the band is good and i want to actually type fast and have something close to a normal conversation. different tools for different moods honestly.

so ive been running an old TS-480SAT for probably 6 years now and it served me pretty well, no real complaints other than the waterfall being basically nonexistent and the filtering options feeling kinda limited when the bands get crowded. anyway i finally got a decent deal on a used IC-7300 from a guy in the club who was upgrading to a 7610 and figured why not. first thing i noticed is the touchscreen interface takes some getting used to, like i keep accidentally changing things when i just want to scroll the waterfall. probably a me problem. the real time spectrum scope though is just ridiculous compared to what i had before, i can actually see whats happening on the band instead of just spinning the dial and hoping for something. the built in ATU is decent but seems like it gives up on some of the weirder impedances my end fed throws at it. the 480 would sometimes grunt through stuff the 7300 just flashes an error on. anyone else notice that or is it maybe a settings thing im missing. also the receive audio is noticeably different, not sure if better or just different, sounds a bit more forward in the mids if that makes any sense. overall happy with it but curious if anyone else made a similar jump from older Kenwood stuff and what the adjustment was like

yeah the APRS spotting thing is a lifesaver once you get it dialed in ahead of time. i always do a test spot from home the night before just to make sure the path settings are right and the TNC is actually talking to the radio properly. learned that the hard way on a summit in colorado, spent 20 minutes troubleshooting and realized i had the wrong SSID set or something dumb like that. also totally agree on the pack weight thing. i went through like three iterations before i settled on just the KX2, a small LiPo, and a linked dipole on a 20 foot mast. whole kit is under 10 lbs now and i can actually enjoy the hike instead of suffering through it. the four contact minimum seems low but when youre tired and the weathers turning it can feel like a lot more work than you expect.

so i finally got around to trying my first wwff activation last weekend at a local state park. brought my ft-891 and a random wire antenna i threw up in a tree. was on 20m mostly but only made like 6 contacts in 3 hours which seems really bad?? i know the band conditions werent great but still. saw other activators posting way better numbers. do i need to be on multiple bands or what am i missing here. also wasnt sure if i needed to announce the park reference number every time or just when people ask

Congratulations! That's fantastic progress. Currently I'm OK working up to 20wpm qsos as long as the other station has good spacing - spacing really makes a difference when you're building speed. What character speed were you using during your practice sessions?

I drove 3 hours to a hamfest two summers ago and came home with literally nothing except a tshirt. not saying skip it but yeah tempering expectations is probably smart. that said the one time I scored a working HT for $15 from some old timer cleaning out his shack so you never really know.

so ive been meaning to do this for like two years now and after the storms last month kind of kicked my butt into gear, im finally putting together a proper go-kit. got a Pelican-style case from the hardware store, threw in my FT-857D, a little 20ah LiFePO4 battery, some coax, and my SignaLink for digital. also tossed in a laminated card with my local repeater freqs and the county ARES net schedule. thing is i feel like im definitely forgetting something obvious. like i packed it all up and it looked good but then i remembered i had no way to charge the battery if im out more than a day or two. so now im looking at either a small solar panel setup or one of those jackery-type stations as a backup. anyone gone through this process and want to share what dumb thing they forgot until it was too late? feels like there's always something

yeah the net discipline thing is huge and it almost always bites groups on their first real exercise. ive seen it so many times. the fix that worked for our group was doing short tabletop drills specifically focused on nothing but check-in procedures — not a full scenario, just practicing the rhythm of net control acknowledging stations, assigning them roles, and managing who talks when. boring stuff but it builds the muscle memory so when stress is actually present people fall back on the habit instead of improvising. the ICS 213 thing is also spot on. what helped us was printing like way more forms than we thought we needed and putting them at every station before the exercise starts, and having one person whose only job early on is making sure outgoing messages are filled out before they hit the air. once you let it slide even once the whole thing gets sloppy fast. sounds like you got a ton of good data from this though, thats really the whole point of the exercise.

okay so i passed my general exam like three weeks ago and my new callsign showed up in the ULS database last week. its a sequential one, KD9 something, pretty standard. but ive been reading about vanity calls and honestly the FCC's own website is kind of a nightmare to navigate and i cant figure out if theres a waiting period before i can apply or if i can just go ahead and do it now. also not sure if i want to keep my current call or go for something shorter. my old elmer has a really clean 2x1 and i kind of want something like that eventually but i dont know if thats realistic or how the whole preference system works. like does it go by license class? do extras get first pick or something? i spent like an hour reading reddit threads and got more confused than when i started

dont rule out the IPO/preamp switch itself getting stuck in a weird state. i know you said you did a reset but have you actually gone into the menu and manually toggled the preamp off and back on, and same with the attenuator? sometimes on mine after a firmware hiccup it would show preamp on in the menu but it wasnt actually doing anything. probably not your issue if the noise floor is visibly lower on the waterfall but worth 30 seconds to rule out.

no morse code required anymore, that got dropped back in 2007 so you're good there. for the technician exam which is where everyone starts, honestly hamstudy.org is exactly what most people use and it works really well. the question pool is public so every single question on your actual test comes from that pool, no surprises. just grind through the practice exams until youre consistently hitting like 85% or better and you'll be fine on test day. 30-45 mins a night is more than enough, i'd say most people are ready in 2-3 weeks doing that. theres also the ARRL technician manual if you want to actually understand the material rather than just memorize answers, which i'd recommend at least skimming because it helps stuff stick. find a local club too, they usually run license exam sessions pretty regularly and sometimes the club will have a license class you can sit in on. good luck, it's really not as intimidating as it seems