Robert Taylor32

dont rule out the PA board entirely though. ive seen cases where one of the finals starts to degrade and the bias shifts in a way that only shows up under certain drive frequencies. not super common but it happens, especially if the radio has any hours on it running digital modes at high duty cycle. the 7300 is popular for FT8 and people run those things at 50-60w for hours straight which is hard on the finals over time. the relay theory is more likely statistically but worth checking output with a scope if you have access to one just to see the waveform shape on 20m vs a working band. if its clean but just low amplitude thats more relay/filter, if its ugly or clipping thats more PA side. just my two cents, not a radio tech myself but ive gone down this road with an older FT-991.

I'm working on my 24-hour deployment kit as part of Level 1. Still figuring out what should go in there besides the obvious radio gear. Anyone have a good packing list they're willing to share? The task book mentions it'll be detailed in a separate document.

the sub-bands are worth it alone imo, especially if you're into DX. i went for mine mostly for that reason and yeah there's a noticeable difference in how crowded things feel when you can work that little slice below where generals are allowed. the exam itself, i mean it's 50 questions and you need a 74% so thats 37 right. the pool is like 700 something questions so its a lot to go through but it's manageable. some of the theory is genuinely interesting if youre into that stuff. some of it i still cant explain to you if you asked me right now lol but i passed so whatever

So I finally got activated for a real event last weekend, not just a drill. There was a pretty bad storm system that came through and the county EOC asked our ARES group to staff the shelter over at the high school and provide comms backup in case anything went down with their repeater infrastructure. I've been through like three SET exercises and a handful of nets but this was different. The pace was slower than I thought it would be, which honestly caught me off guard. I was expecting chaos I guess. Mostly it was just... waiting. And logging. A lot of logging. We ran a simplex link back to the EOC because the main repeater was acting flaky and we passed maybe a dozen formal messages over the whole shift, nothing super critical. The part nobody tells you about is how much of this job is just being a calm presence and knowing where your gear is. The shelter coordinator had no idea what we were doing there at first and I had to explain amateur radio emergency communications from basically scratch. Felt a little weird but she warmed up to us pretty fast once she saw we actually knew what we were doing. Anyone else had that experience where the actual activation is kind of anticlimactic compared to training? Curious if thats just how it usually goes or if ive just been lucky so far.

I just passed last month! Break it down by subelement and spend extra time on the areas that are completely new to you. The Ham Radio Extra Class exam contains 50 multiple-choice questions, which are split into ten main categories. The hardest part for me was the antenna modeling and advanced modulation topics - don't rush through those sections.

congrats on the first activation, 44 contacts is a solid outing especially if conditions werent great. on the overlapping references question — yeah this comes up more than you'd think. generally you want to pick the one your actual operating position falls within, you cant really claim both unless you physically moved between them and operated from each location separately. some folks do back to back activations in the same trip if the refs are close and they hike between them but you need a new spot and new contacts for each one. the WWFF database admins are usually pretty helpful if you email them directly, ive had to do that once when a reference boundary seemed wrong on the map. for spotting, the POTA app works fine and a lot of WWFF hunters use it since the communities overlap so much. there's also the wwff.to site and some folks post on the WWFF facebook group. i usually do both just to get more ears on the frequency honestly.

the ebay 2SC1969s are almost definitely fakes, thats just reality at this point. ive burned through probably a dozen of them on various projects and maybe half were pulling anything close to spec. try sourcing from RF Parts or even Mouser if they have stock, the genuine ones behave completely differently. i had one project where i was scratching my head for weeks and swapped to a verified transistor and boom, right where i expected it. also worth checking your drive level into the PA — if your buffer stage isnt putting out enough to drive the base properly you'll just be leaving power on the table no matter how good the transistor is. what are you seeing at the PA input with a scope?

i did mine like 6 months ago, also knew nothing going in. i used hamstudy and also watched some youtube videos by a guy called HamRadioCrashCourse, helped me understand the concepts instead of just memorizing answers which i think made it stick better. took me maybe 3 weeks of casual studying. the test was way less scary than i expected honestly

The National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (NCVEC) Question Pool Committee (QPC) has released the 2024 - 2028 Extra-Class FCC Element 4 Question Pool and Syllabus to the public. The new Extra-Class Question Pool is effective from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2028. ARRL VEC Manager Maria Somma, AB1FM, and member of the NCVEC QPC, said, "The new pool incorporates significant changes compared to the 2020 - 2024 version. We carefully went over the pool for technical accuracy, relevancy to today's amateur radio practices, syntax, grammar, style, format, and clarity and redundancy within and between the pools." What's the best approach to tackle the advanced theory topics?

yeah the going-around-net-control thing is so common it might as well be a feature of every exercise I've ever been part of. people default to what feels efficient even when it isn't, and until you've actually drilled the discipline into muscle memory it just keeps happening. we had the same problem in a simulated hurricane scenario a couple years back, took us probably three exercises before people really internalized the traffic flow. the interoperability gap you mentioned is a big one though. that's honestly one of the hardest things to maintain because agencies update their stuff and they dont always think to notify the volunteer groups. what we started doing is having one person in our group whose only job is to maintain that relationship with the EOC — like a liason who checks in with them every couple months even when nothing is happening. not glamorous but it made a real difference. also whenever they do any kind of training or drill we try to get at least one person embedded with them so we stay current on how they actually operate. for your follow-up exercise, if you do go on-air I'd strongly recommend building in some deliberate obstacles — have someone play a role where a key station goes offline unexpectedly mid-exercise, forces people to adapt in real time rather than following the script. that's usually when you learn the most.

so ive been a tech for almost two years and just upgraded to general last month, and i told myself id actually learn morse code for real this time instead of just doing the minimum. ive been using the G4FON software to practice copying and honestly its going better than i expected, im up to about 8 wpm recognizing most letters without counting dots and dashes which feels like progress. anyway the question i have is about keyers. right now im just using the straight key that came in a kit i built a while back and its fine for practice but i keep reading that i should move to a paddle and iambic keyer at some point. my radio (IC-7300) has a built in keyer so i assume i can just plug a paddle into it directly? i dont really understand the difference between mode A and mode B iambic either, ive seen it mentioned a bunch but never a clear explanation of what it actually changes when youre sending. any advice welcome, trying not to overthink this but also dont want to start building bad habits

ok so i just got my technician license about three weeks ago and i've been trying to get on the local 2m repeater. i programmed it in from the repeater directory and i can hear people talking on it just fine but when i key up nobody responds and i dont think i'm actually getting into the repeater. my radio shows it's transmitting so i'm not sure what's going on. someone at the club meeting mentioned something about a CTCSS tone but i honestly didnt fully understand what they were saying. does every repeater require one of these? and how do i know which one to use? i have a baofeng uv-5r if that matters. i know people have opinions about those but its what i have right now and i'm just trying to get it working. also kind of a separate question — when i do finally get on there, is there like a standard way to let people know you're listening or do you just jump in when someone's talking? i dont want to be that guy who does something wrong on his first time actually transmitting. any help appreciated

so i finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend, been meaning to try it for months after seeing a few posts here about it. picked a local nature reserve that was already in the database as a KFF reference, figured that would make things easier since i didnt have to do any of the registration stuff first. packed up my KX2, a linked dipole, and way too much food honestly, hiked in about 2km to a decent clearing near a creek. the noise floor was absolutely beautiful out there, way better than operating from home where i can hear my neighbors inverter constantly. got on 40m around 10am local and immediately the pile got a little more hectic than i expected, i guess some of the WWFF chasers spotted me on the DX cluster pretty fast. the problem was my logging, i was using paper which i know i know, but my tablet battery died before i even got on air. managed about 34 QSOs in 2 hours which i think gets me the activation count? i looked it up and i think you need 44 minimum so i came up short. the frustrating part is i had signals but just ran out of steam a bit and also had to pack up because it started raining sideways. anyway just wanted to share and ask -- is there a good offline logging app that works well for WWFF that people actually use out in the field? and does the partial activation still count for anything or is it basically a wash if you dont hit 44?

so ive been using a cheap RTL-SDR v3 dongle for about a year now, mostly just scanning around VHF/UHF and doing some ADSB stuff which works great honestly. but ive been wanting to get more into HF — shortwave, maybe some 40m and 80m band stuff, just listening for now — and ive read a bunch of conflicting things about whether the direct sampling mode on the v3 is actually usable or if its just kind of a party trick. the SDRplay RSP1C is like $120 which isnt crazy money but its not nothing either. my main question is basically does the RSP1C actually perform noticeably better on HF compared to the RTL-SDR in direct sampling mode, or is this one of those things where the specs look better on paper but in practice you cant really tell the difference sitting in a suburban backyard with all the usual noise floor issues running SDRuno and also tried SDR# a bit. antenna situation is just a random wire right now, maybe 30 feet, nothing fancy. not trying to do anything serious yet just want to understand what im hearing better

so for WAS through the ARRL you basically need LoTW or physical cards — eQSL doesnt count for that one unfortunately. but eQSL has its own awards program and a lot of DX stations use it so its still worth signing up for. i run all three just because you never know what the other station prefers and it costs nothing extra once youre set up. the tqsl thing tripping you up is super common. what you want to check is whether your callsign certificate is actually signed and valid — open tqsl and look under the callsign certificates tab, it should say something about the certificate being current. if you uploaded logs before getting that sorted the QSOs probably didnt go through. happened to me when i first started and i had to redo about 3 months of contacts. for physical cards i just send them out to anyone who sends me one first, that way i dont burn through my whole stock on stations that arent interested. some guys do send first automatically and thats fine too, just depends on how many cards you had printed and your budget for postage. if youre going after WAS you'll probably want to keep some cards on hand for the states that are barely active on LoTW.

haha that first transmission is always the hardest part, i remember sitting on the repeater for probably two weeks before i said anything. once you do it once though its no big deal. congrats on the license and welcome to the hobby, youll be addicted before you know it. linked repeaters are pretty neat once you wrap your head around em, basically connects a bunch of repeaters together so you can talk way further than youd expect on VHF

so ive been building this 40m direct conversion receiver based loosely on the Norcal design, not a straight copy but similar topology, NE602 mixer into an LM386 audio stage. got it on the air last weekend and it actually receives stuff which honestly surprised me because my PCB layout is kind of a mess. problem is theres this low frequency hum riding on everything, not quite 60hz but close, and it gets worse when i touch the case or move the audio pot. ive got the whole thing powered off a 9v wall wart through a 7808 regulator so i dont think its coming from the supply side but who knows. grounding on these simple receivers is always where i screw up. also the LM386 is oscillating a little bit at high gain settings, ive got the 10uf cap on pin 7 already and the 0.047uf bypass on the output but it still wants to sing to itself on certain frequencies. anyone dealt with this before on a homebrew audio chain, i feel like im missing something obvious

congrats on passing the exam, welcome to the hobby. so the sequential thing is pretty simple — when your license hits the ULS database the FCC just assigns the next available call in your district based on a pool they maintain. you dont get to pick anything, its just whatever comes up next. most of the time for a new tech in a typical district youll end up with something like a 2x3 format (two letters, a number, three letters) though that varies by region. for the vanity call, you actually do need to wait until your initial callsign is assigned first — you need an active license in the system before you can submit a vanity application. once youre in there though you can apply pretty quickly. the FCC does charge a fee now, last i checked it was around $35 for a 10 year license and i believe the vanity application might be bundled into that but honestly double check on the ULS site because the fee structure changed a couple years ago and i dont want to give you wrong numbers on that. the vanity process is basically a filing window — you submit your preferred calls in order of preference and after the window closes they process it. if nobody else applied for the same call or if you have higher preference (like a former licensee reclaiming their old call, or a close relative of a deceased ham), you get it. most people applying for random 1x3 or 2x2 calls that dont have any special history attached usually get one of their picks without too much competition.

i passed mine about four months ago, studied maybe three weeks using just the hamStudy app on my phone during lunch breaks at work. felt like i was barely ready but ended up getting like 32 out of 35 which surprised me. the electrical stuff was the part i was most worried about but honestly a lot of the questions are more about rules and regulations than actual circuit theory so dont overthink it one thing i wish someone told me is to also start reading about what you actually want to do with the license while your studying, like whether youre interested in repeaters and local stuff or HF eventually or emergency comms or whatever, just helps keep the motivation up when you hit the boring parts about band plans and frequencies

yeah forget the chart method, thats basically the worst way to do it if you actually want to use it on the air someday. your brain ends up counting dits and dahs instead of just hearing the letter as a sound and you'll have to unlearn that habit later which is a pain. Koch method is what most people swear by these days and i think its genuinely the best approach. the idea is you start with just two characters at full speed, like 20wpm or whatever your target is, and you only move on to adding a new character once you can copy those two at something like 90% accuracy. so youre always training your ears at real speed from day one. LCWO dot net is the go-to website for this, its free and you can track your progress and everything. theres also the Morse Trainer app which a lot of people like on their phone for practice on the go. the other thing i'll say is dont skip actually trying to send too, even early on. grab a straight key or even just tap on a table and try to form the letters. it reinforces the sounds in a different way. i learned mostly by listening but when i started sending it clicked a lot faster than i expected