David Anderson

I'm still pretty new myself (got my General last year) and found that listening to the net and how people are checked in provides answers about the format. Each net has its own style, so don't be afraid to ask the net control for guidance if you're unsure about something specific!

S1 is a great starting point honestly. just bring way more water than you think you need and accept that your antenna setup is gonna be janky compared to what you do at home. i usually just toss the wire over whatever tree branch is nearby and call it good enough. the contacts still count even if your SWR isnt perfect one thing i learned the hard way — alert on SOTAwatch ahead of time, like the night before at least. makes a huge difference getting chasers lined up when you actually hit the summit. nothing worse than sitting there calling CQ into nothing when youre already tired from the hike

so i've been putting off building the QCX mini for like 8 months, just sitting in a box on my desk staring at me. finally sat down thursday night and knocked it out over two evenings. honestly the build went pretty smooth, took my time with the toroids because those always stress me out, but they came out fine i think. anyway saturday morning i threw it in my backpack with a random wire antenna and a 3ah lipo and drove out to a state park about 40 minutes away. found a picnic table away from everyone, tossed the wire up into a tree maybe 25 feet or so, fired it up on 40m and just started calling CQ. i was not expecting much honestly. 5 watts, compromised antenna, no amp, just me and this little thing the size of a deck of cards basically. but within maybe 15 minutes i had my first contact, a guy in indiana, then another in ohio, and then completely out of nowhere a station in ontario came back to me really clean. i was kind of stunned. sat there for about 3 hours total and logged 11 contacts including that canadian station. i know thats not impressive numbers for a lot of you but for me it was kind of a moment. like it really clicked why people love this mode so much. the efficiency of it, running basically nothing and still making contacts, there's something almost meditative about it. already thinking about what to build next, maybe a 20m version or trying to get into CW a little more seriously because i feel like that would open things up even more. anyway just wanted to share. if anyones been on the fence about QRP portable stuff, at least in my experience this weekend it really delivered.

been using mine for about two years and still find stuff in the menus i didnt know was there. the scope amplitude and reference settings are worth tweaking if you havent — out of the box the waterfall can wash out weak signals depending on your antenna situation. i run a pretty modest dipole and had to adjust the reference level down maybe 10dB from default to make weak DX actually visible on the panadapter instead of just noise floor.

oh man this was me about two years ago, almost exactly. the thing that finally helped me break through was forcing myself to listen at speeds way higher than i could copy — like 15 or 18wpm — even when i only caught maybe every third word. what happens is your brain starts recognizing the rhythm and sound of the characters instead of counting dits and dahs. once you stop counting and start hearing, everything speeds up naturally. also dont practice for too long in one sitting. i found 15-20 minutes focused is way better than an hour where your mind wanders. and try copying by hand first then switch to a keyboard later, some people find one works better than the other. took me about a year to get comfortable at 13wpm and now im sitting around 18 on a good day so it does come eventually, just slow going for most of us

the 386 buzzing thing drove me crazy on a CW practice oscillator i built last year, turned out i had a ground loop on my board because i was kind of sloppy with the layout. star grounding fixed most of it. worth checking before you start adding a bunch of caps everywhere honestly.

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i still feel kinda awkward with phonetics on air. like i know NATO phonetics — alpha bravo charlie etc — but i never know when its actually required vs when its just a habit thing people do. sometimes ill hear someone just say their callsign letters normally and other times everyone is spelling everything out phonetically and i dont want to sound like i dont know what im doing either way also is it bad form to use non-standard phonetics? i heard a guy use "America" for A the other day instead of Alpha and nobody said anything but it seemed weird to me. is that a thing people do or was he just making stuff up

I do a monthly "gear check" on the first Saturday - power everything up, check all connections, verify my frequency list is current, and actually make a few contacts. It's saved me from several potential failures during real activations.

Been running sealed lead acid batteries in my go-kit for years but they're getting heavy and showing their age. Looking at upgrading to lithium but the options are confusing - LiFePO4, Li-ion, different brands, built-in BMS vs external... What's working for you folks in real emergency deployments? Particularly interested in cold weather performance since we get some brutal winters up here in Minnesota. Also curious about charging - can I still use my existing SLA chargers or do I need new ones? Budget isn't unlimited but I'm willing to invest in quality gear that'll last. Safety is obviously the top priority.

the dish vs yagi debate is kind of endless tbh. i ran a 4x9el array for two years before i got my 3m dish sorted and the array was actually more fun in some ways because setup and troubleshooting was easier. dish gives you more gain obviously but the feed design becomes its own whole project and if your surface accuracy isnt good youre leaving a lot on the table anyway. one thing nobody told me starting out was how much the ground gain matters depending on your elevation angle when the moon rises or sets, can give you a few dB for free if you work it right. anyway dont let the complexity scare you off, first EME contact is something you dont forget

that toroid winding struggle is so real, i basically destroyed half a bag of t50-2 cores on my first kit lol. i use a clamp now to hold the core while i wind, makes it way easier to keep track. also started marking every 5th turn with a sharpie on the wire before i wind which sounds silly but it works nice work getting it on the air

I was in the same boat like six months ago and I just used the HamStudy app on my phone whenever I had a few minutes, waiting in line at the store or whatever. Took me maybe three weeks of casual studying and I passed on the first try. The actual test session I went to was run by a local club in a library meeting room, very low key, nothing like the DMV lol. Definitely not as scary as I thought it would be going in. One thing I'd say is dont stress too much about understanding every single concept before you go take it. Some of the questions about like RF propagation or whatever you just kind of memorize the answer and learn what it actually means later when you start operating. plenty of time for that after you get the callsign

honestly for regional work on 40m the inverted V is probably fine and might even be better — higher angle radiation is what you want for 500-1500 mile paths anyway, especially at night when the skip is doing weird stuff. the flat dipole advantage on DX is real but pretty marginal in practice, like maybe a dB or two at most depending on height and ground quality. the bigger thing i'd worry about with those end heights is ground interaction. 10 feet is pretty low and if you've got lossy suburban soil it can start eating your efficiency. i ran an inverted V for years with ends at about 12 feet and it worked fine, but i did notice when i raised them to 18 it cleaned up a bit, particularly on receive. probably worth trying if youve already got the center support sorted, worst case you just go back to what you had.