Jessica Thomas

the QCX+ is a great little radio, i built one last winter and was really impressed with the receiver considering how simple the circuit is. your antenna question is a good one — i went through several iterations before settling on an end fed half wave with a small 49:1 unun. the whole thing rolls up into a sandwich bag basically and i can get it up in a tree pretty fast with a fishing line and a weight.
the linked dipole you mentioned is also solid especially if you want to work multiple bands, just takes a bit more setup time. i think for pure simplicity on one band the EFHW wins but if you're chasing DX on 20 and 40 both the linked setup makes sense. honestly the biggest thing ive found is just getting the wire as high as you can — even a mediocre antenna at 30 feet usually beats a great antenna at 15 feet, at least in my experience. keep at it, QRP portable is kind of addictive once it clicks

so ive been monitoring 10m pretty regularly for the past few weeks and something feels off. some days it opens up like crazy, had a contact with a station in japan last tuesday which honestly shocked me, and then the next two days it was completely dead. like nothing. checked the solar flux index and it was hovering around 140-150 which shouldnt be that bad but the band just wasnt cooperating at all.
been using pskreporter to get a sense of whats happening and the spots are all over the place. one morning ill see europe lighting up, next morning nothing past maybe 500 miles. is this just normal cycle 25 behavior or am i missing something about how to read conditions better? i know the k-index matters too but im not sure how to weigh all these different numbers against each other. any of the more experienced folks here have a good way of making sense of it all?

so i passed my technician exam on the 14th and just got my callsign showing up in the ULS a few days ago. been sitting on my baofeng for like two weeks just listening to the local repeater too scared to key up lol. finally yesterday i just did it, introduced myself during the morning net and this older guy came back to me and we actually talked for like 10 minutes about antennas and stuff. i was shaking the whole time which is embarrassing to admit but whatever. anyway just wanted to say hi to everyone here, been lurking this forum for months while i was studying. 73 de KD9whatever (still not used to saying my own call)

so i've been putting this off for like two years but i finally pulled the trigger and got a Yaesu FTM-400 mounted in my F-150. ran the power cable straight to the battery with an inline fuse which i know is the right way to do it, and i got a Tram 1185 dual band antenna on a mag mount for now sitting on the roof.
couple things bugging me though. first, when i key up on 2m i'm getting a weird kind of buzzing in my truck's audio system, not horrible but definitely there. i read somewhere about adding a ferrite bead on the mic cable but hasnt fixed it fully. also not sure if i should upgrade to a lip mount or just drill a hole at some point, the mag mount feels a little sketchy at highway speeds but hasnt moved yet.
overall really happy with the setup. been hitting a repeater about 35 miles out which i never expected to do mobile. just figured id share and see if anyone had thoughts on the RFI thing

not a dumb question at all, everybody goes through this exact same thing. so dual band just means you can hit both 2m and 70cm repeaters which honestly matters more than you'd think once you start figuring out what's active in your area — some places have way more 70cm infrastructure than 2m and vice versa. the baofeng stuff works, i wont lie, but the receive quality is noticeably worse and they can spurious transmit in ways that make other hams grumpy at you. for $150 i'd seriously look at the yaesu ft-65 or maybe stretch a tiny bit for a wouxun kg-uv9d if you want more band coverage. the yaesu build quality is just in a completely different league and programming it doesnt require a 45 minute youtube tutorial. if APRS is on your radar eventually look at the yaesu ft3dr or the kenwood th-d74, but those are way above your budget so maybe that's a later upgrade path

honestly just jump in, paper logging is totally fine for your first go. i did my first couple contests on paper and then typed the log into ADIF after the fact. not ideal for score checking but for just learning the flow of things it works perfectly well and you dont have to deal with software while youre also trying to figure out contest exchanges.
Field Day was my first one too and it kinda hooked me on the whole hobby more than anything else before it. theres usually food involved which helps lol

Most people need 20-30 hours to study for the Technician exam, so you have time for both approaches. I recommend using HamStudy.org and the ARRL Handbook - drill the questions to pass, but read the explanations to understand WHY each answer is correct. You'll be amazed how much more the hobby makes sense when you grasp the fundamentals.