Ashley Wilson95

I'm still on single radio and reading this thread trying to figure out if SO2R is even worth it at my license level — i just got my extra last year and i've only done maybe 4 or 5 contests seriously. is it something you can ease into or do you basically have to rebuild your whole station? seems like a big investment in switching and filtering before you see any benefit

great question and honestly more people should be asking this before they need it rather than after. i went through about three iterations of my go-kit before landing on something i was actually happy with. first thing id say is figure out what your primary mission is — are you supporting ARES/RACES activations, or is this more personal preparedness, or both? that changes what you pack pretty significantly.
for power i made the jump to LiFePO4 about a year ago and i dont regret it at all. heavier upfront cost but the weight savings and the way they hold voltage under load is just better. i run a 30ah Battle Born in my main kit and a smaller 10ah for the lightweight bag. the 857 is a solid radio but yeah its a chunky boy for a go-kit — have you looked at the FT-891? roughly same capability, way more packable. lots of guys in our group run those.
the stuff people forget is never the radio — its the cables. have adapters, have fuses, have a way to charge the battery from a car AND from solar if you can swing it. and i always keep a laminated card with my freqs, my served agency contacts, and the regional nets because when things go sideways you dont want to be scrolling through your phone trying to remember stuff.

congrats on the first one, 35 minutes for 10 contacts on your first go is solid honestly. the time thing is pretty common and yeah there is some tolerance in the system, i think its like plus or minus 30 minutes or something like that, dont quote me on it but ive never had a contact get thrown out over a minute or two difference. the POTA website is pretty forgiving about it as long as the callsigns match up.
and absolutely spot yourself, everyone does it. thats basically how the whole thing works now. if you dont spot yourself you're kind of just hoping someone stumbles across you and that can take forever especially on a weekday. the POTA website has a self-spotting feature built in and most people use apps like POTA Spotter or even the website on their phone. once you're spotted you'll usually start getting a pile pretty quick, sometimes within a minute or two on a busy day. definitely not weird at all.

yeah dont let the question count freak you out. a bunch of them are really similar and once you get the core concepts down a lot of the answers just click. the electrical math ones tripped me up at first but theres only like a handful of actual formulas you need and ohms law covers most of it.
one thing I wish someone had told me — pay extra attention to the operating rules and band privileges section, that stuff shows up a lot and its easy to mix up if you havent seen it before. good luck with it

yeah the userbase thing is the real problem with JS8Call. the mode itself is genuinely clever — KN4CRD did good work on it — but youre fighting the network effect. everyone is on FT8 because everyone is on FT8. i check 40m around 14.078 sometimes on weekends and theres usually some activity but its nothing like the FT8 pileups obviously.
that said i think youre asking the right question about what you actually want from operating. if its entities and awards then FT8 is basically unbeatable. if you want something that feels more like actual communication, JS8Call scratches that itch way better. ive had some genuinely fun exchanges on there, like slow texting over HF, which sounds dumb but is kind of satisfying when the band is marginal and it still gets through. also the store-and-forward relay stuff is interesting if youre into emcomm type scenarios.
PSK31 is another option if you want a real QSO feel, the bands are quieter than they used to be but theres still a community especially on 20m around 14.070. old school but it works and fldigi makes it easy.

congrats on the first one, that feeling after you close out a successful activation is pretty hard to beat. to answer your questions — the summit reference needs to be exact when you upload, like letter case and the hyphen all have to match what's in the database or it'll kick back an error. sotadata is pretty picky about that stuff but once you do a couple uploads it becomes second nature.
posting on SOTAwatch ahead of time is definitely not required but honestly it makes a huge difference in how fast you get your 4 contacts. chasers around the world are watching the alerts and spots and they'll come find you, otherwise you're calling CQ into the void hoping someone happens to be listening. i usually post an alert the night before with an estimated time and frequency and then self-spot when im actually on the air. some activators dont bother and still get their contacts but it can take longer especially if you're on a less popular summit.
S2S is just summit to summit and yeah you log it the same way basically except you want to note the other person's summit reference in your log. when you upload to sotadata there's a field for it. both of you get points for S2S which is a nice bonus, chasers love confirming those too.

okay so i passed my technician exam like three weeks ago and ive been trying to figure out exactly what frequencies i have access to. i keep reading part 97 but honestly its kind of written in a way that makes my head spin. like i understand i have HF privileges on 10 meters but only certain parts of it? and then theres the 2m and 70cm stuff which seems more straightforward but even then im not 100% sure what modes i can use where.
my main question i guess is, is there like a simplified version of this somewhere that isnt just a pdf full of legal language. also i saw something about phone privileges being restricted to certain segments and im not sure if that applies to me or if thats for general class. i dont wanna accidentally transmit somewhere i shouldnt be, especially since im still pretty new and already nervous enough about keying up on a repeater for the first time.

so i finally got my ticket after studying for like 3 weeks and i was so pumped to get on the air. borrowed my buddy's baofeng until my radio order comes in and jumped on the local 2m repeater last night around 7pm. i totally froze when someone came back to me, forgot my callsign twice, and i think i stepped on somebody elses transmission at some point. the guy who answered me was super patient though and we actually talked for maybe 10 minutes about nothing in particular. he asked where i was located and what got me into ham radio and it was honestly just a really normal conversation which i wasnt expecting. anyway just wanted to share because ive been lurking here for months reading about this stuff and its way different actually doing it. also what do you guys do when you cant remember if the repeater is still open or if someone else is about to key up, i keep second guessing myself

Yes, absolutely start HRD first! Then launch WSJT-X and go to the Radio tab in Settings. Make sure you select 'Ham Radio Deluxe' from the rig dropdown, not your IC-7610 model. This routes all CAT commands through HRD's interface.

Welcome to the hobby! The most successful method for confirmations is direct QSLing with about 63% success rate, but LoTW comes in second at 18% and actually counts for ARRL awards like DXCC. Start with LoTW - it's free and accepted for most major awards. For paper cards, "bureau" means bulk mail through your national society (cheaper but slower), while "direct" means mailing straight to the station (faster but more expensive).

you've basically got it right. Field Day is June and it's very much a group activity, most clubs set up somewhere portable and operate for 24 hours, it's pretty relaxed and a great way to learn because there's usually somebody next to you who can answer questions. honestly for a brand new operator it's probably the better starting point just because you're not alone.
CQ WW is October and November (phone and CW separately) and yeah that's more of a serious DX contest, huge pileups, stations running hundreds of watts into big antennas, can be a little intimidating when you first hear it. that said you can absolutely participate as a search and parter and just work whoever you find, nobody cares if you're not running high power or a fancy station. just call, give your exchange, log it and move on.
the SOTA thing you mentioned — SOTA activators can get bonus points in some contests if theyre operating from a summit, but SOTA itself isnt really a contest per se, more of an operating award program. some contests like the ARRL 10 meter contest have provisions for portable ops but it varies. worth looking into if you like hiking though, its a lot of fun.
my honest advice, find your local club and do Field Day with them first, then try CQ WW SSB in October just to see what the chaos feels like from your home station

the old QSLs absolutely count as long as you can match them to your log entries — band and mode matter for mixed vs. specific endorsements but for basic DXCC mixed it doesnt matter as much, you just need entity confirmed. dig through those cards man, you might be closer than you think.
LoTW is really the way to go these days for DXCC. most serious DX stations upload there pretty routinely and it just makes everything easier — you upload your log, they upload theirs, ARRL matches them automatically and credits show up in your account. you can still submit paper cards but honestly ive done probably 90% of my credits via LoTW at this point. some rare entities you'll still need paper though because the operator never bothered to get set up on LoTW, thats just life.
WAZ is a CQ award not ARRL so its a completely separate submission process through CQ magazine. worth doing eventually but id get DXCC rolling first or youll drive yourself nuts juggling both. once you get the workflow down for one it kind of makes sense for the other anyway.

Looking for detailed comparison of current Morse code training tools. I've heard about G4FON, LCWO, Morse Code Ninja, Ham Morse app, and others. Which ones are worth the time investment?
Best for absolute beginners Most effective progression methods Mobile vs desktop options Free vs paid - what's the value difference? Particularly interested in tools that follow proven methods like Koch or Farnsworth.