Carlos Mendez

so ive been working on this thing for about three weeks now, pretty much based on the classic rock-mite design but i kind of went off-script with the oscillator stage because i couldnt source the right crystal and figured id try a colpitts with a variable cap to get it close enough to 7.030 or so. got the PA stage mostly working, im seeing around 800mW into a dummy load which isnt bad for what it is. the problem is the oscillator drifts like crazy for the first 10-15 minutes. i mean it settles down eventually but when i first key up its just wandering all over the place. i put a small piece of foam over the crystal area thinking it was thermal but that didnt really do much. supply voltage is stable, checked it on the bench supply and its flat. not sure if its the crystal itself or something in how i have the tank circuit loaded. the caps i used are ceramic disc which i know arent ideal but its what i had in the junk box. anyone dealt with this before? im not sure if i should just order some NPO/C0G caps and swap them out first or if theres something else going on. the drift direction is always the same - goes low then comes back up if that matters.

so ive been messing around with remote station control for about 8 months now and i finally got a somewhat stable setup but theres still this nagging latency issue that i cant seem to nail down. running an IC-7300 at the shack end with a raspberry pi handling the CAT control and audio routing, and on the client side im just using the RemoteHams RCForb client on a windows laptop. the SDR side of things is where it gets weird for me. i added an RTL-SDR dongle at the remote end thinking id have this nice panadapter view when operating remotely but the bandwidth through my home internet just gets crushed when both the audio stream AND the SDR IQ data are running at the same time. the remote location is on a 25Mbps DSL line which i thought would be enough but apparently not. or maybe im doing the compression wrong idk. also trying to tie this into a local IRLP node for some VHF linking and im not sure if thats just adding too many moving parts to the whole thing. anyone run a setup like this or am i just trying to do too much at once here

So i've been licensed about 8 months now and i'm starting to get into chasing awards and stuff and honestly the whole QSL confirmation world is kind of overwhelming. Like there's LoTW which seems like the main one everyone talks about, then theres eQSL, and then actual physical cards which i think look really cool but seem like a hassle? My elmer told me to just upload to LoTW and call it a day but i keep seeing people mention eQSL too and i dont really understand if contacts confirmed there count for ARRL awards or what. Also the physical card thing — do people still actually send and receive those by mail? I got one in the mail last week from a station in Japan which was awesome but i have no idea how you're supposed to respond or if i need to send one back. Do i need a QSL manager or something? I feel like there's a whole system here that nobody explained to me. Any help would be appreciated, sorry if this is a basic question.

yeah 10m has been genuinely surprising lately, had a similar thing happen a few weeks ago — walked into the shack just to check something and ended up working like 30 stations in an hour. the SFI being up in that range does make a real difference on the higher bands, anything above maybe 120 or so and 10m starts waking up, at least in my experience. for tools i use DXMaps pretty regularly, it shows you real-time spots from the DX cluster plotted on a map so you can actually see where propagation is happening right now instead of just guessing. PSKReporter is great too especially if you're doing any digital modes because you can see where your signal is actually landing. VOACAP is good for planning but it's more of a predictive thing, doesnt tell you what's happening right this second. one thing that helped me a lot was just leaving a websdr running in the background sometimes to get a feel for band conditions before i even fire up my rig. if i can hear Europeans on 10m via a SDR somewhere in the midwest then i know there's probably something worth chasing

i asked myself the same thing when i got into digital modes. FT8 kind of scratches the weak signal itch but feels hollow after a while. i switched to FT4 for contests because its faster but same issue really, no actual words exchanged. one thing nobody told me starting out — the JS8Call bands arent all the same activity level. 40m is probably your best bet for actual ragchewing but you might also try the JS8 calling freqs on 20m during good prop windows, ive caught some dx that way. also there are some organized JS8 nets that meet at scheduled times which helps a lot when its otherwise dead.

so ive been at this whole morse code thing for about a year now and i started with the Koch method back when i got my ticket, got up to around 13wpm pretty comfortably but now i just cannot seem to break through to anything faster. like i can copy at 13 in my head no problem, decent accuracy, but the moment i push it to 15 or above it all falls apart and i start trying to count dits and dahs again which i know is exactly what you're NOT supposed to do. my usual practice is about 20-30 minutes a day with either the LCWO website or just G4FON on my laptop. i also try to listen to actual QSOs on 40m in the evenings but honestly most of what i hear is way faster than i can follow and it gets discouraging. someone at my club mentioned the whole thing about listening at 20wpm with extra spacing (farnsworth method i think?) but i havent really tried that consistently. anyone been through this same plateau and what actually worked for you? im starting to wonder if im just not wired for this lol

just passed mine last month so this is fresh for me. the theory is definitely a step up but the thing that helped me was finding a good explanation for the stuff i didnt get rather than just memorizing. like the reactance and impedance questions, once i watched a couple youtube videos that actually showed what was happening with the math it clicked. same with the digital mode stuff and some of the propagation questions. there were maybe 10 or 15 questions in the pool where i was like okay i have no idea what the correct answer is from first principles so i just had to learn the answer. but most of it made sense once i dug in a little. also the Extra opens up being a VE which i know isnt everyones thing but i thought it was worth mentioning

if you really want to go deep on wideband HF monitoring the HackRF is worth a look too, wider tuning range and you can TX which is cool even if you probably wont use it much. but its not as sensitive as the RSP on receive, theres a real tradeoff there. for pure monitoring the SDRplay stuff is generally considered better receive performance per dollar than hackrf the RSP1B for 130 is a decent deal right now tbh

yeah this is basically the answer is always get more height lol. im in the same boat, inverted V at about 40 feet and i work dx on 40 just fine. worked a bunch of pacific stuff last winter so it cant be that bad. the other thing nobody mentions is the inverted V is way easier to deal with when a storm comes through — i can drop the whole thing in like 10 minutes and the flat top situation with two tall supports sounds like a pain.

welcome to the rabbit hole haha. so the SET is the Simulated Emergency Test, its basically a once a year drill that ARRL coordinates where ARES groups practice activating and passing traffic like they would in a real event. your section probably does one in the fall, at least most do. its actually a lot of fun once you know whats going on — kind of chaotic in a good way. as for ICS, most groups want you to at least have 100 and 700 done before you deploy anywhere, those are free online through FEMA and honestly take maybe 3-4 hours total. some ECs are pretty strict about it and some are more relaxed depending on how busy your county gets. i'd just shoot your EC an email and ask what the expectations are — they'd rather you ask than show up to an activation without the certs. nobody's gonna make you feel bad for asking, these groups need people and they know everyone starts somewhere.

so ive been messing around with remote station control for about 6 months now and im at this crossroads where i cant decide if i should just commit to RemoteHams or keep building out my own thing with a raspberry pi and some custom scripts. my current setup uses a flrig talking to my IC-7300 over a VPN and it mostly works but the latency on the audio is driving me insane, like there's this half second delay that makes SSB basically unusable and i find myself just defaulting to FT8 because at least that doesnt care about latency anyway i started looking at RemoteHams more seriously and the SDR remote side of it actually looks pretty interesting to me. the idea of being able to spin up a wide spectrum view from wherever i am and then dig into a signal is appealing. has anyone actually used their SDR remote feature for anything beyond just casual listening? im thinking about it from a DX hunting perspective, like if i could have a remote SDR at the home QTH while i travel would that actually be useful or is the latency still going to kill me also curious if anyone has tried mixing internet linking into this kind of setup, like using something like AllStar or even just echolink to tie in a VHF node on the remote end so you can work local nets while youre somewhere else. feels like that should work in theory but im not sure if the audio routing gets messy when you have multiple things trying to grab the soundcard

So I finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend at a state forest near me, KFF-something i forget the exact number, and honestly it went way better than i expected. Set up the end fed on a 31ft fiberglass pole, ran about 25w from the 705 and managed to get like 38 contacts in a couple hours which i know isnt huge but for a first time out i was pretty happy with it. My question is about logging and uploading. I used HAMRS on my phone which worked fine but im not 100% sure how the ADIF upload to the WWFF database actually works. Do i go through WWFF directly or through another portal? I saw something about ADIF2SOTA or whatever that converter tool is but wasnt sure if thats relevant here. Also wondering how people handle spotting themselves. I didnt have great cell service out there so i couldnt self spot on the WWFF spotter page and i think that hurt my rate a lot toward the end. Is there a way to use like aprs or sms spotting or do most people just have a friend spot them remotely? Would love to hear how others handle this, especially in areas with marginal cell coverage.

oh man i was in the exact same spot like six months ago lol. i just listened to the net for a couple weeks before i checked in just to get a feel for how it flowed. when i finally did it i literally wrote down what i was going to say on a sticky note beforehand which felt ridiculous but it helped. also there are sometimes special event stations that do nets around holidays and stuff, those can actually be really fun to try once you're comfortable with the basics because they usually have a lot of activity and the NCS tends to be pretty patient

so ive been running my 7300 stock for about two years now and honestly it was fine but i kept reading about the front end mods people were doing to squeeze more out of the receiver. ended up going down a pretty deep rabbit hole on eham and a couple other places and decided to try the preamp bypass mod that supposedly helps on the lower HF bands where the stock AGC can get a little aggressive. the mod itself wasnt that bad, had to pull the top cover and there's a few SMD components near the RF board that you swap out, nothing crazy if you're comfortable with a soldering iron and have decent magnification. i used my hakko with a fine tip and took my time. whole thing maybe took 90 minutes including the disassembly. honestly the difference on 160m and 80m is noticeable, weak signals that were getting kinda chewed up by the AGC are cleaner now. 40m feels about the same to me. i dont think i'd say it transformed the radio or anything but for the time invested it was worth doing. just wondering if anyone else has gone further with mods on this radio, i keep seeing references to some IF filter mod but cant find good documentation on it

yeah JS8Call community is smaller but honestly the people on there tend to actually want to ragchew which is the whole point. i run it on 7.078 in the evenings and usually find a few guys. not wall to wall like FT8 but its not dead either. weekends are better. the SNR threshold is around -24dB if i remember right so not FT8 level but still pretty solid for marginal conditions. worth keeping WSJT-X open on another slice of spectrum at the same time if your radio can do split stuff, no reason you cant do both

Both are excellent! LCWO is ideal for flexible, online-based training accessible anywhere and suitable for self-paced learning. I'd suggest starting with LCWO immediately, then applying for CW Academy once you're comfortable with basic characters. No need to wait around when you can be learning now.

definitely go through the cabin if you can find a way. i ran mine under the car on my first install and regretted it within 6 months when the coax got nicked somewhere and i had crazy high swr. took forever to find where it got damaged and had to replace the whole run

yeah the dynamic range thing with the dongle is real and once you notice it you cant un-notice it. i went RSP2 route myself which is a step up from the RSP1A with the extra antenna ports but probably overkill for what youre describing. one thing nobody mentions though — if youre on HF with an upconverter the whole chain matters, a crappy upconverter will limit you regardless of what SDR you plug into it. are you using the direct sampling mod on the v3? that at least gets rid of the upconverter in the equation even if the performance isnt amazing. also worth trying SDR++ if you havent, its way lighter than SDR# and the plugin system is cleaner. might squeeze a bit more usability out of the dongle before you commit to spending more money.

so ive been using a whip on my HF rig for a while now and finally decided to just build a proper dipole for 40m. cut the wire to the standard formula, 468/f, ended up with two legs about 33 feet each. used some 14 gauge stranded from the hardware store, zip cord actually, and a dog bone insulator i printed on my 3d printer for the center and ceramic egg insulators at the ends. got it up in an inverted V configuration, apex at about 30 feet off the roof peak, ends tied off to some fence posts with paracord. fed it with 50 ohm coax through a 1:1 choke balun i wound myself on an FT-240-43 core. SWR came out around 1.4:1 at the frequency i was shooting for which honestly seems pretty good for a first build. my question is about the feedpoint connector. i just twisted the coax braid and center conductor to the two legs and taped it all up with self-amalgamating tape, then wrapped that in regular electrical tape for UV protection. is that good enough long term or should i be doing something different there. ive seen people use SO-239 chassis connectors mounted to a little piece of lexan or cutting board material as like a proper feedpoint housing. wondering if thats worth doing or if im overcomplicating it.

so ive been messing around with an RTL-SDR v3 for about a year now, mostly doing aircraft stuff and some P25 scanning but lately ive been wanting to get more into HF and the direct sampling mode on the v3 is just... okay. like its fine for casual listening but the noise floor is kind of rough and i keep reading that the RSP1A is a big step up for that kind of thing. my question is really whether its actually worth the $120 or whatever they're going for now. i know the dynamic range specs look way better on paper but i've also seen people say the SDRuno software is kind of clunky compared to SDR# or even CubicSDR. does anybody run one of these with SDR++ or is everyone just stuck with SDRuno? i tried to find a straight answer on the reddit but everything is like 3 years old at this point also not really interested in HackRF for this use case, i dont need to transmit, just want cleaner receive on 40m and 80m mostly. running a random wire up in the attic which is probably part of the problem too but thats a separate issue

Working on a homebrew 40M QRP superhet transceiver based loosely on the BITX40 design with a KK7B Classic 40 receiver front end. Recently modified the PA stage from 2N2222 to IRF510 for better efficiency, but now experiencing significant receiver sensitivity loss - MDS went from -125dBm to about -110dBm. Using 6MHz IF with discrete mixer and crystal filter. T/R switching is done with PIN diodes. Anyone experienced similar issues after PA modifications? Wondering if increased RF leakage from the MOSFET stage is desensing the receiver during standby. PA isolation is showing only 30dB on my homebrew directional coupler - should be closer to 60dB. Any suggestions for improving T/R isolation in QRP transceivers?

Amateur Radio DX Clusters are indispensable online tools providing real-time information, aggregating 'spots' reports from operators to help users monitor current band conditions and identify rare DX. I've found QRZ more stable lately, but DXWatch has better filtering options for VHF/UHF work.

the moisture thing is almost certainly your issue with the drifting SWR, self amalg tape is good but you really need to start from the connector itself and work outward, make sure theres no gaps where water can wick in along the coax braid. some guys use a blob of silicone sealant inside the cap first before taping. i had the same problem with a 20m dipole i hung a few years back and once i properly sealed it the SWR stopped moving around at all. as for the 1.4:1 — totally normal for an inverted V. the angle of the legs changes the feedpoint impedance, a flat dipole is closer to 73 ohms which is already not 50, and once you drop the legs down in that V shape it goes lower, around 50-60 ohms depending on your angle. 1.4 is honestly fine, you wont even notice the difference in transmitted power. if it really bugs you you can try adjusting the leg angle or trimming a tiny bit but id leave it alone.

After upgrading to GNU Radio 3.10.7 on Debian 12, my SDRplay RSP1A is no longer being detected by GQRX or any gr-osmosdr applications. The device shows up in lsusb as '1df7:3010 SDRplay RSP1A' and the API 3.07 drivers install without errors. However, when I run 'SoapySDRUtil --find', no SDRplay devices are enumerated. Downgrading to GNU Radio 3.9 resolves the issue, but I need the newer features in 3.10 for my weak-signal work. Anyone successfully running RSP1A with the latest GNU Radio build? I'm wondering if this is a SoapySDR compatibility issue or something deeper in the driver stack.

Running into a persistent problem with my VHF rover setup where RoverQTH data isn't transferring from WSJT-X to N1MM+ during contests. I use FT991A for 6/2/70cm with KX3 driving transverters for the higher bands in SO2R configuration. Everything else logs perfectly - frequency, mode, grid, RST - but the rover location field remains blank in N1MM+ for digital contacts. I've verified all settings in the WSJT/JTDX Setup tab: IP 127.0.0.1, port 2237, path configured correctly. The integration works flawlessly for CW/SSB through N1MM+'s band data system, but something breaks the rover location transfer when using digital modes. Has anyone encountered this specific issue with rover operations?