Linda Rodriguez

went through this exact same confusion when i upgraded to extra last year. what tripped me up was i applied for a vanity call that i thought nobody else would want and i STILL lost the lottery, there were like 3 other people who applied for the same obscure 1x2 call in the same window. kind of deflating but whatever i tried again a few months later and got a different one i liked almost as much. one tip — there are websites that track which calls are coming back into the pool as hams go silent key or let licenses expire. some calls show up as available that nobody has applied for yet and if you can find one of those and apply when the window opens your odds are obviously way better. just gotta do a bit of homework.

so i've been trying to wrap my head around SO2R for like two years and something finally just clicked during the state QSO party last weekend. i think the big thing i was doing wrong was treating the second radio like a full-time thing instead of just a rate tool. like i was trying to actively work stations on both radios simultaneously and it was just chaos, missed exchanges, blown multipliers, the whole mess. what actually helped was just using radio 2 strictly for S&P while i was running on radio 1. find a mult, pounce on it when there's a gap in the run, then get back to running. sounds obvious but when youre actually in the chair under pressure it doesnt feel obvious at all. also had to spend some time with the SO2R interlock settings in N1MM because i kept accidentally transmitting on both which... yeah dont do that. anyway curious if anyone has tips for when the run rate drops and you start to wonder if you should flip which radio is the run radio. i never really have a good feel for when to pull that trigger. sometimes i switch and it helps, sometimes it just costs me time and the old run freq dies while im getting established on the new one.

so ive been chasing the VK9MA operation on Mellish Reef for like three days and kept getting absolutely nowhere. just wall to wall callers and i couldnt get a single answer out of them. tried for probably 6-7 hours spread across multiple sessions and nothing. starting to think my signal just wasnt cutting it. what finally worked for me was a combination of things. first i stopped transmitting on the most obvious split frequencies. everyone was stacking up around 5 and 10 up so i started throwing my call in at like 7.3 up and 13 up, weird spots that werent as crowded. second thing was i started really listening to the DX station's rhythm, like how long a QSO was taking him and whether he was moving his listening frequency around. this one took me a while to notice but he was definitely drifting up by like half a kHz every few minutes then jumping back down. once i figured that out i just camped ahead of where he was drifting and got a reply on the second call. whole QSO was done in under 20 seconds. 73 and logged. felt good after so many hours of frustration honestly. anyone else have techniques that work consistently or is it always just kind of luck plus timing

ok so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i thought i had a decent handle on part 97 but then someone at our club meeting brought up third party traffic and i realized i have no idea what the actual rules are here. like i know you cant just let randos talk on your radio but when CAN someone else use your mic? my friend wanted to say hi to someone i was in contact with and i just kind of froze up and said no because i wasnt sure. was that even the right call? and does it matter if its a domestic contact vs someone overseas? i feel like i remember reading something about third party agreements but i dont fully understand what that means in practice. im not trying to memorize the whole rulebook just want to know the practical version of when this is and isnt okay