Emily Thomas17

yeah the ALC thing is huge and most new SSB ops dont know about it. i made that mistake for like six months before somebody finally gave me a honest signal report on 40m and told me i sounded terrible lol. also worth mentioning — make sure youre speaking across the mic not directly into it, most of those desk mics are way more sensitive than people expect and breathing directly into them sounds awful on the receiving end. small thing but it made a noticeable difference for me.

so ive been trying to get more into DX chasing lately and everyone keeps telling me to use the cluster but honestly theres like five different ways to access it and i dont really know which ones are worth my time. ive been poking around DXwatch and it seems decent but i saw some guys on another thread talking about DXcluster.net and also just logging into a cluster node directly via telnet which feels very 1995 but apparently still a thing?
also been looking at QRZ's logbook and DX tools — i already have a QRZ account for obvious reasons so it would be convenient if their stuff is any good. does anyone actually use QRZ for spotting or is it more just for callsign lookup. and while im at it, are there any phone apps worth downloading for this stuff or is it all better on a computer screen where you can actually see whats happening. im running mostly HF, have a modest station, just trying to figure out where the action is without having to leave my shack every five minutes to check my phone

so i finally got my general last spring and ive been listening to a lot of contests but never really jumped in with both feet. Field Day i did with my club which was great but that felt more relaxed, people were helping me log and stuff. CQ WW feels way more serious and i honestly dont know where to start.
like do i just pick a band and start calling CQ or should i be search and pouncing the whole time? ive got a pretty modest setup, ts-590 and a dipole up about 30 feet so im not gonna be running a kilowatt pile-up or anything. also is 15m even going to be open this late in the season or should i just camp on 40m the whole weekend. and the exchange, im still a little fuzzy on the zone thing, i know im in zone 5 but do i send that every time or just when they ask.
any advice welcome, even if its just like go slow and dont panic lol

the lifepo4 should be fine honestly. 100ah at 12.8v nominal is about 1280wh and even running the 7300 at 100w output youre probably drawing somewhere around 20-22 amps so call it maybe 250-270 watts at the wall. that gives you maybe 4 hours at full tilt before youre down to like 20% which is where you want to stop pulling on lifepo4. but if you're doing actual field comms you probably arent transmitting continuously, more like 20-30% duty cycle, so realistically that battery could carry you through a pretty long day.
i dropped the generator for most of my activations last year and havent missed it. the eu2200i is great but youre right about the noise and honestly the setup and teardown time adds up. only time i'd bring it now is if we knew it was going to be a multi-day thing or if we had multiple stations running.
on the efhw question yes absolutely simpler to deploy than the buddipole for most bands. throw a line over a branch and your up in like 5 minutes. the 9:1 unun works fine, some people prefer the 49:1 for a true end fed half wave configuration but i honestly cant tell a huge difference in my results on 40 and 20.

dont sweat it at all, most ARES groups are really welcoming to new people and honestly they love when someone shows up motivated even if you dont have all the gear sorted out yet. the first meeting is usually pretty low key, they go over recent activations, upcoming training nets, that kind of thing. nobody's going to quiz you on your go-bag contents right out of the gate.
the ARES vs RACES thing trips up a lot of people. basically ARES is the ARRL program and operates kind of independently, volunteers work alongside served agencies like hospitals, red cross, emergency management offices. RACES on the other hand is technically under civil defense and operators have to be registered with the local government to operate during declared emergencies. in a lot of counties they're the same people wearing two hats so to speak — the EC (emergency coordinator) usually runs both and you'd register for RACES once you're plugged in. just show up to the meeting and ask, they'll walk you through what your specific county does. bring a radio and a notepad and you'll be fine.

yeah the 6m opening last tuesday was the best ive seen in a couple years honestly. i worked like 14 states in under an hour just sitting there watching the waterfall light up. my neighbor who just got his ticket last fall couldnt believe it, he was asking me if it was always like this and i had to explain that no, this is kind of special and he should appreciate it haha.
as for the icom thing, i saw some of those same translated posts and honestly who knows. they do tend to drip feed info before major announcements. i wouldnt hold my breath til theres an official press release but the rumor mill is fun i guess. hamvention coverage this year was kinda scattered from what i saw online, didnt seem like any huge bombshells dropped but a few vendors were showing some updated firmware stuff and one of the smaller SDR companies had something interesting in the fleamarket area from what a buddy told me.

congrats on the first one, that feeling of the first pileup is pretty hard to beat. for rocky ground i usually bring a couple of those small sandbags or just fill a stuff sack with rocks once i get up there and hang it off the base of the pole. takes like 30 seconds and you dont have to carry the weight up. some guys use a tripod base too but that adds bulk. honestly leaning against a tree is fine, ive done whole activations that way

my first activation was a flood situation and i was so nervous i forgot to log half my traffic lol. had to piece it back together afterward from memory which was not fun. now i keep a voice recorder going anytime things get hectic. anyway glad the search went well, those are the best kind of outcomes obviously. did they use any digital modes or was it all voice?

so ive been putting together a go-kit style setup for some ARES activations we have coming up and i keep going back and forth on the power question. right now i have a 100ah lifepo4 and a 30w solar panel but the event coordinator is talking about running things for potentially 18+ hours straight including an HF station, a crossband repeater setup, and some VHF packet. i dont think the battery alone cuts it for that kind of runtime especially if its cloudy.
the option on the table is someone in the group has a Honda EU2200i they're willing to bring but ive never really run my rigs directly off a generator and im a little nervous about it. heard some people say the inverter generators are clean enough but i also heard you want to condition the power before it hits anything sensitive. running a rigrunner off it with a good inline filter should be fine right? or do i need something more between the genny and the equipment.
also the antenna situation - we're deploying at a pretty exposed hilltop site, thinking a linked dipole for HF and an arrow yagi for the VHF/UHF satellite passes that one guy wants to do. anybody run a similar combo at a field site and have thoughts on mast height vs guy wire setup for wind? last time we did something like this the mast went over in about 20mph gusts and that was embarrassing

yeah 10m has been really rewarding lately, good time to be a ham honestly. the rough rule i use is once SFI gets above about 150 or so 10m starts waking up, and once you're pushing 180+ you can pretty much count on a trans-atlantic or transpacific opening happening somewhere during the day depending on your location and time of year. the trick is that the band doesn't care about YOUR schedule so you kind of have to just check it opportunistically.
dxmaps is great but i find the wwv/wwnpn solar data combined with a quick look at the cluster spots is usually enough for me to decide if its worth sitting down. if you see a bunch of 10m spots coming in from europe around 14-17z and you're on the east coast, just get on and call CQ. sometimes it takes a few minutes but the band will surprize you. also dont sleep on 12 and 15m, when 10 is open those bands are usually doing something interesting too. canary islands is a nice get by the way, EA8 counts as africa for most awards which is a good continent to have in the log early on

so ive been putting together a go-kit style setup for some ARES activations we have coming up and i keep going back and forth on the power question. right now i have a 100ah lifepo4 and a 30w solar panel but the event coordinator is talking about running things for potentially 18+ hours straight including an HF station, a crossband repeater setup, and some VHF packet. i dont think the battery alone cuts it for that kind of runtime especially if its cloudy.
the option on the table is someone in the group has a Honda EU2200i they're willing to bring but ive never really run my rigs directly off a generator and im a little nervous about it. heard some people say the inverter generators are clean enough but i also heard you want to condition the power before it hits anything sensitive. running a rigrunner off it with a good inline filter should be fine right? or do i need something more between the genny and the equipment.
also the antenna situation - we're deploying at a pretty exposed hilltop site, thinking a linked dipole for HF and an arrow yagi for the VHF/UHF satellite passes that one guy wants to do. anybody run a similar combo at a field site and have thoughts on mast height vs guy wire setup for wind? last time we did something like this the mast went over in about 20mph gusts and that was embarrassing

yeah 10m has been really rewarding lately, good time to be a ham honestly. the rough rule i use is once SFI gets above about 150 or so 10m starts waking up, and once you're pushing 180+ you can pretty much count on a trans-atlantic or transpacific opening happening somewhere during the day depending on your location and time of year. the trick is that the band doesn't care about YOUR schedule so you kind of have to just check it opportunistically.
dxmaps is great but i find the wwv/wwnpn solar data combined with a quick look at the cluster spots is usually enough for me to decide if its worth sitting down. if you see a bunch of 10m spots coming in from europe around 14-17z and you're on the east coast, just get on and call CQ. sometimes it takes a few minutes but the band will surprize you. also dont sleep on 12 and 15m, when 10 is open those bands are usually doing something interesting too. canary islands is a nice get by the way, EA8 counts as africa for most awards which is a good continent to have in the log early on