Carlos Santos

yeah this is super common and youre not doing anything wrong, your hand just hasnt built up the muscle memory yet. three weeks is nothing, i was cramping up for the first two months easily. the tension thing though -- i'd actually loosen it up a bit more than you think feels right. a lot of people crank it down because they're afraid of accidental contacts but lighter tension means your hand doesn't have to work as hard. also check where your elbow is sitting, if its hanging in the air at all that'll tire you out fast. rest your forearm on the desk and let the fingers do the work not the whole arm. the farnsworth method at 15 is fine but honestly if your hand is tensing up that bad just drop the character speed too for now. get the feel right first, speed comes later whether you want it to or not.

oh man i just started looking into WWFF myself after doing a bunch of POTA stuff. didnt realize how many parks and nature references were in the database, its kind of overwhelming at first. good to hear the KX3 worked well out there, i've been thinking about getting one for exactly this kind of thing but the price is a lot. did you run off batteries the whole time or did you have a way to charge out there?

so i've been putting off doing a proper mobile install for like two years now and last weekend i finally just did it. got the FT-857D mounted under the passenger seat with the head unit up on the dash, ran the power cables directly to the battery with an inline fuse, the whole deal. antenna is a Tram 1185 on a NMO mount i drilled into the roof. problem is when im on 2m or 70cm i keep getting this kind of scratchy buzzing noise that comes and goes with the engine RPM. so when i rev it up the pitch of the interference changes. i know this is probably alternator whine or something related but ive read like 15 different pages about it and im more confused than when i started. some people say ferrite chokes, some say a ground loop isolator, some say my ground is bad. i did ground the radio chassis to a bolt on the seat rail which maybe wasnt the best choice. anyone dealt with this before on a modern truck? its a 2019 F-150 if that matters. just want to be able to use the thing on my commute without the noise driving me crazy

the ribbon cable thing is real. i tore one on a different rig years ago and it was a whole thing getting a replacement, ended up waiting three weeks for a part from japan. now i literally sit there with a flashlight and tweezers and take way more time than i probably need to on those connectors. did you do anything to brace the TCXO after swapping it? i've heard of people having issues with vibration on mobile installs but i imagine for a base station setup it doesnt really matter. curious what oscillator you ended up going with too if you remember the part number off the top of your head.

so i finally did my first activation up on W4T/SU-051 this past saturday and man i dont even know where to start. ive been chasing for about 8 months now and kept telling myself id get out and activate eventually, well i finally did it and honestly it was a little overwhelming in the best way possible. i brought my KX2 and a 20m end fed halfwave that i threw up between two trees, took me probably 20 minutes longer than it should have to get the antenna sorted because the trees were not cooperating and the wind kept blowing everything around. once i finally got on the air though it just clicked — spotted myself on SOTAwatch and within maybe 3 minutes i had a pileup going. nothing huge but probably 12-15 contacts in a row which felt crazy sitting on top of a mountain with a 10 watt radio. the 4 contact minimum is deceptively easy once you get going but i was paranoid the whole time that i wasnt going to make it. anyone else remember that feeling from their first activation? also i totally forgot to log the summit reference on two of my paper contacts so im hoping i can piece it together from memory when i upload to the database. lesson learned i guess.

field day is honestly the perfect intro and it sounds like you already did it so youre ahead of where i was at 8 months. i remember my first CQ WW i just sat there for like an hour listening before i worked up the nerve to call anyone lol. just jump in, worst that happens is nobody comes back to you and you move on. one tip — download N1MM or even just use the free version of whatever logging software before the contest and practice entering calls so you're not fumbling with it during the actual event. nothing worse than having someone come back to you and you're typing in the wrong field

i went the other direction actually, had an 890 and sold it and bought a 7300 plus a bunch of other stuff with the leftover cash. the panadapter on the 7300 is honestly more fun to use day to day imo and the audio DSP is really good. people sleep on how usable that radio is for the price. the 890 is technically better on paper in some areas but i found myself just enjoying the operating experience more on the icom. totally subjective thing though

i just passed mine like two months ago and honestly the thing that surprised me was some of the regulatory questions, like the specifics around third party traffic and auxilary operations. i kind of glazed over that section assuming id know it from General but there were a few that made me go wait which rule applies here exactly. nothing crazy but worth not skimming.

yeah i went through the same thing when i first got my general, kinda overwhelming how many nets are out there once you start looking. i ended up just picking one or two and sticking with them for a few weeks until i got the hang of how that particular net runs, because they all have slightly different procedures and it helps to get familiar before jumping around too much. there was a special event station for a lighthouse activation near me last summer and i worked them on like three different bands trying to get a clean contact, had a great chat with the op between pileups. they had a certificate you could request through their club website and it showed up maybe six weeks later. pretty cool wall art honestly

nice work getting it going on a first build honestly. i remember my first dc receiver was a total disaster, took me three tries to get audio out of it at all. the drift thing drove me nuts too. one thing that helped me was just putting a small piece of foam over the oscillator section to thermally isolate it a bit while it comes up to temp — buys you a few minutes. not a real fix obviously but if you're just doing SWL or casual listening it makes it usable sooner. eventually i redid my oscillator with a DDS module which kinda felt like cheating but the stability was worth it for SSB work.

i just want to say im in the same boat, only been licensed about a year and the QSL stuff still trips me up sometimes. one thing i didnt realize for a while is that even if you upload to LoTW the other station has to have uploaded their log too AND your callsigns and dates have to match exactly or it wont confirm. i had a few contacts that wouldnt confirm for weeks and it turned out i had the wrong time in my log by like an hour because i hadnt set my logging software to UTC properly. classic mistake i guess. i ended up ordering some cheap cards off one of those online printers and honestly even a simple design looks good, people seem happy to get them. so id say go ahead and get some made, you dont have to spend a lot

yeah the rain thing is the worst, i've had two activations get rained out mid-session and its just demoralizing. definitely go back though, once you get that first qualified one it kinda gets addictive. i started doing SOTA too and now im planning every hiking trip around summits which my wife thinks is hilarious

what power level are you typically running at during those longer sessions? because i went through the same spiral worrying about my battery setup and then realized i had the 7300 set to 100w out of habit when honestly 50w was doing the same job 90% of the time and my runtime basically doubled. not the most exciting fix but worth checking before you throw money at more iron. also the eu2200i is fine but if weight is a real concern the predator 2000 is like 10 lbs lighter and cheaper. its louder but not hideously so. depends on your situation i guess.

Log4OM with WSJT-X is what i run and it mostly just works. had one weird thing where it stopped logging FT8 contacts after an update to WSJT-X but that turned out to be the UDP port number had reset to default in WSJT-X and i hadnt noticed. once i sorted that out it was fine. i think the Log4OM forums have a setup guide thats pretty clear if you get stuck

yeah what he said about the clock, that was my issue too when i started. also just double check that you dont have the split or RIT engaged on the 991A, ive seen people transmit way off frequency because of that and not realize it. the radio looks like its on 7.074 but its actually not. other than that your setup sounds fine honestly

yeah what he said basically. i will say though if youre ever doing any kind of nets, especially formal traffic nets or anything emcomm related, they will expect you to use standard NATO phonetics every single time no exceptions. had a new guy on our ARES net use his own made up ones and the net control had to ask him to repeat his call like three times. not a huge deal but it slows things down. outside of that on casual ragchews nobody really cares

congrats on passing so you already got your sequential call assigned, that happened automatically when the FCC processed your application. the vanity system is totally separate — you can apply for one basically right away, theres no mandatory waiting period after getting your initial license. just go through the FCC's ULS site and look for the vanity application, its under the license manager section i think. the 1x2 calls are competitive for sure, especially in popular districts, but a 2x3 is usually pretty easy to get if you pick something thats been sitting unclaimed for a while. there are tools like AE7Q's callsign database that let you search available calls and see when they become eligible — definitely worth bookmarking that site before you apply. just make sure whatever call you pick matches your license class, technicians have some restrictions on the format.

yeah the NE602 will do that if your LO is leaking back into the supply or if theres any coupling between the audio stage and the rf input. the LM386 is a notorious oscillator when you're not careful with decoupling — throw a 0.047uf cap from pin 7 to ground if you havent already, that tames a lot of the weirdness. also make sure your audio ground and your rf ground arent sharing a long trace or wire because at audio frequencies that still causes headaches. birdies at regular intervals usually means the oscillator harmonics are getting in somewhere. if you can throw even a tin can over the vfo section temporarily, see if they move or go away. also worth checking if the birdies track with the vfo or stay fixed — if they stay fixed its probably a supply issue, if they move youre getting oscillator products mixing with something they shouldnt be.

also check if you have the RF power set anywhere near max. mine did something weird like that and it turned out to be the thermal protection kicking in even though the fan seemed fine. the fan on the 7300 isn't super aggressive and if you're doing any kind of extended digital or anything duty cycle heavy it can get warm faster than you'd think. i put a small usb fan blowing across the bottom of mine and it basically stopped happening. might not be your issue but worth noting what mode youre running when it cuts out.

the farnsworth method you're describing (fast characters, slow spacing) is genuinely the right way to do it, even though yeah it feels weird at first. the whole point is you're training your brain to hear each character as a sound rather than counting dits and dahs. if you learn at slow character speeds you end up having to relearn everything later which is a pain. for timeline — honestly it varies a lot. i went from zero to passing the old 13wpm test in about 8 months of pretty casual practice, maybe 15 minutes a day. but i've seen people do it faster and slower. the wall you're hitting around 8-9 is super common, a lot of people call it the code plateau. what helped me break through it was just doing more actual on-air qsos even when i felt like i wasnt ready. copying live signals is totally different from practice tapes and it forces your brain to work harder. try 40m around 7.050 or so, there's usually slow cw activity and people are generally patient with beginners. and yes there absolutely is a point where words just start coming through as words. you'll know when it happens, it's kind of a weird moment.

so ive been licensed for about 4 months now and still working on getting comfortable on HF. my elmer always told me to use phonetics when giving my callsign especially on SSB but i was on a net last week and someone just said their call letters straight without phonetics and nobody seemed to care. then another guy used like... not the standard ones? he said something like "Nancy" for N instead of November and "Tommy" for T. is that actually allowed or is there some rule about using the official NATO ones? i dont want to be that guy who does it wrong but also i dont want to be overly formal if nobody else is. its a little confusing honestly

oh man i remember this phase, it does get better i promise. a few things — first check your paddle tension and spacing, the MFJ paddles are decent but they come from the factory with the contacts set pretty far apart which makes your timing all over the place. you want them close but not so close they chatter. take a thin screwdriver and back the contact screws in just a tiny bit at a time until a light touch closes them. second thing is slow way down, whatever speed feels comfortable cut it in half. seriously. most beginners try to go too fast too soon and you end up reinforcing bad habits. the extra dits thing sounds like you might be squeezing the paddle when you dont mean to, its a really common thing. try resting your hand differently — some people do better with their hand more relaxed and coming at the paddle from the side rather than gripping it. took me probably six months before my fist started sounding decent on a paddle, dont get discouraged

same boat as you like 6 months ago haha. honestly just do it, the worst that happens is net control politely corrects you and everyone forgets about it in 30 seconds. i was so nervous my first check-in i forgot to give my name and the net control guy just said "and your name?" and we moved on, no big deal at all

so ive been a tech for about 2 years now and mostly just do local stuff on 2m and 70cm, some APRS and a little DMR. but ive been getting more curious about HF and everyone keeps telling me to just go get my General already. i downloaded a study app and honestly some of the questions are like... fine, but then theres a whole chunk about electrical principles and band plans that kind of loses me. my main question i guess is how long did people actually study before feeling ready? i dont want to show up and fail, thats kind of my worst fear. also is there anything specific that trips people up that i should really focus on? i heard the regulations section is annoying. and do i need to know all the specific frequency limits for each HF band or is that something you just kind of pick up later? sorry if this is a vague question i just dont really know what i dont know yet if that makes sense

Extension cords! Every year someone shows up with a beautiful setup and can't reach the generator. Also, copy the ARRL Field Day Bulletin for 100 points - easy points if you remember to tune in Friday evening.