Amanda Anderson50

yeah the honda eu series is pretty clean as far as generators go but even those put out enough noise to mess with receive on lower HF bands if its sitting anywhere near the antenna feedline. the isolation thing the other guy mentioned is probably the easiest fix in a field scenario. one thing i'd add — if your 80m operation is going to matter at all during the exercise, do a quick test of that EFHW at home before you go. some of those 9:1 unun kits you build or buy cheap have iffy cores and on 80 specifically the efficiency can drop off a cliff. i've seen guys show up to an exercise thinking they have 80m capability and their SWR is a mess because the unun is lossy as heck. nothing worse than finding that out during the actual event.

Excellent work on the ACC connector approach. I did similar on my 751A but used the 24-pin connector for both audio paths. I've managed to work all of the states and more than 200 countries using the digital modes with my old IC-751A in the last couple of years. These old ICOMs still have plenty of life left in them!

so i finally got my technician license back in march and ive been mostly just listening around on 2m but my elmer mentioned i should try checking into a local net to get some practice talking. found one on a tuesday night that meets on the local repeater and i sat and listened for like three weeks before working up the nerve lol. anyway i actually checked in last tuesday and it went fine but honestly i had no idea what to say beyond my callsign and i kind of froze when the net control asked if i had any traffic. do you just say no traffic or is there some specific phrase im supposed to use? also are there nets specifically for new hams where people are more patient? i feel like i slowed everything down a bit.

yeah i did exactly this a few years back, had a vertical yagi pointed at a repeater about 35 miles out on a ridge. the gain difference is real but the pattern issue you mentioned is the actual tradeoff — i missed a bunch of nets because guys were coming in from directions i wasnt expecting and they were like 20 over on the collinear but barely readable through the yagi. ended up putting both up on the same mast about 3 feet apart and switching between them depending on what im doing. coax relay from an old rotor controller box, works fine. if you mostly just want that one repeater the yagi is genuinely better but if youre doing any kind of ragchew where mobile stations are coming from all over its a pain. the vertical orientation on a horizontal boom is not a big deal btw, just mount the boom horizontally and the elements are vertical, people overthink that part. the feedpoint is the feedpoint regardless of boom orientation.

so the sequential thing basically means if you just do a standard upgrade or initial license the FCC system spits out the next available callsign in a pool for your district, you dont get to pick it. vanity is the way to go if you actually want a specific call. for the vanity process — no you wont be without a call. your current callsign stays active the whole time the application is pending. once the vanity gets granted that becomes your new call but theres a few days sometimes where both might show up in the system which is weird but fine. the whole application window thing is where people get tripped up... there's a 18 day filing window and after it closes the FCC processes all the apps for that call at once. if multiple people applied for the same call it comes down to license class and then how long you've been licensed, that's the priority system your elmer was probably trying to explain. and yes the fee situation changed, its $35 now per application through the FCC. that came in a couple years ago after it had been free for a long time. lot of people grumbled about it but its not terrible. there are sites like AE7Q that make tracking available calls and application status way easier than trying to parse the ULS yourself, definitely bookmark that one.

that first contact feeling is something you never really forget, congrats. the repeater guys are usually pretty welcoming especially to new hams, you picked a good way to start. dont be shy about keying up more, the more you do it the more natural it gets. and if that elmer offered his time take him up on it, those guys know stuff you wont find in any book

Don't neglect T4 (Amateur Practices) - it's only one question on the exam but covers important operating etiquette. The exam selects one question from each subelement, and you need 26 correct out of 35 to pass, so every point counts!

so i've been running a Yaesu FTM-400 in my truck for about three months now and overall really happy with it but i've been going back and forth on where to mount the antenna. right now i have a NMO mount on the roof towards the rear and the SWR is fine, like 1.2:1 across most of 2m, but i keep reading stuff about center of roof being better for pattern and i'm kind of obsessed with this now even though realistically i'm just hitting local repeaters and doing some simplex. the other thing is the coax run — i tucked it under the door seal and along the A pillar and it seems ok but there's a slight buzz on receive sometimes when the truck is moving. not sure if that's the coax routing or something with the ignition or alternator. doesnt happen when the engine is off. anybody dealt with that kind of noise before or is my routing probably the culprit

Always stick to standard phonetics that will be familiar to the DX station. Neptune 8 Denzel Xavier Euphrates won't cut it! This is particularly important when DXing. Give yourself every advantage possible by using words the DX station will be listening for. Start with NATO phonetics - they're internationally recognized and will serve you well in most situations.

the generator noise thing is a real concern but honestly manageable if you pick the right one and run it with a little distance between it and the radio. i've used a Honda EU2200i at field day and a couple ARES deployments and with maybe 20-30 feet of cord and the exhaust pointed away you usually cant hear it in the receiver at all. the inverter generators are way cleaner than the old conventional ones — the EU2200i in particular puts out pretty solid sine wave and i've never had RFI issues with it. that said it is another piece of gear to lug around and fuel to manage. honestly for your scenario i'd probably just do the second battery plus the solar panel and skip the genny. if you're running the 7300 at moderate power — say 50-75w — and only keying up for check-ins rather than continuous operation, two 100ah lithium packs should be more than enough headroom for 8 hours even without any solar contribution. the solar is just insurance and peace of mind. run them in parallel through a decent fused bus bar and you're basically set. keep the genny as a club resource you can call in if something goes sideways.

so ive been going down a rabbit hole lately trying to get my SSB audio sounding better and honestly the amount of conflicting advice out there is kind of overwhelming. been licensed about 4 years, running an IC-7300 with the stock mic right now, and people keep telling me different things about processing levels, mic gain, compression, all that stuff. did a lot of A/B listening on my own signal using a second receiver and i gotta say the difference between settings is way more noticeable than i expected. had my mic gain cranked too high for probably the first couple years and had no idea. someone finally told me my audio sounded 'thick' on 40m and i went and checked and sure enough ALC was pinned basically the whole time i was talking. so i guess my question is what do you guys actually find makes the biggest real-world difference for intelligibility on SSB, not just for rag chewing but also for when band conditions get rough. is the built in compression on the 7300 actually useful or is it just adding distortion? and does mic choice really matter that much or is it more about the settings?