Jessica Davis21

I use the DX alert thing on hamAlert.net, you can set it up to text you when certain callsign prefixes get spotted on certain bands. I have mine set for whenever anything in like zone 14 or 15 gets spotted on 10 or 12m and it's saved me a few times. still miss stuff when im driving but its better than nothing lol

what kind of antenna options are you planning beyond the j-pole? asking because depending on where youre deployed you might not always have a good vertical takeoff angle and having even a simple wire dipole you can throw up in a tree can make a real difference, especially if youre trying to hit a distant EOC on HF. I keep a 40m/80m linked dipole in mine, fits in a small bag, takes maybe 15 minutes to get up if I have some help. just a thought. your setup sounds pretty solid otherwise for getting started

honestly the solar panel is great but make sure you actually test the whole charging chain before you need it, like plug everything together on a sunny afternoon and watch it actually put current into the battery. i had a panel and a charge controller that i assumed worked together and the first time i really needed them the controller was set wrong and it wasn't doing anything useful also spare fuses. so many spare fuses. and a headlamp with extra batteries because you will be doing stuff at night or in a dark shelter and your hands need to be free

I use both depending on mission. Faster movement needs more frequent beacons - 1 minute at highway speeds isn't unreasonable. For SAR, I run 2-minute fixed when moving, 5-minute when stationary. Smart beaconing is great for casual mobile operation but fixed gives better situational awareness for tactical ops.

so ive been a ham for about 3 years now and keep telling myself im going to build a proper go-kit and then never actually do it. after the storms we had last month knocked out power for almost 4 days i figured it was time to stop procrastinating. the thing is i dont really know what the "right" setup looks like and theres so much conflicting advice out there. right now i have a Yaesu FT-857D that i use for HF and a cheap Baofeng that i mostly just use for the local 2m repeater. i was thinking about building the kit around the 857 since it does everything but man that radio eats current and i dont have a great battery solution figured out yet. someone at the club mentioned a 40ah LiFePO4 battery but those arent exactly cheap either. i guess my main question is — for those of you who actually have go-kits that youve deployed or at least tested in the field, what do you wish you had included that you didnt think of, and what stuff did you pack that turned out to be totally unnecessary? also curious how you handle power since thats the part im most confused about.

I had similar issues with my FT-817 - kept it under 2W and signal quality improved dramatically. The key is staying out of ALC activation - watch your radio's ALC meter during transmission.

Looking for experiences with HackRF One vs SDRplay RSP1A on VHF/UHF bands (144-450MHz primarily). Just received my HackRF and honestly disappointed with RX performance compared to my RTL-SDR v3. Audio quality on broadcast FM is poor, and weak signals that copy fine on the RTL are barely readable on the HackRF even with gain tweaking. I bought it for TX capability and wide frequency range, but if RX performance is this poor, wondering if I should have gotten an RSP1A instead. Anyone running both units who can comment on VHF/UHF receiver sensitivity? Using GQRX on Ubuntu 22.04, latest firmware 2021.03.1. Maybe my expectations were too high, but for $300+ I expected better than a $30 dongle. Running out of antenna connector to try different software combinations.

honestly it took me like 8 months to feel solid at 20 but i wasn't that consistent about practicing so take that for what its worth lol. the farnsworth thing is real though, stick with it even when it feels impossible. your brain needs time to stop decoding and start recognizing. i kept a little notebook of words i always missed and drilled just those for a while which helped

oh man i wish i saw this earlier, i was at work all day and completely missed whatever happened on 10m. this always happens to me. i just got my general like 6 weeks ago and ive been trying to catch an opening on the higher HF bands and every time something good happens im not around is there a good way to get alerts for this stuff? like when the bands are actually doing something interesting? someone mentioned DX maps to me but i havent really figured it out yet

I went through the same confusion when I was studying for my ticket. The way my Elmer explained it to me was basically — if you couldn't say it on a CB radio without it feeling weird and commercial, you probably shouldn't say it on ham either. That's a rough heuristic but it helped me internalize it. The actual rule in 97.113 lists out prohibited transmissions and business communications is definitely one of them but the FCC tends to care about patterns of behavior more than a one-off message about picking up a radio at a hamfest. Also worth knowing the ARRL has a pretty decent plain-English breakdown of part 97 on their site, way easier to read than the actual CFR.

9 elements on 2m is definitely not going to get you much, honestly. you're probably looking at something like -28 to -30 dBd of receive path loss on a typical EME path and a single 9el just doesnt have the gain to pull signals out reliably, even with JT65. most guys running minimal single yagi setups are using something in the 12-15m boom range, like an M2 2M9SSB or similar, getting you into the 14-16 dBd range. that said some people have done initial contacts with less on good geometry days when the moon is at perigee but its not something you want to count on. the IC-9700 is actually a pretty solid starting point, lots of EME guys use it, the receiver isnt bad and it does JT65 fine. your preamp matters a lot, what are you running? NF is everything in this game. and yeah check out the ping jockey cluster and the EME2 reflector, people post their schedules there and its how you arrange skeds rather than just blind calling. dont just fire up and CQ, at least not until you have a bit more antenna under you

yeah your club guy is right about the signal width thing, thats actually the key thing new generals miss. when you're running SSB your actual transmitted signal isnt just on one exact frequency — it occupies a few kHz of bandwidth. so if you set your dial to 7.125 and your signal is spreading downward (which it does on LSB), part of your transmission could technically be below the general segment. most rigs show you the carrier frequency not the edge of your signal. general rule of thumb a lot of people use is stay at least 3 kHz inside the band edge to be safe, so more like 7.128 or higher if youre doing phone. some guys say 5 kHz just to be extra cautious. the FCC part 97 rules are what actually matter legally, the ARRL band plan is kind of a gentlemens agreement on top of that to help organize things, like keeping certain modes to certain parts of the band. and yes, 40m phone is LSB, everything below 10 MHz is traditionally LSB except some digital modes which kind of do their own thing.

the 1 in 8 thing is actually not that weird for rural APRS, i went through the same frustration when i moved out of the suburbs. what helped me was finding out there was an igate about 45 miles away that could occasionally hear me direct without the digi hop, and i adjusted my power and antenna to try to hit it more reliably. went from a magmount to a proper quarter wave on the roof and my hit rate went way up. also dont sleep on the APRS tier 2 network stuff, some igates feed into that and have better coverage than you'd think from just looking at the map. but yeah your path looks fine to me, WIDE1-1 WIDE2-1 is the standard recommendation for mobile/portable and bumping beacon rate doesnt really help if the igate just isnt hearing you in the first place.

Oh man the number of times ive gotten to the summit and realized i forgot something basic... definitely bring more water than you think you need, and maybe throw a granola bar or something in the pack. Also dont forget to spot yourself on sotawatch once you get set up, makes a huge difference for getting contacts. You can pack up after 4 QSOs but honestly once you get going its usually pretty fun to work a few more if conditions are good

congrats on the first activation, 24 contacts is a solid start especially if conditions werent great. and yes absolutely self spot as soon as you set up and get on frequency, dont wait for someone else to do it. the whole point of the spotting system is to let hunters know youre out there, nobody thinks its weird, thats just how it works. i usually spot myself before i even make my first call just so hunters can start heading your way on the bandmap. the two activation thing your club buddy mentioned, i think they might be talking about doing two separate parks in one outing which counts as two activations, not the same park twice. or maybe they were talking about the bonus parks program but im not sure thats a thing anymore. you cant double count the same reference on the same day as far as i know. the rule is 10 qsos minimum to qualify an activation and thats per park, not per band. anyway you clearly had a good time so just keep going out, it gets addictive fast

yeah i did almost exactly this about a year ago with a 7300 and a 4 antenna setup. the BCD glitching is totally normal, what worked for me was reading the band data line like 3-4 times over maybe 50ms and only acting on it if all readings agree. not elegant but it completely eliminated the false trips. the 200ms flat delay is worse because youre always waiting even when theres no glitch, the consensus approach only adds delay when something is actually unstable which is rare. as for pi vs arduino — for just switching relays the pi is genuinely overkill and honestly kinda worse because youre dealing with linux boot times and if power glitches you might come back to a corrupted SD card. arduino just wakes up and does its thing instantly. i do run a pi zero separately for logging and CAT control stuff but kept the antenna switching on a nano because i wanted it bulletproof. you can always have them talk to each other over serial if you want the logging piece.

tbh i just use N1MM for everything including FT8 contests and let WSJT-X handle the actual decoding, the two play nicely enough together for that. for regular logging i admit i barely log outside of contests which i know is bad practice but there it is Log4OM looked really nice when i tried it but it felt like a lot of setup for my use case. maybe worth it if you do a lot of DX chasing and want the awards tracking and stuff

yeah the stock mic situation is real, i ran with mine for like 6 months before switching to an SM-50 desk mic and the difference was pretty noticeable just from having a better element and not having to hold it right up to my face. but honestly i agree with the other reply that its probably more a settings thing first before you go buy anything. one thing that helped me was actually getting on a sideband frequency during a quiet moment and asking a friend to give me a real honest report, not just a 59 because thats what everyone says. actual audio quality feedback. websdrs are good for this too if you dont have anyone handy, you can transmit and then listen to yourself on a remote receiver somewhere else which is kind of eye opening

So ive been following the chatter on a few different forums and it sounds like Icom is getting ready to drop something new in the HF portable space, nothing confirmed obviously but the speculation is getting pretty intense over on some of the DX boards. Someone posted what looked like a leaked photo but who knows if thats real or just wishful thinking. Also completely unrelated but 10 meters has been absolutely wild this past week, worked a bunch of South American stations last Thursday with like 50 watts and a dipole that honestly isnt even optimized for that band. The solar flux has been cooperating lately which is nice after that rough stretch we had in the fall. Anyone else been paying attention to the Hamvention announcements? I know its still a ways out but they usually start dropping hints about whats going to be showcased and I feel like this year could be interesting. Last year felt a little slow on the new gear front but maybe thats just me.

my club is doing a carpool if anyones in the ohio area, we usually meet up friday night and make a weekend of it. dm me if interested i think we have one spot left in the van lol

yeah its pretty much a culture thing more than a hard rule, at least for routine contacts. on a clear FM repeater where everyone can hear you fine, spelling out Whiskey Kilo Four Foxtrot whatever every single time would get tedious real fast and people would probably find it a little odd honestly. but on HF especially when the band is noisy or youre working someone with a language barrier, phonetics are genuinely useful and expected. DX contacts especially -- if you dont use phonetics when youre calling a rare station in a pileup you might just never get picked up because they cant parse your call from all the noise. i think the general guidance is use phonetics when theres any chance of confusion, so weak signals, lots of QRM, working someone overseas, or just when youre giving your call and you want to make sure it lands clean. on a local 2m ragchew with a guy you talk to every week, probably skip it.

I switched from EFHW to Wolf River last year and love the flexibility. Yes, it's heavier and setup takes longer, but being able to QSY to any band without worrying about SWR is worth it. Adjustable coils (for example the popular Wolf River brand) are quite bulky but the performance is solid.

so i was just spinning the dial on 10m last night around 8pm local and i was hearing stations from south america, europe, even caught what sounded like a JA or two in there pretty clearly. like i havent heard 10m this active in probably 10 years or more. i know solar flux has been climbing but man i wasnt expecting it to be this good already. for context im running a pretty modest setup, just a dipole up about 25 feet and 100w. nothing fancy. but i was working DX like it was nothing, which almost never happens for me. is this normal for where we are in the cycle right now or did i just get lucky with a particularly good evening? i keep seeing people post their solar flux numbers and its been hovering up around 180-200 which i guess is pretty high but im still learning how to read all that stuff. anyway curious if others are seeing the same thing or if i just happened to catch a good opening

80m nets in the evenings are where i'd start honestly, especially in winter when propagation is good. 40m can be great too but theres more QRM to deal with. i mostly do traffic nets these days through the NTS system but those have a specific format that might be a bit much when you're just getting comfortable. one thing i'd say is dont stress too much about messing up your first few checkins. i completely blanked on my callsign once in my first month lol, net control just asked me to repeat and moved on. everyone starts somewhere

I had similar issues until I disabled the radio's internal satellite tracking and let the software handle everything. Don't use the satellite tracking built into your radio - let Ham Radio Deluxe do the work for you. The key is making sure HRD has exclusive control over both VFOs.