James Davis67

what he said about the coax choke, i built like 4 dipoles before someone told me about that and it explained so much weirdness i was seeing. also 1.4 at 7.150 is honestly pretty good for a first build, i wouldnt stress it too much. mine came out way worse first try and i still made contacts on it. one thing i do different now is i make a proper drip loop in the coax right below the feedpoint so any water running down the coax drips off before it gets to your connections. small thing but helps a lot.

the exam is all multiple choice, 35 questions and you need 26 right to pass. bring a government ID and honestly just one form is usually fine but two doesnt hurt. some VE teams are strict about it and some arent, just have both ready to be safe. also bring a non-programmable calculator if you want but honestly the math on the tech exam isnt that bad, most of it you can do in your head once you see the pattern. for ohms law just remember the triangle — V on top, I and R on the bottom. cover up whichever one you want and the remaining two show you the formula. sounds dumb but it works. and honestly after a few practice tests the questions start repeating themselves and you just kind of recognize them. hamstudy is great, i used it too. if youre consistently scoring above 80% on the practice exams you should be fine, the real thing is usually easier because you arent nervous about the time. good luck, youll probably do better than you think

oh man i remember feeling exactly this way before my first check in. honestly just listen to what other people say when they check in and copy that. most casual 2m nets the format is just your callsign, first name, and maybe your city or signal report if they ask for it. net control will usually tell you what he needs. if you miss something he'll just ask. nobody's going to be annoyed, trust me most of us were right where you are not that long ago. the nets that are more formal like traffic nets or ARES stuff will usually have net control spell out exactly what format they want right at the opening, so youll know. just key up when he asks for check ins and give it a shot. worst case you fumble a word and laugh it off and nobody cares.

Just finished building the QRP Labs QCX 40-meter kit and I'm amazed at the results! This impossibly low-cost, high performance transceiver puts out almost 4 watts and the direct conversion receiver is surprisingly good. The 152-page manual was incredibly detailed, though I needed a small-tipped soldering iron for the dense PCB layout. It worked right away once I fixed one cold solder joint on the volume control. For anyone looking to get into QRP homebrewing, this kit is a fantastic starting point!

the snowball effect you're describing is super normal and honestly the sign that you're right at the edge of your current ability which is actually where you want to be practicing. the trick that helped me more than anything else was learning to let go of missed characters instead of chasing them. just leave a blank and keep moving. your brain will eventually fill in more from context once you get faster and have more experience with common words and phrases. Farnsworth is worth trying if you havent already - basically you hear the characters at your target speed or higher but there's extra space between them so you have time to process. the idea is your brain learns the sound of each character at speed so you're not counting dits and dahs anymore. i think i went from around 10 to 18wpm over about 8 months of pretty inconsistent practice so 4 months and already at 13 sounds like you're doing fine honestly. just dont rush it or it gets frustrating real fast