Patricia Lee

honest answer: most people just use hamstudy and hammer the question pool until theyre getting like 85-90% consistently and then go take the test. thats basically what i did and i passed no problem. the tech exam isnt super deep on theory, theres some ohms law stuff and basic antenna concepts but nothing youll need a calculator for really. the question pool does get updated on a cycle, i think its every four years for tech, and hamstudy stays pretty current with it so you should be fine there. if youre worried just google the current question pool expiration date, the NCVEC website has that info. i get what you mean about wanting to actually understand it though. i sort of did both — used hamstudy for the drilling but also watched some of the KB6NU no-nonsense study guide stuff on the side. its free and it actually explains the why behind a lot of the answers instead of just making you memorize. helped things stick better for me at least.

been using RCForb for about 18 months with an IC-7610 and honestly the audio handling is noticeably better than when i was doing the manual stream thing. it does its own buffering and you can tune it per connection which makes a big difference on variable latency links. the SDR piece i havent used much because i already have a panadapter sorted but the architecture is there and i've seen guys on the RemoteHams groups using SDRplay hardware pretty cleanly through it the main thing that'll bite you on a residential cable connection on the remote end is upload bandwidth during TX — not so much the control latency but if youre trying to also stream back a wideband SDR view at the same time as running the rig audio that adds up fast. i throttle my SDR bandwidth way down when im on SSB and it mostly works. the internet linking stuff in terms of the server talking to the client is pretty solid, its really just your pipe that matters. id say try the free tier on a spare machine before committing to anything

Before transmitting on any frequency, tune around and listen first, then ask 'Is this frequency in use?' to make sure you're not interfering. Operating outside your authorized frequency or mode allocation can cause interference and may result in regulatory action. Download the ARRL band plan chart - it'll show you exactly where voice, CW, and digital modes belong.

the SDR waterfall over RemoteHams is a known bandwidth hog, yeah. what i did was run a separate lower-res stream for the panadapter, like drop the FFT update rate way down and reduce the span. you dont need 10 fps on the waterfall when youre remote, 2-3 fps is honestly fine for finding signals. also make sure youre not running the SDR stream and audio on the same QoS priority or they'll fight each other. separating those helped me a lot. as for the Allstar linking idea, i actually do something similar. have a node at my remote site tied to a 2m rig and it works great for monitoring local nets when im doing HF remotely. its not redundant at all if youre thinking emcomm - having that local VHF capability accessible remotely is actually pretty handy when things go sideways and you need to reach someone local fast. takes a bit of fiddling to get the audio levels right between the node and whatever youre doing on HF but its doable.

yeah the WSJT-X UDP logging thing is flakey sometimes, ive seen it drop contacts before and never fully figured out why. one thing that helped me was making sure only one program was listening on port 2237 at a time because i had a situation where i had N1MM open in the background from a contest the day before and it was apparently still grabbing the UDP packets before Log4OM could see them. closed N1MM completely and the missing logs stopped. might not be your issue but worth checking whats actually bound to that port. as for the two-program workflow i basically do the same thing you do. Log4OM for everything normal, N1MM the second a contest starts. its a bit annoying to keep them in sync but i just export an ADIF from Log4OM before a contest and import into N1MM so i have the dupe checking working right. not perfect but it works well enough that i havent bothered finding a better way

so ive been putting together a go-kit style setup for a county ARES exercise this weekend and i keep going back and forth on the power situation. right now im planning to run my IC-7300 and a laptop for winlink plus maybe a second vhf radio, total draw is probably around 25-30 amps when the HF is transmitting at 100w. the thing is i have a honda eu2200i that would handle it easy but hauling that thing plus gas to a park location seems like a pain, and everyone keeps telling me just run lifepo4 but my 50ah battery probably isnt gonna last the whole 8 hour exercise if im doing any real traffic volume. i do have a 100ah agm in the truck but that means running a long cable or leaving the truck close which isnt always gonna be an option depending on where they set up the command post. has anyone done back to back exercises like this and found a sweet spot? i feel like im overthinking it but i also dont want to be the guy whose radio dies halfway through a simulated disaster scenario. also what are people using for portable antennas in a field setting where you cant stake anything — thinking about a vertical on a drive-on mount but not sure how that plays on 40m for regional nets

Check the galactic noise when moon crosses the Milky Way plane twice monthly. Don't attempt EME when antennas point at both Moon and Sun. Use software like EME Logger to track optimal windows and avoid high-noise periods.

the memorization thing is pretty normal honestly and most people do it for at least some of the questions. the exam isnt trying to make you an engineer, its just a baseline. the stuff you dont fully understand will start clicking once youre actually on HF and dealing with real situations, like when your antenna isnt resonant and you can see the SWR going crazy it suddenly makes a lot more sense than reading about it in a book. for what opens up — you get most of the HF bands, 40m is probably where youll spend a lot of time starting out because its pretty forgiving and theres almost always someone to talk to day or night. 20m is the classic DX band and can be incredible when conditions are good. you wont have full privileges everywhere right away because theres still some stuff reserved for Extra but theres plenty to keep you busy. as for gear you probably need at least a basic HF rig obviously but dont go crazy right away, a used Icom 7300 or even something older like an 718 will get you on the air without breaking the bank. antenna is honestly more important than the radio when youre starting out.

yeah what he said about the spacing. but also try cleaning the contacts with some alcohol or even just work them back and forth a bunch of times. new paddles sometimes have manufacturing oils or oxidation that messes with the contact. i always clean new paddle contacts before first use now after learning this the hard way

Quick fix that works for me: cycle DAX RX and TX buttons off/on to restore decodes. Much faster than restarting WSJT-X and you don't lose your activity window.

so ive been meaning to do this for like a year and finally sat down last weekend and did the TCXO upgrade on the IC-7300. if you haven't done this and you do any digital modes or weak signal stuff it's honestly kind of a no-brainer, the stock oscillator drifts more than i realized until i started comparing it against my GPSDO reference on wsjtx and seeing the freq offset creeping around especially after warmup. the mod itself isnt that bad if youre comfortable with SMD work, the hardest part was honestly just getting the case fully apart without scratching anything. used the Inrad replacement, theres a couple options out there but that's the one i went with based on what people on the reflector were saying. afterwards the offset was basically rock solid within a couple hz even stone cold, big difference. also while i had it open i reflashed the firmware to the latest and cleaned out a surprising amount of dust from around the fan area. didn't do the bandpass filter mods that some people do for improved rx, not sure i need that yet. anyone here done those? curious if theres an actual audible difference on crowded band conditions or if its more of a measurement thing

i literally just went through this exact thing lol. ended up getting the baofeng to start and its fine, like it works, but programming it without chirp was a nightmare and the manual reads like it was translated three times. once i got chirp set up it was fine though. if i were doing it again i might just go straight to something like a wouxun or the yaesu the other person mentioned. but dont let anyone make you feel bad about the baofeng either, half the people dunking on them are using them at home as a backup anyway

the marathon thing is actually one of the best first activations you can do because it's pretty low stakes most of the time. 90% of it is just checking in periodically, confirming your aid station is good, maybe reporting a runner who looks rough to net control. the net control op handles all the coordination — you're basically just ears and mouth at your location. biggest thing i'd say is don't be afraid to ask for a repeat if you miss something. better to say "net control please repeat" than to guess at what they said. nobody's going to give you a hard time for that, especially on your first time out. and bring snacks, bring water, bring a chair if you can. sometimes the medical stuff happens in the first hour and then you're just sitting there until the last runner comes through which could be 4 or 5 hours depending on the event. you'll do fine. the fact that you're thinking about this stuff beforehand already puts you ahead of some folks who just show up without even knowing what frequency they're on.

Try using Tools > Rescore Current Contest to fix any FT8/FT4 QSOs that weren't assigned the correct score. There's an updated N1MMWSJTInstructions.pdf file in the Additional Support directory that covers recent changes to the integration setup.

on the IC-905 thing, my buddy at the local radio club actually got to play with one at a hamfest last month and said the receiver is really impressive but the price tag made him wince pretty hard lol. i think for most of us the microwave bands stuff is kind of a niche within a niche but its cool that icom is doing something different. most of the news i follow lately has been about the FT-710 used prices dropping which is more in my wheelhouse honestly

It absolutely counts, 4 contacts is 4 contacts and the rules dont care what antenna you used to make them. The whole point is getting up there and operating, not having a perfect setup. Honestly the fact that you worked a DX station with speaker wire is kind of legendary, that would be a great story to tell at the club meeting. As for the reference, W4T is Tennessee and SU is the subregion for the Unaka Mountains if I'm remembering right, so that sounds correct. You can double check on sotadata.org.uk and search the reference directly, itll show you the full name and point value and everything. If the log went through without an error it probably validated ok. Dont sweat the antenna thing. Half the fun of SOTA is improvising when stuff goes wrong. I once activated a 6-pointer in the rain with a wet coax shield acting as my counterpoise because my radial fell down a cliff. We all have those days.

I've been using Ham2K PoLo which supports POTA spots and has QRZ.com name lookups with fast and efficient logging. It's great for portable operations too. Also check out the various web clusters - DXWatch provides a modern web-based DX cluster service with real-time spot filtering and customizable views.

Band filters are absolutely critical - never attempt SO2R without them. Start with basic 160m/80m stubs as minimum protection, then add proper bandpass filters as budget allows. Having identical radios is a huge advantage, but your setup will work fine once you develop the muscle memory for each radio's controls.

so ive been licensed about 8 months now and just started getting into DX chasing, mostly on 20m and 17m. been using QRZ's logbook and the built-in spot lookup thing they have but a buddy told me i should also be checking DXwatch for cluster spots. so now i have like three tabs open at all times and im not totally sure im using any of them efficiently lol basically what i'm doing is pulling up DXwatch to see whats active, then jumping over to QRZ to look up the callsign and see if its a new entity for me, then trying to find the freq and work them. feels like a lot of clicking around. is there a better workflow people use? also is there an app that kind of combines all this or at least makes it less clunky. i tried DX Toolkit on my phone but it crashed a couple times and i couldnt figure out how to filter by band also slightly unrelated but does anyone use the AR-Cluster network directly through like a telnet connection anymore or is that kind of old school at this point? someone at the club mentioned it and i got curious

yeah that drift on a Colpitts is almost always the caps, not the coil. hot glue actually makes it worse in my experience because it has a pretty bad tempco and it'll stress the windings as it cures. if you used NP0/C0G ceramics in the resonant part of the tank you'll be in much better shape. polystyrene are even better if you can find them but those are getting hard to come by. also your wall wart is almost certainly contributing — any ripple on the supply modulates the varactor-like behavior of any junction capacitances in the circuit. slap a 78L08 or something on there and see if it tightens things up before you go crazy chasing the VFO.

yeah i went last year and the swap meet is definitely still going, maybe a little smaller than it used to be but there was still a decent amount of stuff. i found a old Kenwood HT that needed a new battery pack for like 8 bucks so cant complain. the inside vendor tables felt a bit thin though, some of the usual guys werent there. still worth going imo if you dont have to drive more than like 45 min

x50a is a solid choice but just so you know that thing is like 3.5 feet tall, parking garages are gonna be an adventure. just something to think about with a hatchback since youre already lower to the ground than a truck or suv would be

so ive been licensed about 14 months now, technician upgraded to general back in march, and ive been just doing casual ragchews and some digital stuff but a buddy at the club keeps telling me i need to try a contest. he specifically mentioned CQ WW coming up in october and also ARRL Field Day which i think already passed? not sure. anyway i went down a rabbit hole last night reading about it and now im kind of overwhelmed. like whats the actual point of SOTA vs a contest like CQ WW — they seem really different to me. SOTA sounds more like an adventure thing where you hike up a hill and make contacts, and CQ WW sounds like you just sit at your radio for 48 hours and lose your mind. is that about right lol. also does anyone know if there are any decent contests coming up before end of year thats good for beginners to jump into, something where its not a total bloodbath if youre running like 100 watts into a dipole

honestly most active operators are doing at least LoTW and eQSL together, they're both free and once you get your logging software set up it usually uploads to both automatically so its not much extra work. LoTW is definitely the one that matters for ARRL awards like DXCC and WAS, eQSL has its own award system and some people chase those too. physical cards are kind of a whole separate thing. a lot of DX stations still love them and some rare ones wont confirm any other way, plus like you said they look great. i'd say dont stress about sending cards to every qso but if you work something interesting or rare its worth doing direct mail at least. the bureau system is cheap but slow, like months slow sometimes. if you worked a /p station on a rare island or something just send direct with a return envelope and a couple dollars for postage, most operators really appreciate it and youll usually get a card back pretty quick. just get comfortable with LoTW first since youre already set up there, then add eQSL when you feel like it. dont burn yourself out trying to do everything at once

oh man i did the same thing on my second activation, totally forgot to post an alert and just sat there calling for forever. felt like i was yelling into the void lol. once i figured out the alert system it got way more fun, people are actually excited to work you when they know youre coming also dont sleep on 2m FM if you have anything handheld with you, sometimes on a decent summit you can hit a repeater or work simplex and knock out a couple contacts real quick if HF is being stubborn. not always an option but has saved me a couple times