Betty Johnson

kx2 is a solid choice for that. i did my first one with way too heavy a radio and regretted it every step up. also dont stress too much about the operating part, its honestly more relaxed than a POTA parking lot in some ways because nobody expects you to have a perfect signal from a mountaintop

yeah that snap into oscillation thing is classic bad lead dress or too much stray coupling somewhere. with regens the physical layout matters almost as much as the circuit values, everything needs to be kept short and the tickler winding or feedback tap needs to be physically away from the grid/gate end of the coil. if your coil is oriented wrong relative to the rest of the circuit it'll just snap hard like you're describing. also worth checking your supply bypass caps. i had a similar issue once and it turned out to be a 100uf cap with bad ESR on the drain supply that was causing the regen control to be basically binary. slapped a 0.1uf ceramic right across the drain resistor and it smoothed right out, had a nice gradual onset after that. the tap position is something you kind of have to experiment with too, 15 turns on an 80 turn coil might be a bit heavy depending on your Q but i wouldnt change that first, check the physical layout and bypass first.

the message handling is actually pretty solid — if the link drops mid-transfer Winlink Express will just hold whatever didnt get through and you can reconnect and resume. it's not like email over smtp where a failed connection can leave things in a weird state. the RMS basically acts as a store-and-forward node so your message sits there until it gets acknowledged both ways. you'll see the status in the session log window which is worth watching when you're learning the flow. on the VARA FM vs Packet question, honestly just try VARA FM. the free version is throttled to like 1200 bps or something in that range but it's still usually better than AX.25 packet in real conditions because of how it handles multipath and noise. and your Signalink levels probably wont need much tweaking going from packet to VARA FM on VHF — the audio levels going in are the same deal, just the modem software changes. i went through this same thing last year and spent way too long being precious about not changing my setup. just do it. as for running an RMS gateway, any licensed ham can do it, general or extra, no restriction there. the winlink.org sysop registration is pretty straightforward, you just fill out the form and agree to keep the gateway running reasonably consistently. the trickier part is making sure your station is set up to be unattended legally under part 97 which means you need to have thought through your control operator situation. most people running VHF gateways just leave a TNC or soundcard setup running and log in remotely if something breaks.

so i finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend, took the KX2 and a end-fed out to a state forest about 45 minutes from home. honestly had no idea what to expect because most of the info i found online was either really old or about SOTA which is a bit different obviously. managed to get 12 contacts in about an hour and a half on 40m, conditions werent great but people were patient with me which was nice. i spotted myself on the WWFF spotter page before going out and that definitely helped get some callers. my questions are -- do the contacts need to be on a specific mode or band, i was just doing SSB but wasnt sure if theres a requirement. also the reference i activated was KFF-something, do i need to register that reference somewhere or is it already in the system from a previous activation. and do i submit the log to wwff directly or through some other site, i uploaded to QRZ and LOTW already but wasnt sure about the wwff specific part. sorry if these are dumb questions, the website has a lot of info but its a little overwhelming when youre just starting out with this

yeah what he said about N1MM is spot on. one thing i'd add is dont stress too much about being competitive your first go. field day is honestly still one of the best learning experiences because your club handles a lot of the infrastructure stuff and you can just focus on operating. if your club does it again this year i'd try to get some actual seat time on SSB at minimum, even just an hour or two will teach you more than reading about it. CQ WW is great but it can be a bit intense for a first solo effort, especially the weekend timing and keeping track of zones. maybe look at some of the smaller state QSO parties too, they're a bit more relaxed and the exchanges are usually just signal report and state, very easy to get the hang of things without feeling like you're drowning

so ive been putting together a 5 element yagi for 2m, nothing fancy just a homebrew job with some aluminum tubing i had laying around and a boom from an old tv antenna. got the element spacing and lengths from an online calculator, double checked everything with calipers, all looks good on paper. problem is when i hook it up and sweep it with my nano vna the SWR curve is just... off. like the minimum is sitting around 146.5 instead of 144.2 where i was aiming and the whole curve looks a little lumpy. bandwidth seems narrower than expected too. resonant point shifted up maybe 1.5 mhz from where it should be. someone at the club mentioned that at VHF the coax length can actually affect what you read at the shack end, and now im second guessing whether im even measuring at the right point. i was measuring from the shack end with about 18 feet of rg8x running down from the antenna. should i be measuring right at the feedpoint instead? or is it more likely my elements are just too short and i need to trim/adjust? also the driven element is a folded dipole if that matters, split feed with a 4:1 balun i wound myself on a binocular core.

the ALC thing is almost certainly your issue or at least a big part of it. if the ALC is working hard constantly that usually means youre driving the mic gain too hot and the radio is basically squashing your audio before it even gets transmitted cleanly. on the 7300 i keep my mic gain set so ALC barely ticks on voice peaks, not riding the meter the whole time. took me a while to actually accept that less mic gain usually sounds better not worse. also the compression — the built in compressor on that radio can sound pretty rough if you push it. i run mine at like 3-4 max and some guys leave it off entirely for casual ragchewing. the PR-40 is a good mic but its a pretty low output element compared to something like the HM-36 so you might actually need more mic gain than you think, which sounds counterintuitive but just means you gotta find the sweet spot. try getting a friend on a nearby frequency and have them record you while you mess with settings in real time, thats honestly the only way to actually hear what youre doing

congrats on your first activation, those drills are honestly great experience even if they can feel a little chaotic at first. go bag wise just think about being self sufficient for a good chunk of the day — water, snacks, extra batteries for the HT, a notepad and pens (yes actual paper, youll use it), a copy of your ICS materials, maybe a headlamp if there's any chance things run into the evening. some guys bring a folding chair too depending on where you're posted. the j-pole is a solid choice, bring some coax and a way to mount it if you can. the shelters usually have nothing in terms of antenna infrastructure. main thing though is just show up on time, listen more than you talk at first, and dont be afraid to ask your EC questions. the whole point of drills is to find out what doesnt work before a real event. youll do fine

so i passed my technician last spring and joined the local ARES group maybe two months ago. been to a few of the monthly nets and one tabletop exercise but nothing real yet. anyway there's a pretty bad storm system forecast for this weekend and our EC sent out a message saying we might get activated to support the county EOC. im honestly a little nervous. like i know the theory and ive done the ICS-100 and 200 online courses like they asked, but theres a difference between that and actually showing up somewhere and being useful. does anyone know what it's typically like when you first get there? do they just put you on a radio right away or is there usually some kind of check-in process? i dont want to be that guy who shows up and just gets in the way also not sure what gear i should bring beyond the obvious HT and some extra batteries. my go-bag is still pretty basic

congrats on the first activation, 14 contacts definitely qualifies, you only need 10 to count it. and yeah HAMRS exports ADIF just fine, thats actually what most POTA folks use in the field. when you're on the submission page on the POTA website it'll just ask you to upload the file, pretty straightforward. as for the time limit i believe you have a year to submit but dont quote me on that, i usually just do mine within a day or two so i dont forget details. main thing is make sure your park reference number is right in the header and that your callsign matches your account. ive seen people mess that up and it causes headaches getting the activation credited. also if you were posting spots yourself mid-activation, good instinct. a lot of new activators dont realize how much that helps hunters find you. some parks get almost no traffic if nobody knows youre there.

oh and dont stress too much about being perfect on the first one -- I did my first KFF activation last spring and completely forgot to log the reference number in the notes field for like the first 15 contacts and had to go back and edit everything later in ADIF master. it worked out fine but just double check your logging setup before you start calling CQ haha. also if you have a phone signal out there the wwff spotter site works on mobile which is handy for checking if anyone else is already on a close frequency

yeah the thermal drift on a diode ring is a real pain and 20dB suppression is pretty much where you land when things arent quite right. the 1N4148 matching you did with a DMM is okay but its a static measurement and those diodes have slightly different dynamic characteristics that only show up under RF drive. what a lot of guys do is actually match them under RF conditions using a little test jig with a signal generator and a scope, you're looking for the best null by swapping diodes around until you cant get any better. the other thing is your carrier oscillator board being separate -- any coupling or ground loop between the two boards can inject carrier around the modulator rather than through it, and that stuff obviously cant be balanced out. try putting some shielding between them if you havent already, even just a piece of copper clad acting as a wall can make a noticeable differnce. also check that your pot wiper isnt oxidized, those little trimmers get flakey fast and a dirty wiper will absolutely cause the null to wander as temperature changes.

im in basically the same boat as you so take this with a grain of salt but i started about two months ago using an app called Morse Mania on my phone and its pretty good for just getting the letters into your head. im nowhere near ready to get on the air but i can copy maybe 8-10 wpm in short bursts now which feels like a lot considering i knew nothing in january what helped me was doing like 10-15 minutes every single day rather than trying to cram for an hour on weekends, consistency really seems to matter more than the total time

i had almost the exact same thing happen when i went from a pretty steep inverted V to a flatter one trying to get more horizontal coverage. the SWR looked totally different and i spent like two evenings convinced my balun had gone bad lol. turned out the impedance just dropped and my old 1:1 wasnt doing me any favors. ended up just cutting the legs down a bit and accepting a slightly worse SWR at the band edges, works fine now. 40m is pretty forgiving anyway if your rig has a decent internal tuner.