Ashley Brown21

thats awesome man congrats on the first one. i keep meaning to get more involved with our local ARES group but work schedule makes the training nights really hard to commit to. does your EC do any weekend stuff or is it all weeknight meetings? ours seems to only do thursday evenings which is basically impossible for me right now.

so ive been trying to get Winlink going for a few weeks now and i think im close but something isnt clicking. running Winlink Express on a windows 10 laptop, got a Signalink USB hooked to an old IC-718, and im trying to connect through one of the RMS gateways i can see in the map. my question is about how the whole thing actually works because i feel like i have a conceptual gap somewhere. from what i understand the RMS gateway is basically another ham station running software that bridges my radio connection to the internet and then out to the Winlink CMS servers, right? so when i send an email it goes radio to gateway to CMS to the internet. but im confused about a few things - when i look at the gateway list in Winlink Express and i see a gateway with a good signal report, does that mean its actively listening or could it be offline? i tried connecting to W3XYZ-10 (made up callsign) on 14.110 the other day and just got nothing back, no connect, nothing in the event log except a timeout. also do i need to have my message session set to Vara HF vs Winmor vs Pactor to match what the gateway is advertising? i dont have a Pactor modem so thats out but i downloaded VARA and i think i have it set up, just not 100% sure the audio levels are right. the Signalink is new to me, been using it for FT8 which works fine so at least i know the basic audio path is functional. any pointers appreciated, been lurking this forum for a while and you guys seem to know your stuff

yeah domed cap is a red flag for sure but also worth checking — did you verify the finals themselves arent blown? if one of them went and took out a gate resistor you can have that exact symptom where everything looks fine upstream but nothing comes out. the 7300 uses RD70HVF1s in the final and they can fail quietly without any drama, no smoke no bang just... nothing. easy enough to check with a meter out of circuit. pull them, check gate to source and drain to source, should be obvious if ones shorted.

the band data voltage thing on the 991a is a little finicky i remember dealing with that. what resistor are you using on the input to the arduino? if youre reading it direct you might be loading it down enough to mess with the readings. i put a 10k in series and that sorted it out for me.

okay so i just passed my general last month and i've been using my sequential call which is fine but honestly it's kind of a mouthful and i want something shorter if possible. i've been reading about vanity calls on the FCC ULS site and i feel like i'm going in circles trying to figure out how the whole thing actually works. from what i can tell there's a window period where you apply and then if nobody else applies for the same call you just get it? but i'm not sure how long that takes or if there's any fee involved now (i heard the FCC started charging but i dont know if that applies to vanity too or just new licenses). also do you have to be a certain license class to get a shorter format call like a 1x2 or 2x1? i don't want to apply for something i'm not actually eligible for. any help appreciated, been lurking here for a while and you guys usually know this stuff better than the FCC website explains it

so ive been trying to get back into CW after maybe a 15 year break and im using an old Bencher paddle i dug out of a box connected to my IC-7300. the iambic mode on the radio keyer is set to Mode A i think and i keep getting these weird extra dits or the spacing between letters is all off. im sending at like 15 wpm which used to feel comfortable but now everything sounds mushy when i play it back on the monitor. not sure if its my paddle tension thats too loose or if i just need to re-adjust the dit/dah ratio or what. i did tweak the weight setting a little but honestly i dont really remember what all these settings do anymore. been watching some youtube videos but they all seem to be either for total beginners or way too advanced. anyone been through this and have a tip for getting the feel back without spending weeks on it

so i just passed my technician exam last week and im trying to figure out what handheld to start with. everyone keeps telling me different things and honestly its getting overwhelming. some guys at the club said get a baofeng just to learn on, other guy said dont bother and just save up for a yaesu or kenwood right away. i dont really know what the difference is beyond price at this point. im mostly going to use it for local repeaters and maybe some simplex with my brother who also just got his ticket. probably wont be doing anything fancy for a while. budget is flexible but i dont want to spend like $300 on something if a $50 radio does the same thing at my level, you know? is there anything i should actually be looking for features wise or is it mostly just personal preference at this point

ok so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i keep seeing people mention LoTW and eQSL and also still sending physical cards and im honestly not sure what the point of each one is or if i need to be using all of them. like i get that confirming contacts is a big deal especially for awards but i dont really understand the difference between the two digital systems and why they both exist. i went ahead and registered for LoTW a few weeks ago but i havent actually uploaded anything yet because the whole TQSL certificate process kind of confused me and i stopped partway through. is eQSL easier to get started with? also i ordered some paper QSL cards from one of those printing places and theyre sitting here on my desk but i have no idea how the whole bureau system works or if i should just be sending them direct. sorry if this is a dumb question, im sure there are a million posts about this but any plain english explanation would really help

yeah the noise rejection thing with dipoles is legit, especially if you orient it away from the worst offenders. i pointed mine sort of broadside to my neighbors house and it helped a surprising amount. also 35 feet on 40 isnt amazing but its not terrible either, ive worked plenty of dx from similar heights. honestly a vertical with only a handful of radials is probably going to dissapoint you anyway, you need a lot of radials to make those things sing and thats a whole other project

This confirms what I've seen in modeling software. These antennas are especially suitable for DX and contesting but the mechanical precision required for proper stacking often gets underestimated. Many hams jump straight to stacking without optimizing their single antenna first.

so ive been licensed about 14 months now and i keep hearing people talk about CQ WW like its this massive thing and honestly i kind of want to try it this october. i did a little bit of Field Day with my local club back in june which was super fun but that felt more relaxed and everyone was helping each other out. CQ WW seems way more intense from what ive read. my setup is pretty basic, just a Yaesu FT-891 into a wire dipole up maybe 25 feet, i know thats not going to win anything but i dont really care about that. i mostly just want to experience it and maybe get a feel for the exchange format and all that. from what i understand its zone numbers you're exchanging? i got confused reading the rules because there seem to be different categories and i wasnt sure if i needed to pre-register or anything. also is there a good way to practice the exchange before the actual contest weekend so i dont freeze up when someone comes back to me lol. any advice appreciated, even just like what to realistically expect with my antenna situation

that Germany contact on 5w is the kind of thing that gets people hooked on QRP for life haha. seriously though thats a solid first outing. the QCX mini is a great little rig, Hans does good work. for antennas i've been using an end-fed half wave for most of my portable ops, with a home wound 49:1 transformer in a little project box. it tunes up on a bunch of bands with a tuner and its just one wire which makes deployment easy when youre in a park and dont want to look like youre installing infrastructure. i mostly work 20m for portable because the propagation is usually more predictable mid-day when im out there, 40m gets interesting but it really depends on the time. on the build vs buy question — honestly both are valid, just different things. the KX2 is a fantastic radio and does way more bands with better filtering and all that, but you dont get the satisfaction of knowing every component. i've done both and i still go out with homebrewed stuff more often just because it feels more like an adventure. if you want to try more complex builds there are some really good Manhattan style or ugly construction projects online that are intermediate level, not as intense as full scratch build but you learn a lot more than a kit.

dont stress about it too much honestly. the technician exam is the entry level one and its 35 questions, all multiple choice, and the question pool is completely public so you can literally study the exact questions that will be on the test. i used hamstudy.org when i was studying and it was free and pretty solid, just kept doing practice exams until i was consistently passing them. took me maybe 2-3 weeks of studying on and off. theres a little bit of math but nothing crazy, mostly just ohms law stuff and even then you can usually reason through it without memorizing formulas. general class is the next step up and opens up a lot more HF privileges but you dont need to worry about that right now, just get the tech ticket first and go from there

yeah the RMS status page is at winlink.org, theres a section called Gateway Status or something similar and you can see when each one last had a successful connection. some gateways that show up on the map are actually down for weeks at a time and nobody takes them off. worth checking before you beat yourself up over the audio config. for setting the target station manually in Winlink Express, go to Open Session, pick Packet Winlink, and in that window there should be a field where you type the callsign of the gateway you want to hit. you dont have to auto-scan. honestly i always set mine manually once i found a reliable gateway near me because the auto thing would sometimes try stations way out that had terrible paths. also double check your channel config, some gateways run on non-standard frequencies and the map doesnt always make that obvious.