Jessica Moore

yeah i do this too but usually fall asleep with the radio on which probably isnt great for the rig lol. 40 is good. im still pretty new so i mostly just listen anyway trying to figure out how people actually talk on there vs what the books say

so i just passed my technician exam last week (still waiting on the callsign to show up in the FCC database) and im trying to figure out what handheld to get. ive been doing a ton of reading on here and elsewhere and honestly the more i read the more confused i get. like some people swear by the Yaesu FT-65 and others say just get a Baofeng UV-5R to start and others are like no no no get the VX-6R if you want something that'll last... i really just want to talk on local repeaters and maybe eventually do some APRS stuff? my budget is probably around $100-150 to start but i could stretch a little if something is really worth it. does anyone have a strong opinion one way or another? also does the radio need to be programmed before i can use it or can i just type in repeater frequencies manually? i have no idea how any of this works yet, sorry if thats a dumb question

ok so dont panic, its actually simpler than it sounds once you get the basic idea. DXCC is the big one from ARRL — you need 100 confirmed entities which are basically countries but not exactly countries, its more like the ARRL's list of radio entities. WAS is Worked All States, so all 50 US states confirmed. WAZ is Worked All Zones, there are 40 CQ zones around the world and you need all of them. for your setup honestly WAS is probably the most achievable starting goal, 100w and a G5RV should get you there over time especially with good conditions, and every state counts even if youre making pretty routine contacts. DXCC is doable too but some entities are really rare and you'll be chasing them for years which is kind of part of the fun honestly LOTW is absolutely the way to go, most serious operators upload there and it makes confirming contacts way easier than waiting on paper cards. the "credits" thing — when you apply for DXCC, ARRL reviews your confirmations and grants you credits for each valid entity. so you accumulate credits over time and apply for the award when you hit the threshold. you can also add credits later and get endorsements for higher numbers like 200 250 etc my honest advice, just start logging everything carefully with the right info in LOTW and work whatever you can hear. it all counts eventually

yeah i went through almost exactly this when i started. what helped me the most honestly was just slowing way down and really listening to individual characters instead of trying to copy whole words. like get comfortable at 12 or 13 wpm before pushing up. the mushy sound might also just be your ear not being trained yet to hear the spaces cleanly, not necessarily a settings problem. recording yourself is a great idea though, most people dont do that.

so i've been messing with Winlink for a few weeks now and i think i finally got it mostly working but im still a bit fuzzy on how the gateway selection actually works in Winlink Express. like i understand conceptually that RMS gateways are these nodes that relay your packets up to the CMS servers but when i open the channel selection window and it populates all those gateways sorted by distance i dont really know what criteria to use to pick one beyond just distance. my setup is a IC-7300 running into a SignaLink USB, using VARA HF mode which honestly has been way more reliable than i expected once i got the audio levels dialed in. im hitting a gateway about 140 miles out pretty consistently on 40m, sometimes swapping to 20m in the afternoons when 40 gets noisy. the connection usually completes fine and messages go through but sometimes it just hangs on the handshake and i bail out and try a different gateway. also a little confused about the peer to peer stuff vs going through a gateway. i know you can send directly to another Winlink client but when would you actually use that? like in an emergency where the internet is down at the gateway? trying to wrap my head around the whole architecture here. any pointers appreciated

so ive been doing a fair bit of hilltop portable work lately, mostly 2m and 70cm, and i keep going back and forth on whether to bother lugging a yagi up there or just stick with the collinear i already have mounted on my mast at home. the collinear is a diamond X50 and its great for local repeater stuff but i feel like im leaving a lot on the table for weak signal SSB and the occasional satellite pass. the thing is i dont really have a rotor setup yet and pointing a yagi manually on a hilltop when its windy is kind of a pain. i was looking at a cheap 5 element 2m yagi i found at a swap meet last year, never tested it properly. maybe around 9-10 dBd? the tag was half rubbed off. anyway the question is really whether the gain difference is actually noticeable in practice or if its one of those things that looks good on paper and doesnt make much difference in the field. i know the math says its a big deal but real world experience would help

so i passed my technician exam about three weeks ago and just got my callsign last thursday. been lurking on the local 2m repeater for a few days working up the nerve to actually key up and last night i just did it. said my callsign, somebody came back to me right away and we chatted for maybe 10 minutes about nothing really, just signal reports and weather and where i was located. but man it felt way more exciting than i expected it to. i dont know why i was so nervous, everyone on the repeater has been super welcoming. anyway just wanted to post somewhere because my wife is tired of hearing about it lol

yeah 18 wpm for practicing your sending when youre still ironing out muscle memory is probably doing you more harm than good honestly. i went through the exact same thing a few years back. what helped me was dropping way down, like to 12 or even 10 wpm, and just focusing on making each element crisp and even before cranking the speed back up. the Koch method people always talk about this but it applies to sending too not just receiving. also on the weight setting — a lot of guys set it and forget it at 50% but depending on your paddles and how you hold tension you might actually want to bump it slightly toward heavier dashes, maybe 52-53%. sounds minor but you'd be suprised how much smoother things feel once that rhythm clicks. give yourself a few weeks at slower speed and then bring it back up gradually, your sending will thank you.

so ive been a tech for about 3 years doing mostly 2m/70cm stuff and i finally upgraded to General last month and just bought a used IC-7300 off a guy local to me. thing is in great shape, came with the stock mic and power supply. got it on the bench last night and was able to hear a ton of signals which was honestly kind of surreal after only ever doing VHF. my question is mostly about the panadapter display and how people are actually using it in practice. like i get what it does conceptually but when im sitting there tuning around do most people just watch it and click on signals or do you tune the old fashioned way and ignore it most of the time. also the noise floor on 40m seems pretty high at my QTH, im in a suburban area, and im wondering if thats just normal or if there's something i should be checking on the radio first before i blame the neighborhood RFI. antenna is just a random wire out the window for now, nothing fancy. anyway excited to finally be on HF, been a long time coming

so ive had this 897 for maybe 6 years now and it started doing this thing a few months back where mid-transmission it just drops power, like it'll be putting out a solid 50w and then suddenly dips to maybe 5 or 10w for a second then comes back up. sometimes it stays down and i have to key off and back on to get it to recover. happens on all bands but seems worse on 40m for whatever reason. i already reseated all the internal connectors i could get to easily and reflowed a couple suspect joints on the PA board that looked a little dull, but no change. ALC meter looks normal during the drop — it's not like the ALC is clamping it down. SWR on the antenna is fine, checked it with the external meter and it's flat. temp doesnt seem to be an issue either, happens within a minute of keying up even when the radio is cold. anyone dealt with this on an 897 specifically? i'm wondering if it's one of the driver transistors starting to go or maybe something in the low voltage supply rail. dont really want to send it to a service center if i can avoid it, i have a decent scope and a DMM and im comfortable poking around in there.

the DX thing is a big one honestly, i spent forever wondering why i kept hearing european stations down around 7.130 until someone explained that iaru regions have totally different splits. they dont have the same subband structure we do so they just operate wherever. was kind of a lightbulb moment for me. anyway yeah stay off the actual edge, ive heard of guys getting a courtesy notice from the fcc over stuff like that, probably rare but not worth it

so ive been going back and forth on this for like two months now and i need someone to just tell me to stop second guessing myself. i have a decent sized lot, maybe 150ft deep, and i want to get on 40m for the first time. been doing 2m/70cm stuff for a couple years but finally got my general and want to work some dx. the question is basically dipole at 35ft vs a vertical with radials. i know 35ft isnt ideal for 40m but its what i can realistically do between two trees. i keep reading that a dipole lower than a half wavelength starts acting more like a cloud warmer which isnt what i want if im trying to work dx, but i also see people say a low dipole is still better than a crappy vertical. my ground isnt great either, pretty clay heavy which i think hurts a vertical more than a dipole? or maybe im wrong about that. dont have budget for a beam right now and honestly my HOA would probably lose their mind anyway. just trying to figure out which way to go before i start cutting wire.

so i finally got a chance to deploy a proper field comms setup last weekend for a county ARES exercise and ran into a few things i wasnt expecting. figured id post here since ive been lurking forever and maybe someone has dealt with this stuff before. the big one was RFI from the generator. we were running a Honda EU2200i which i thought would be pretty clean but man it was pumping garbage into the 40m receive chain something awful. i had the genny about 30 feet off to the side of the station and still getting S3-S4 noise on the lower part of the band. tried a common mode choke on the power line going into the station but it only helped a tiny bit. is 30 feet just not far enough or is there something else going on, like maybe the fuel line or frame is picking up ground loops or something. second thing was antenna placement. we were in a park with some decent trees but the only clear run for the 40m dipole was kind of parallel to the main road which put it basically pointing toward the EOC we were supposed to be working. i know you want the ends away from where youre trying to talk but we didnt have a lot of options. ended up being like 30 degrees off from ideal. signal reports were okay but not great, wondering if a vertical wouldve done better in that spot or if we should have just dealt with the extra feedline to get a better orientation. also running off a deep cycle AGM and the generator to charge it - is it worth bringing a second battery instead of the genny for a 6-8 hour exercise or does the math just not work out for 100w HF ops.

yeah the menu depth is the one thing that bugs me too, been using mine for almost a year and i still hit the wrong submenu sometimes. you get used to it but they couldve designed that part better the IMD thing you mentioned — try turning the preamp completely off if youre dealing with strong locals, a lot of guys dont realize the default preamp setting can actually hurt you in a busy RF environment. also the attenuator in 6dB steps is your friend on 40 at night when everything is loud. once i started treating the RF gain and preamp as a combo rather than just one or the other it cleaned up a lot the jump from older Kenwood stuff is significant, the DSP on the 7300 just handles a pileup differently, hard to explain but you can kind of pick signals out of the mud more intuitively with the passband controls. my old 850 was a great radio but there's no going back honestly

so i passed my technician exam like 3 weeks ago and ive been reading through Part 97 trying to figure out exactly what im allowed to do and honestly its kind of a wall of text and i keep going in circles. like i understand the basics, HF is mostly general and extra but theres some segments i can use right? and then theres the whole thing about what counts as a "emission type" and whether i can use digital modes on certain bands or if thats only for certain license classes also i saw something about third party traffic and i dont fully get when that applies. like if im just chatting with a buddy who isnt a ham is that already a problem or does it only matter for international stuff im not trying to do anything sketchy i just dont want to accidentally step on something and get a notice or whatever. is there like a plain english breakdown someone can point me to or should i just stick to the 2m/70cm stuff for now until i figure it out