Jessica Moore

Taking the Tech exam next month and trying to figure out the best study approach. I've heard good things about HamStudy.org and the ARRL Ham Radio License Manual, but there are so many options out there. Some can pass the Technician exam with as little as 10 hours of study, others may need 20-30 hours depending on background. What combination of resources worked best for you? Looking for something that covers both the theory and helps with memorization. Also curious about the current question pool valid through June 2026.

check if the igate is running a range filter. some of them are set up to only igate packets from within a certain radius and if the operator set it tight you might just be getting dropped even though the digi heard you. you can test this by watching aprx's log carefully — if your packets are being heard by the digi and rebroadcast but nothing shows on aprs.fi after like 10 minutes then thats almost certainly a filter or the igate just isnt connected to the tier 2 servers properly. also double check your aprx.conf, specifically the mycall line. had a buddy who had a trailing space in there and it caused all kinds of weirdness with the passcode validation even though it looked right on screen.

had almost the exact same thing happen to mine about a year and a half ago. turned out to be one of the finals starting to go — i think it was one of the RD70HVF1 transistors but honestly i sent it to a shop so i cant say for certain which one was the culprit. the symptom was pretty much what you're describing, worse on higher bands, output kind of tapered off slowly over a few weeks before i noticed it properly. the shop said one transistor was leaky and the other was still okay but they replaced both as a pair which makes sense. cost me a bit but the radio has been solid since. if youre handy with RF work you could probably scope the drain voltages on the finals and see if something looks off, but if you're not set up for that it might just be worth sending it in. icom's service network isnt that bad depending on where you are.

so ive been licensed for about 4 months now and i mostly just listen but im starting to actually key up and talk to people and everyone keeps throwing out all these abbreviations and codes and i can only catch like half of what theyre saying. like QSL i think means confirmed? and QTH is location? but then someone said QRN and QRM and i got totally lost. is there like a standard list somewhere or do people just kind of learn these over time. also whats the deal with 73 because i hear that constantly at the end of every contact and i just say it back but i dont actually know what it means lol also saw someone write QRP in a thread here and i know thats low power but is there a specific wattage that counts as QRP or is it just kind of a vibes thing

so im not sure if anyone else noticed but 10 meters has been absolutely wild the past few days. i was just doing some casual listening tuesday evening and suddenly started hearing stations from all over south america coming in like they were next door. worked a few argentinian stations and one from uruguay which i dont think ive ever done on 10m before, at least not this easily. also saw some stuff on the clusters about a new transceiver release from one of the big manufacturers but i cant remember which one now, think it was icom or yaesu, something midrange priced that people seem excited about. anyone know what im talking about? i half read the announcement and then got distracted by the pile-up on 28.450 and forgot to go back and look it up properly. anyway just curious if others have been taking advantage of the conditions or if i just happened to catch a good opening. feels like the solar cycle is really starting to deliver lately.