Sarah Wilson13

honest answer: yes you can do single yagi EME on 2m with JT65 but you need to be realistic about it. with 500w and a decent 13-15 element yagi with a good preamp like an SSB Electronics or a Kuhne unit with maybe 0.3-0.4 dB noise figure, you're going to be able to work the big guns, the guys with 4x9 or 4x12 arrays running a kw. they'll decode you easier than you'll decode them but it works. i did my first EME qso with a single M2 2M12 and an SSPA running 350w, took me a while to find someone patient enough but it happened.
the activity thing is probably where people get surprised. its not like HF where there's always someone on. EME activity kind of clusters around the weekends when the moon is at a useful declination, and the big contest weekends like the ARRL EME contest in the fall are honestly the best time for a first qso because everyone and their brother is on. outside of that the ON4KST chat is where you coordinate skeds, people post when they're going to be on and with what antenna direction. you really cant just spin up and call CQ and expect much to happen, at least not at first.

ok so I passed my general exam like 3 weeks ago and ive been trying to figure out exactly where I can operate on HF. I know theres a chart somewhere but honestly the FCC part 97 document is kind of a wall of text and I keep getting confused about which portions of which bands I actually have access to vs what technicians get vs what extras get.
like for example on 40 meters, can I do SSB anywhere or is there a sub-band thing going on? and what about digital modes, do those count differently under the rules? someone at the club mentioned something about a 200 watt limit for generals in certain segments but I wasnt sure if that was real or if he was pulling my leg. just trying to make sure I dont accidentally transmit somewhere I shouldnt be

yeah i just did mine like two months ago and was in the same boat, zero background in electronics. hamstudy was enough, i didnt buy any books. took me about two weeks of casual studying. one thing i'd say is dont just memorize the answers without reading the explanations, some of the questions are worded kinda weird and if you understand the concept a little it helps when they phrase it differently than you expected. also there were a few questions on my test about operating procedures and regulations that i almost got tripped up on so pay attention to that section. good luck, its not as scary as it seems

so ive been messing around with this for a few weeks now and i think im about 70% of the way there but hitting a wall. basically i have an old Yaesu G-450A rotator and i want to drive it from a raspberry pi 4 instead of the controller box, or at least have the pi read the position and log it automatically during contests.
the position pot in the rotator puts out 0-5v depending on where the antenna is pointing and i thought i could just read that with the pi's GPIO but of course the pi doesnt have an ADC so i ended up grabbing an MCP3008 off amazon and wiring that in. got the SPI talking to it okay and im reading values but theyre really noisy, like bouncing around by 20-30 counts even when the rotator isnt moving. not sure if its a grounding issue or if i need some filtering on the input. tried adding a 0.1uf cap to ground on the input pin and it helped a little but still not great.
the actual motor drive side i havent touched yet, was thinking about using a relay board to trigger the CW and CCW lines but i keep reading about people using H-bridge motor controllers instead. the motor in the G-450A is just a basic AC motor though so i dont think a typical H-bridge is gonna work for that? or am i wrong about that
anyway if anyone has done something similar or has ideas about the ADC noise problem id love to hear it. also open to just using an arduino for the analog side since it has a built in ADC and then talk to the pi over serial, maybe that would be cleaner

honestly i just brute forced the question pool with ham study apps for about three weeks and passed. did i deeply understand every question about reactance and LC circuits? no. but some of it does stick with you and you find yourself actually caring about why your antenna tuner is doing what its doing once you have a bit more context from studying
the extra band segments are worth it more than you think depending on where you like to operate. during a pileup or when 40m gets crowded in the evening that little sliver of extra-only spectrum can be surprisingly quiet. and yeah it opens up some of the digital modes sub-bands too which matters if you ever go down that rabbit hole
just do it. the exam isnt as scary as the question pool makes it look once you realize a lot of the answers follow patterns

yeah what he said about the band edge is right. also just a heads up, 40m during evening hours especially around 7.200 and up gets pretty crowded and theres kind of unofficial watering holes that certain nets and dx stations hang around. nothing illegal about operating there but you might step on someone unintentionally. i'd spend a few nights just listening before you transmit and you'll get a feel for where things are. honestly the best way to learn the band is just lurking for a while

so ive been doing CW for about 8 months now and i passed my extra last spring partly because i wanted to get into morse more seriously. been using a Bencher BY-1 paddle with my radio's built in keyer and honestly the sending feels pretty good most days but then other days it just feels like total mush coming out and i cant figure out if its the iambic settings or just me being tense or what.
i've been running around 18 wpm which is comfortable for receiving when the band is clean but sending i sometimes fumble and then i get in my head about it and it gets worse. is there a way to dial in the dit/dah ratio or is the built in keyer on most radios just kind of set and forget. also curious if anyone has opinions on iambic mode A vs mode B because honestly ive read explanations of both like 5 times and i still dont fully understand the practical difference in everyday use
also wondering if paddles vs a straight key would be worth trying for slower practice or if that would just confuse muscle memory at this point