Steven Clark

yeah the listening part is the thing most people skip and it shows. ive watched pileups on the cluster where guys are clearly just tuned to the published split and hammering away, you can tell because the DX op keeps coming back somewhere totally different and the pileup barely even notices. the ops who crack it are the ones who drifted with the DX station. one thing i'd add - timing your call to end just as the DX finishes their last transmission gives you maybe half a second of relative quiet before the wall hits. sounds dumb but it actually matters. also if you hear the DX start a partial call that sounds like it might be yours, dont stop, finish clean and then wait. a lot of guys panic-tx over the top of themselves when they think they hear their call being returned and that just muddies it. 100w and a yagi is plenty for most pileups honestly. ive worked plenty of rare ones at 100w on a dipole. the amp guys aren't necessarily winning more, they're just louder in the mud with everyone else.

so ive been messing around with remote station control for a while now, started with just RCForb talking to my IC-7300 at home but then I got curious about the SDR side of things and whether I could basically replace the radio with an SDR backend and still have something usable for actual contacts not just listening the RemoteHams client is... okay i guess, it works, but im running into this thing where the audio latency is all over the place depending on what my upstream is doing. I'm on a 25 meg cable connection at the shack end and that should be plenty but some afternoons it just falls apart. the PTT delay gets bad enough that I keep clipping the first syllable of every transmission and people are asking me if my mic is broken the bigger question I have is whether anyone has tried bridging a RemoteHams node into like an Allstar or IRLP network for some kind of hybrid setup. I know that sounds weird but I have a friend who runs a linked repeater system and we were talking about whether you could pull audio off a remote HF station and feed it into a node somehow. mostly just spitballing at this point but curious if anyone has actually thought this through or tried it

so i've been wanting to do LEO satellite work for a while now and last weekend i finally gave AO-73 a proper shot. been doing FM sats for a few months (EO-88, RS-44 occasionally) but linear transponders are a whole different animal honestly managed to make two contacts on my first real pass but i'm still pretty confused about the doppler correction side of things. i'm running a FT-818 and a IC-9700 split — 818 on uplink, 9700 on downlink — with a pair of handheld yagis, not the fanciest setup but it gets out there. my issue is i cant tell if im supposed to be correcting for doppler on uplink, downlink, or both. i've read different things in different places and some of the older guides seem to contradict each other also using gpredict for tracking and it does have the doppler tuning function but ive only gotten it to control the 9700, cant figure out if theres a way to run rig control on both radios simultaneously from gpredict or if people usually just do it manually on one end. the pass windows are short enough that fumbling with corrections is kind of killing me anyway any advice from people who actually do this regularly would be great, not just looking for the theory version

yeah what he said about LoTW, seriously just get that set up. the certificate process can feel intimidating at first but you basically do it once and then its just uploading logs. i wasted like a year doing paper QSLs before i switched over and i wish i hadnt. one thing worth mentioning — each award can also be earned per band and per mode once you have the basics. so like you can have DXCC on 20m SSB, and separately on 40m, and separately on CW, and so on. some people get really deep into chasing the band endorsements and it basically becomes a whole other hobby inside the hobby. i only mention it because once you start looking at your log with that lens you realize every contact is potentially useful for something. that Japan QSO you made counts toward your 20m mixed DXCC tally right now even if you dont know it yet

yeah what he said about the UDP setup, that fixed the same problem for me too. i was doing manual imports forever before someone told me about it, felt kind of dumb after lol. i will say though if you ever get the contest bug even a little bit, spending a weekend really learning N1MM is not wasted time. i resisted it for ages and now i actually kind of use it even for casual operating sometimes just because the radio control stuff is really solid. but for POTA and DX chasing Log4OM is probably the better fit, the awards tracking and the lotw integration is nicer for that kind of thing in my opinion.

the exam isnt that bad imo. did it last spring. there's a few questions where you genuinely need to understand whats going on, like the stuff about transmission lines and standing wave ratios, but a lot of it you can brute force memorize if you're honest with yourself about it. i dont think every Extra class op actually understands every single thing on that test lol. the full priviliges are nice though, especially if you ever get into contesting where those extra few kHz at the bottom of the phone bands matter more than youd think

long shot but did you check if it's still in some kind of low power mode from a contest or something? i know the 7300 can be set to a reduced output and it's not super obvious on the display. my buddy handed me his once at a field day and i thought something was broken, spent like 20 mins before someone pointed at the power setting on screen that i'd just skipped over. probably not your issue since you already looked around but worth a quick sanity check before digging into hardware.

so ive been messing around with remote station control for about 6 months now and i finally got a somewhat stable setup going but im running into some stuff that i cant quite figure out and wanted to see if anyone here has dealt with the same things my main rig is an IC-7300 sitting at a friend's place out in the country, way better noise floor than my HOA nightmare of a QTH. im using RemoteHams to connect to it which mostly works fine for SSB and CW but i started looking at adding an SDR alongside the main radio for panadapter style monitoring and thats where things got complicated. the latency on the audio side is already like 150-180ms which is workable but adding the SDR stream on top of that over the same connection just murders the bandwidth and the whole thing falls apart also been poking around with some internet linking stuff, was thinking about tying in an Allstar node at the remote end so i could do some local VHF monitoring while im on HF with the 7300 but im not sure if running all of that through one connection is just asking for trouble. anyone running a similar multi-radio remote setup? is there a smarter way to handle the bandwidth or should i just give up on the SDR remote piece and stick with the RRC-1258 style approach for the main rig

field day is honestly more chaotic than CQ WW in my experience just because of all the club politics and people tripping over cables lol. dont let that scare you off doing your own thing. i did my first solo contest attempt from my apartment with a magnetic loop and still made like 80 contacts, it was a blast even with the terrible antenna situation. one thing i'd say is download N1MM+ before the contest if you havent already and spend a weekend just getting familiar with the interface. logging software makes a huge difference and you dont want to be figuring out the software at the same time as trying to actually operate. the learning curve isnt bad but its better to do it before not during.

went through the same thing like six months ago. what helped me was just hammering the practice exams over and over on hamstudy until my score was consistently in the 80s and then i went and took it. passed with a few to spare. the impedance and reactance stuff i honestly just pattern matched, im not gonna lie. 40m is so worth it by the way. first night i had my general i stayed up way too late just spinning the dial. good luck with it

honestly the Extra pool is not as bad as people make it out to be. yeah there's some stuff about reactance and impedance matching and a few questions about filter topologies that look intimidating at first but if you go through the ARRL Extra Class License Manual it walks you through the theory in a way that actually makes sense even without a formal background. took me maybe six weeks of casual studying, maybe an hour a night. the question pool is finite and a lot of it starts clicking once you see the same concepts come up in different questions. the HF privileges are worth it alone, getting into the CW portions and the phone subbands that are Extra only opens up a lot especially when the bands get crowded.

so we have a county ARES exercise coming up in about 3 weeks and im finally putting together a proper go-kit style field station instead of just throwing stuff in the back of my truck and hoping for the best. been doing this long enough to know better but never really sat down and thought it through systematically until now. the main question i keep going back and forth on is whether to bring the honda eu2200i or just lean on the LiFePO4 battery setup i've been building out. the battery is a 100ah battleborn with a 30a dc-dc charger and i can run the ic-7300 all day on that no problem for typical emcomm traffic loads, maybe 20-30w average, not like im running a pileup. the issue is if this turns into an extended thing or they want me to run higher power for some reason. antenna side im thinking the chameleon emcomm III portable for HF, its quick to get up and doesnt need a perfect counterpoise situation which matters when youre in a parking lot or some random park. have a 2m/70cm jpole for local stuff. been debating whether to bother with a mast or just slap the chameleon in a tree if theres one around. anyone run a similar setup for exercises? curious if the generator is even worth the noise and hassle for a one or two day thing

so i finally pulled the trigger and did my first activation last weekend up on W4T/SU-064, been lurking on sotawatch for like six months working up the nerve to actually try it. packed way too much gear obviously, my pack was probably 35 lbs and the summit is only like a 2.5 mile approach but still, i was sweating buckets by the time i got to the activation zone. set up my elecraft kx2 with a linked dipole and got it strung between two trees which took way longer than i expected, wind kept blowing the line back in my face. spotted myself on sotawatch and the pile up started pretty fast actually, managed 12 contacts on 40m before the band went weird on me and i couldn't hear much. switched to 20m and grabbed a few more, ended up with 18 total which is enough to qualify the summit but i really wanted more. the thing that got me was i forgot to bring a notepad so i was logging on the back of a granola bar wrapper, which worked fine actually but my handwriting was a disaster. anyway the whole thing was worth it, views were incredible and there were two chasers who had been waiting specifically for that summit to be activated so that felt pretty cool. anyone else remember their first activation being kind of chaotic like this?

so i just got my general a few months back and someone at the club mentioned ARES and that our county group meets monthly so i figured id check it out. went last tuesday and it was actually a lot more organized than i expected? they had like a net check in, talked about some upcoming training exercises, and there was a guy doing a presentation on ICS which went way over my head honestly. my question is kind of vague i guess but like... what does actually getting involved look like. do they just call you when something happens or is there a bunch of training you have to do first. i dont want to show up at some disaster scene and have no idea what im doing. also someone mentioned RACES which i thought was the same thing but apparently its different? still a little fuzzy on that distinction

SO2R is absolutely a practice thing, dont let anyone tell you otherwise. the first few contests you try it you will be a disaster, thats just the reality. your brain isnt wired to track two QSO streams at once so it takes time to build that muscle. i spent probably 4 or 5 contests just using the second radio to listen and spot mults before i actually tried to work anything on it simultaneously. the k3 plus 7300 combo is actually pretty solid for this since the k3 has the audio routing flexibility you need. biggest thing before anything else is getting your antenna isolation sorted because if you're transmitting on one and it's wiping out the other radio you cant do anything useful. there are bandpass filter setups like the dunestar or 4o3a stuff that help a lot depending on how your antennas are situated. on the rate question without SO2R, the run vs SandP decision really comes down to watching your rate meter in n1mm. i use a 10 minute rolling average and if it drops below like 60-70 on phone or 80-90 on cw i start thinking about moving. but also check if the band is actually dying or if its just a lull, sometimes waiting it out pays off especially if you have a good freq. holding a run freq during a slow period is sometimes the right call because you spent effort getting it and itll pick back up.

interesting, I hadn't even considered this mod honestly. I run FT8 on my 7300 pretty regularly and never noticed drift being an issue but maybe I just don't look closely enough. Does the stock oscillator spec get worse as the radio ages or is it pretty much the same out of the box as after a few years of use? I ask because mine is about 3 years old now and I swear it used to decode a little cleaner but that could just be me imagining things or the band conditions being different. Also curious if this voids the Icom warranty, not that mine is still under warranty but just wondering.

i went through the same exact debate lol. ended up with the 7300 and zero regrets but i also just bought a cheap baofeng brick for the occasional 2m net so that kinda solved the problem. the 7300 SDR architecture really does make a difference once you start operating on crowded band conditions, the panadapter alone changes how you find activity. anyway the 991A isnt a bad radio at all, i just think for home base HF the 7300 is purpose built for that and it shows

that plateau around 10-12 is super common and honestly almost everyone hits it. what helped me was switching to listening to actual QSOs instead of machine-generated code — theres something about real operators that trains your brain differently, like the rhythm is slightly off in a human way and once you can handle that the clean machine stuff feels easier. i used to tune around 20m in the evenings and just copy what i could, not worrying about getting 100% just trying to grab callsigns or common words. also and this is the one thing i wish someone had told me earlier — if you havent tried Farnsworth timing, give it a shot. sending characters at 20wpm but with extra space between them so the overall speed is like 10-12wpm. your brain learns the character sounds at the faster rate and then as you close the gaps it comes together. took me about 8 months total to get comfortably to 20 but i wasnt practicing every single day either, probably 4-5 days a week average. dont get discouraged, that plateau really does break eventually.

I had similar issues after updating. The solution was to run volk_profile utility before running gqrx - this detects and enables processor-specific optimizations and gives significant performance boost. Same principle applies to GNU Radio - the VOLK kernels need optimization after major updates.

oh also dont forget to log the park reference number in your actual log not just the app — i forgot to do that my first two activations and had to go back and fix everything manually when i uploaded. small thing but annoying. have fun out there

the TCXO-9 sourcing situation is genuinely annoying. i got one from a seller on one of the japanese surplus electronics sites a while back but that was a few years ago and i have no idea if they still have stock. might be worth checking the usual suspects on ebay but watch out for counterfeits, had a guy in our club get burned on a fake one that was way off spec. yaesu themselves used to be a reasonable source but good luck getting anything out of their parts department these days. on the filter thing though, i did the 500hz CW filter in mine and it made a noticeable difference on crowded contest weekends. the SSB filter swap is a bit trickier because you really need to think about which filter slot youre putting it in and what youre giving up. some people go with a 1.8khz collins mechanical but honestly i found the stock 2.3khz is fine for casual SSB and the real improvement came from just tweaking the IF shift and width controls more carefully. your mileage may vary obviously

same boat as you like six months ago lol. what helped me was the ARRL handbook has a section that kinda summarizes the important parts of 97 without all the legal language. also there are some youtube videos that walk through it pretty clearly. the wattage stuff confused me too for a while but for HF as a tech you mostly just need to worry about not going over 200 watts on certain bands i think, or was it specific frequencies... anyway someone will correct me on that. the main thing is just dont transmit where youre not supposed to and keep your station ID every 10 minutes during a contact and at the end

yeah selectivity on crystal radios is kind of just... rough in general unless you go dual tuned or something more complicated. ive messed around with a few of these and the coil winding is pretty critical, even how tightly you wind it matters. also what are you using for headphones? high impedance phones make a noticeable difference, the low impedance stuff you get from modern earbuds wont work nearly as well with a simple diode detector like that

so ive been watching the solar flux index pretty closely for the past few weeks and something feels off to me. we're supposedly in a decent part of the cycle right now but 10m has been really inconsistent. some afternoons it just opens up like crazy and i can work europe no problem from the midwest, then the next day at the same time its basically dead. like i can hear a carrier or two but nothing workable. checked the DXmaps site and there were some spots showing openings but i wasnt hearing any of it. my setup hasnt changed, still running the same dipole at about 30 feet. wondering if its a geomagnetic thing or just me. K index looked elevated a couple days ago which might explain some of it but even on days when its been quiet the band seems unpredictable. anyone else seeing this or am i just chasing my tail here

yeah you definitely pick most of them up over time, but there are some you really should just memorize early on cause they come up constantly. QTH is your location, QSO is a contact or conversation, QRM is interference from other stations, QRN is natural static/noise, QSB is fading signal, QRZ means whos calling or who is this, and QRT means shutting down or going off the air so if someone says theyre going QRT they're done for the night basically. QSL is a big one too, it just means confirmed or acknowledged, thats where QSL cards come from. most of these originated with morse code operators back in the day and yeah some of them feel a little weird saying out loud on voice but people do use them on phone too, especially on HF. honestly just hang around the bands and nets for a few more months and it clicks pretty fast, your brain starts pattern matching without even trying