James Wilson94

so i finally did my first SOTA activation last weekend, W4V/SH-001 if anyone knows the area. took me forever to get up there with the pack and i was already kind of tired before i even set up. brought my KX2 and a random wire thrown up in a tree, ran like 5 watts on 40m and 20m.
made 10 contacts which i know isnt a ton but for my first time i was pretty happy. the hardest part was honestly just finding a decent tree to throw the wire over, everything was either too short or too branchy. also my phone was dying so i was scrambling to log on paper which i havent done in years lol
anyone else do activations in the shenandoah area? wondering if theres better spots where the trees cooperate more

oh man i remember my first contest, i had no clue what was happening for the first like two hours lol. one thing nobody told me — write down the exchange format before you start so you're not fumbling during a QSO. for CQ WW it's signal report and CQ zone, which sounds simple but when you're nervous and the other guy is going a mile a minute it helps to have it written on a sticky note or something.
also look up SOTA if you ever want something more chill than a full contest. it's not really a contest but there's awards and points and you go activate summits, really fun way to get portable operating experience. totally different vibe but scratches a similar itch if contests feel too intense at first.

congrats on the first build, MTR-3B is a great kit to start with. Steve Weber designs are really solid and well documented so if something seems off theres usually a good explanation in the build notes or the yahoo group archives (or whatever replaced those).
on the sidetone thing — theres a trim pot inside for adjusting that, pretty sure its labeled on the board. just a small screwdriver and you can dial it up to whatever feels comfortable. i like mine a little lower actually so i dont fatigue on long sessions but thats personal preference.
for portable antennas the EFHW is genuinely hard to beat for simplicity, especially if you wind your own 49:1 unun. you can get the whole thing including wire under 200 grams easy and it'll load up on multiple bands. i use a 40m EFHW for most of my SOTA stuff and it just works. dont overthink the antenna, get out and operate is my advice.

Yeah both stations definitely have to upload to LoTW for a confirmation to show up — that's the part that trips a lot of new folks up. You could have a perfect log entry but if the other guy never uploads his side you'll just sit there waiting forever. Some operators upload every week, some do it once a year, some never bother at all. Just kind of how it is.
Physical cards are still very much a thing, especially in the DX world. A lot of DXers still prefer paper cards for certain awards or just because they like having something tangible. I've got a whole wall of cards going back to the 80s and I'd never give that up. But for DXCC specifically, LoTW is honestly the way to go now — the ARRL accepts LoTW confirmations and it saves you a ton of hassle versus mailing cards back and forth through QSL bureaus which can take like a year or more sometimes.
eQSL is kind of its own separate thing — it's faster and free and a lot of casual operators use it, but it's not accepted for DXCC credit the same way LoTW is. Some awards programs do accept it though. I'd set up all three honestly, takes like an afternoon and then you're covered no matter what the other person prefers.

so i've been meaning to do this for literally two years and last weekend i finally sat down and just did it. got everything into a pelican 1510 case, which is maybe overkill but i had it laying around from an old job. threw in my FT-817ND, a few different antennas, coax, a little 20ah LiFePO4 battery, charging stuff, log sheets, pens, a copy of my license, all that. also grabbed one of those cheap little handheld weather radios because honestly i forgot i even owned it.
the thing that surprised me is how fast it all adds up in terms of weight. like i thought i was being smart by using the 817 since its so small but by the time you add the battery and the coax and everything else im hauling around maybe 18 pounds? which is fine but more than i expected.
my question is for you guys who actually deploy with served agencies or ARES stuff -- what do you wish you'd included that you didn't think of until you were actually in the field? i feel like im probably forgetting something obvious. also is there a standard checklist anywhere that people actually use or does everyone just wing it?

the rx/tx antenna switching on the 857 goes through a set of diodes and a relay, if that relay isnt fully switching over on receive youll get exactly what you describe. tx still works because the tx path is different. check Q1017 area on the RF unit schematic if you can get hold of one, i think the Yaesu service manual is floating around on mods.dk or radiomanual.info. measure the voltage on the relay coil during RX and see if its actually being driven.

so ive been trying to get Winlink going for probably two weeks now and im getting close but not quite there. running Winlink Express on a windows 10 machine, got a Signalink USB hooked up to my IC-7300 and im trying to hit a local RMS gateway on 2m packet first before i mess with HF pactor or vara. the software sees my audio device fine and i can get the TNC configured in the vara FM setup but when i actually try to initiate a session to the gateway it just sits there saying connecting and then eventually times out.
i checked the gateway list and there are two within reasonable range, one about 18 miles out and another maybe 35. tried both frequencies. i can hear packet traffic on the frequency sometimes so i know the radio is receiving. my RF gain is good, ptt is triggering (i can see the ALC moving), but nothing comes back. im wondering if its a timing issue with the TNC settings or maybe my audio levels are totally off. anybody gone through this with vara FM specifically, the documentation is not exactly hand-holdy
also totally open to just doing it over HF if thats easier to get started, i have a decent signal on 40m usually. just figured local VHF packet would be simpler to debug

honestly the jump from tech to general isnt as bad as people make it sound. the math stuff looks scary on paper but you dont really need to derive anything, you just need to recognize which formula applies and the question pool kind of gives it away if you study enough. hamstudy is still your friend here, same as before. i think i spent maybe 3 weeks on it, doing like 20-30 practice questions a day and i was passing the practice tests pretty consistently before i went in.
the electrical theory questions are the part people stress about but honestly once you see them enough times you just kind of memorize the patterns. the propagation stuff is actually interesting once it clicks, like understanding why 40m works better at night and 10m opens up during solar max, that stuff starts making sense when you read a little about it outside of just the question pool.
as for HF privileges, general gets you a solid chunk of all the major bands. 40m alone is worth it, you can ragchew across the country most evenings no problem. 20m is where a lot of the dx action happens and yeah there are segments you cant touch til you get extra but there's plenty of room to play around and have a good time. i wouldnt worry about hitting a wall, most people who upgrade to general end up sitting there for years perfectly happy before they even think about extra.