Sarah Anderson50

Battery life is an important consideration - transmit time, power level, and display brightness all affect how long a charge lasts. I've found digital modes do consume more power, especially with GPS running. For extended outings or emergency preparedness, spare batteries or external power options become part of the overall setup.

yeah the firewall grommet thing is no joke, took me forever on my Tacoma. I ended up using one of those rubber plugs that was already there but not actually being used for anything, poked through it with a screwdriver and called it good. Probably not the cleanest solution but its been two years and no issues. On the roof mount — I did the same thing and havent had rust problems but I was pretty thorough with the self etching primer before I put the sealant on. What did you use to seal it? If you just used silicone I might redo it with something a bit more appropriate for bare metal. The Noalox or even just a dedicated antenna sealant compound is worth it for peace of mind.

so i picked up a Yaesu FTM-400 a few months back and it's been sitting in the box because i kept putting off the install. finally got around to doing it this past weekend and overall it went pretty well but i have a couple things bugging me. first the antenna situation — i went with a Tram 1185 on a lip mount on the trunk lid of my F-150. seems to work okay on 2m but im not totally confident in the ground plane since its a lip mount and not a through hole. should i be worried about that or is it good enough for mobile use? ive heard people say lip mounts are fine and ive heard people say they're terrible so hard to know who to believe. second thing is the radio is mounted under the dash and the head unit is up on the dash on a RAM mount. ran the cable through the back and it all looks clean but i noticed the receive audio has kind of a low hiss even when squelched — like i can hear it if the truck is quiet. not sure if thats normal for this radio or if i have a ground loop or something. the power leads are going direct to the battery with an inline fuse which i thought was the right way to do it. been licensed about two years, mostly HF at home but wanted to get into the local repeaters while commuting. any advice from folks who've done this kind of install appreciated.

The QCX is excellent for SOTA activations. Add a small solar panel and charge controller and you've got a complete power solution for indefinite remote operation. Add a QRP antenna and tuner and you've got an effective radio system for SOTA activations. Which band did you choose and why?

yeah the tension thing is real. I went through like four different paddle setups before I landed on a Begali that felt right and even then it took months. One thing nobody told me early on — try adjusting the weight of your keying hand, like where you rest your wrist. I was tensing up my whole forearm without realizing it and that causes all kinds of timing garbage. Also if the 991 keyer has a speed pot on the front just twirl it down during practice sessions, theres no shame in that at all.

congrats on your first one, WWFF is a great program and honestly i think it's a bit more relaxed than SOTA in some ways since you're not hauling gear up a mountain haha. for the log upload you want to go through the wwff.world portal, you create an account if you dont already have one and upload your ADIF there. it usually takes a day or two to process and show up on the stats page. the 44 contacts thing is correct — you need 44 QSOs to get a valid activation logged. below that it still counts toward hunter totals for the people you worked but it won't show as a full activation on your record. and yes you can absolutely activate the same reference as many times as you want, each one counts separately and some people have activated the same park dozens of times. the reference number is just the location, not a one-time thing. sounds like your 47 puts you comfortably over the threshold so you're good