James Brown39

i left mine stock and probably always will tbh. voided warranty stuff makes me nervous and im not confident enough in my soldering to poke around inside a radio i paid that much for. but curious what preamp you used, did you build it yourself or buy a module? ive seen some cheap LNA boards on ebay that people use for SDR dongles and always wondered if those were any good for actual use

this is stuff i wish someone told me earlier tbh. i spent like two hours calling a VP8 last year and never got through and looking back i was doing basically everything wrong, calling on the wrong vfo, not listening carefully to where the op was tuning, just blasting my call over and over. felt like shouting into a fan. one thing i read somewhere was about sending just the last two letters of your call in a really big pileup because the op only needs to distinguish you from the crowd not hear your whole call. does that actually work or is that just a myth that gets passed around? im still pretty new to serious DX chasing so i genuinely dont know

Taking both exams at the same time can save money since VEs typically charge $15 for one, two or all three exams. I studied for both simultaneously and passed - just be sure you're truly ready for the General material.

yeah the zero is gonna hurt you here, its just not got the headroom for real-time audio processing plus running rigctld plus wifi all at once. i tried something similar last year and gave up on the zero pretty quick. moved to a pi 3b+ and the difference was night and day, latency dropped to under 150ms which is workable for casual use. still not great but you stop noticing it after a few minutes. one thing that helped me a lot was switching away from mumble to just using darkice piping directly into icecast, then pulling the stream on the other end. sounds weird but the jitter buffering was more predictable. also make sure youre running the pi with a proper power supply, i had all kinds of weird audio glitches that turned out to be the crappy usb charger i was using causing voltage sag under load. if you really want to stick with the zero, look into whether you can offload the audio to the client side more and just have the pi doing serial control. some guys just use a cheap android tablet as the audio endpoint and let the pi only handle CAT. not ideal but it works.

okay so this is actually something i wish someone had sat me down and explained properly when i started too. here's how i think about it after a few years of doing this: LoTW is the one that really matters for ARRL awards like DXCC and WAS. its run by the ARRL and the confirmations are cryptographically signed to your callsign and location, which is why the cert setup is a pain but also why its trusted. eQSL has its own awards system and some people swear by it but ARRL doesnt accept eQSL for DXCC. so if DXCC is on your radar you really do need to get LoTW sorted out. the TQSL thing is annoying the first time but honestly once you get through it its pretty much automatic. i just upload my log every few days and forget about it. there are some good youtube walkthroughs that make it less scary than the official docs. as for paper cards, i still send and receive them and i love it. got a card last year from a guy in Kazakhstan that i have pinned up right next to my desk. its totally optional for awards if you use LoTW but some DX stations only confirm by bureau or direct mail, especially older ops who never bothered with the digital stuff. so dont throw away paper cards entirely, you never know when youll need one for a contact that never uploads to LoTW.

Welcome to the net world, its actually a lot of fun once you get into it. The ARRL has a net directory on their website that lets you search by band and mode and time zone, thats probably the easiest starting point. For someone on a tech license with a HT or basic VHF setup, look for 2 meter or 70cm FM nets in your region. A lot of them are super friendly to newcomers, you literally just wait for net control to call for check-ins and then give your callsign. Thats really it. Some nets have a specific topic each week and others are just a round table where everyone gets a turn to talk briefly. The special event station thing is a bit different, those aren't usually nets, they're just stations set up to commemorate something and you call them to get a contact in your log and sometimes you can get a certificate or a QSL card. You'd just tune around and listen for them calling CQ or look up their frequency ahead of time on qrz or the special event station calendar. Both are worth doing honestly.

wait 10 meters was open?? i had no idea, i was probably messing around on 40 like always haha. im still pretty new to this and i dont really check propagation forecasts the way i probably should. is there a good site or app you guys use to know when to look at the higher bands? i feel like i always miss these things

so ive been messing around with remote station control for a while now and i finally got a decent setup running at my parents place since i cant have antennas here at the apartment. been using RemoteHams for the client software and honestly its not bad, the audio latency is manageable on a decent connection but i keep wondering if theres a smarter way to handle the SDR side of things right now im running an IC-7300 over there and the RemoteHams RRC-1258 boxes handle the control link, which works fine for voice and basic digital but i started thinking — what if i added an SDRplay or something similar at the remote end and piped that back separately for a wideband panadapter view while the rig is doing its thing. has anyone tried running a parallel SDR stream alongside the RRC link without the two interfering with each other or eating up all the bandwidth the internet at that location is only like 15-20Mbps up so i have to be realistic about what i can pull back. also im vaguely interested in the internet linking angle, like could i tie this into an Allstar node somehow or is that a completely different rabbit hole. probably overthinking it but figured id ask before i go buying hardware i dont need

so i've been licensed for about 8 months now (tech) and i keep going back and forth on whether i want to try learning CW. i know its not required anymore but theres something about it that just seems cool and a lot of the guys at my club swear by it for weak signal stuff and dx and whatever else. my question is more like... where do you even start. i downloaded like 3 different apps and they all seem totally different in terms of how they approach it and i cant tell if im doing something completely wrong or if theres just no right way. one of them has you learn letters one at a time which feels slow, another throws like random characters at me right away. i practiced for maybe two weeks and then got frustrated and quit. should i just be more patient or is there a better method im missing

yeah the ARRL has a band plan chart that lays it out way better than trying to parse the actual FCC document. just google ARRL band plan and you'll find the pdf. for 40m as a general you got 7.025 to 7.125 for CW and digital stuff and then 7.175 to 7.300 for phone, but extras have a slightly wider chunk on both ends which is why sometimes you hear activity below 7.175 that you cant join in on yet. the main thing people mess up early on is forgetting that even within your allowed frequencies, there are gentlemens agreements about where to operate certain modes. like you wouldnt want to fire up SSB right in the middle of where everyone does digital. its not a rule exactly but you'll hear about it pretty quick if you do it. just stick to the ARRL chart for now and youll be fine, the actual part 97 text is really more for edge cases and enforcement stuff

so i just upgraded to General last month and im already thinking about applying for a vanity call. my current sequential call is kind of a mouthful and id really like something shorter if possible. ive been reading about the process on the ULS website and honestly its a bit confusing to me still. from what i understand you file through the FCC ULS, pick up to 25 callsigns you want in order of preference, and then theres like a waiting period? but i keep reading different things about how long the wait is. some posts i found say 18 days, some say less, and im not sure if thats changed recently or if it depends on the license class or what. also does it matter which call district you apply for or do you have to pick ones in your region? i live in the 4th district but i kind of like some calls in the 2 district for some reason lol. is that even allowed or do you have to match your address any help appreciated, this whole thing is getting a bit overwhelming for the paperwork side of amateur radio which i did not expect to be the confusing part

Traffic nets are definitely a bit more structured and yeah they can feel intimidating at first. Totally fine to check in even if you dont have traffic to pass — most NCS folks will just acknowledge you and move on, you might hear something like "no traffic" listed next to your call. The NTS system has been around forever and the regulars are generally pretty patient with newer folks as long as you follow the format. For something more relaxed, look for a local club net or a ragchew net in your area. A lot of those are just people catching up and they actively want newer hams to check in. The ARRL has a net directory you can search by band and time, thats probably the easiest place to start hunting. Once you find a couple that fit your schedule just lurk for a session or two before checking in, you'll get the rhythm pretty quick. Special event stations are a different animal — those are usually just worked as a contact, you call them, exchange info, sometimes get a QSL or a certificate. Not really net-based most of the time, more like a DX-style operation but usually on easier frequencies.

so this has been driving me nuts for about three weeks now. my 7300 will be running fine, maybe 30 or 40 watts into a dummy load, then suddenly it just drops — like sometimes it goes down to 5 watts for no reason, sometimes it comes back on its own after a few seconds, sometimes i have to cycle power to get it back to normal. no ALC weirdness on the display that i can see, SWR looks fine the whole time. ive swapped the coax between the rig and the dummy load, tried a different power supply (same issue), checked all the connections on the rear panel. i even ran it with the fan off to see if maybe it was a thermal thing triggering something but that didnt seem to change anything. happened both on 40m and 20m so it doesnt appear to be band specific. im thinking maybe a bad solder joint somewhere on the PA board but honestly im a little nervous to start poking around inside a radio i paid this much for. has anyone seen this on a 7300 or something similar? wondering if its worth pulling the board or if i should just send it to icom service first.

yeah that 40-60% drop is almost always a timing or audio level thing in my experience. first thing id check is whether your IC-7300 has the USB send/keying set up right in the menu - theres a setting for DATA MOD that needs to point to USB and not the front mic. if its double-keying or theres any audio bleed from the front panel thats enough to corrupt the packet mid-transfer. also VARA HF at 70% TX sounds fine on paper but sometimes the actual output from the radio is too hot even if VARA thinks its okay. try pulling it back to 50-55% and see if you get cleaner handshakes. the Signalink has its own TX knob too - people forget that and end up with the two gains fighting each other. what do your waterfall tones look like? if theyre splashing or distorting at all thatll kill a session every time. the RMS gateway will just bail if it sees garbage.

so ive been a tech for about two years now and ive mostly just been doing VHF/UHF stuff, some APRS, helped out with a few local events for emcomm. but honestly ive been wanting to get on HF for a while and keep putting off studying for general. my buddy keeps telling me the test isnt that bad but i dont know, some of the stuff i see in the question pool looks pretty intimidating, like the electrical theory questions and the propagation stuff. anyway i guess my actual question is how long did it take you guys to study and is there a good way to approach it or do you kind of just grind the question pool and hope for the word. i downloaded hamstudey or whatever its called but im not sure if thats the best way. also does knowing the theory actually help for HF operating or is it mostly just test stuff

so ive been using N1MM pretty much exclusively for the past few years mostly because thats what everyone at the club uses and it made sense to just go with what people could help me with. works fine for contests obviously, its basically the gold standard for that, but outside of contest weekends its kind of clunky for just day to day logging. like i'll work a station on 40m CW and i have to do all this extra stuff to get it logging properly outside of a contest context, or maybe im just not setting it up right. anyway someone mentioned Log4OM at the last club meeting and i downloaded it and messed around with it for a few hours. the interface is way more friendly for general logging, clublog integration seems solid, and the QRZ lookups work great. but i'm worried about giving up N1MM for contests because i dont want to lose all that functionality. does anyone run both? like use Log4OM day to day and then fire up N1MM just for contest weekends? does that get messy with the ADIF imports or do dupes become a problem going back and forth also i run WSJT-X for FT8 and right now its logging directly to N1MM via the UDP port thing which works fine. not sure how Log4OM handles that or if it even does. would appreciate any thoughts from people who actually run this kind of hybrid setup

JS8Call is definitely less populated than FT8 but its not dead, you just have to know when to look. 40m is actually decent but i've had better luck on 20m during the afternoon, roughly 14.078. there's also a small but pretty active group that uses it for keyboard-to-keyboard rag chewing, which is honestly what drew me to it in the first place. the whole point is you dont need a full signal to copy each other which is nice when conditions are marginal. 7.078 is correct for 40m so you had the right frequency. might just be a timing thing. also the heartbeat feature where stations beacon automatically helps a lot for finding activity — if you havent turned that on yet its worth doing, basically lets you see whos around without them having to actively transmit a message.

I was in the exact same spot about a year ago and ended up going with the FT-65 after way too much research lol. Honestly really happy with it. Battery lasts forever and I've knocked it off my desk a few times with no issues. The menus are a little quirky but you get used to it. Only thing I'll say is if APRS is a real priority for you from the start, you might want to look at something with that built in because adding it externally is kind of a whole extra thing.

i just passed mine like two months ago so same boat as you pretty much. took me maybe 4 weeks of casual studying, wasnt super intense about it. Gordon West book helped me understand the why behind stuff rather than just memorizing answers, but towards the end i did switch to just hammering practice exams on the ARRL site. one thing nobody told me that caught me off guard -- make sure you actually understand the band plan stuff because there were a couple questions on there that I almost second guessed myself on. also bring your Tech license to the VE session, i almost forgot mine lol

honest answer — the general pool has more meat to it than tech but it's not some huge leap. the electrical stuff tripped me up too at first but once you get ohm's law and the basic circuit stuff to click it makes the rest easier to follow. i'd say dont just memorize blindly if you can help it because some of the questions are worded weird and if you actually understand what they're asking you wont get faked out by the similar-looking wrong answers. hamStudy is solid, i used it when i upgraded and just kept doing practice exams until i was consistently hitting like 85% or better, then i felt okay going in. propagation questions seem intimidating but there's really only so many ways they can ask about ionospheric layers and skip distance before it starts repeating. give yourself a few weeks of studying maybe 20-30 minutes a day and you should be fine. the general is definitely passable without being an engineer, lots of people with zero background pass it

congrats on the 7300, its a solid radio. on the NR/NB question i basically leave NR around 3-4 for most operating and only crank it up if things get really bad. anything above 5 or 6 and voices start sounding kinda underwater to me, like that weird processing artifact. for NB i actually leave it off most of the time unless theres pulse noise like from a plasma TV or something nearby, because it can create its own artifacts on some signals. the notch filter though, the manual one, thats something i use constantly for that one carrier that always seems to show up on 40m in the evenings. the spectrum scope thing you mentioned is real, i said the same thing to a buddy before i got mine and then felt dumb after because yeah it really does change how you approach a band. wait til you try it on 10m when the band opens, its almost exciting to watch.

so ive been using Log4OM for general logging for a while now and honestly love it for day to day stuff, the interface is clean and the integration with stuff like QRZ and eQSL works pretty seamlessly. but every time contest season rolls around im kind of in this awkward spot where i feel like i should be running N1MM because thats what everyone on the club nets seems to be using. the thing is i tried setting up N1MM last winter for the ARRL DX CW contest and the config just killed me, spent like two hours messing with the function key messages and still wasnt happy with it. i know its the gold standard for contesting and the SO2R stuff is obviously way more capable than anything else but for a casual single-op low power guy is it really worth the learning curve every time also been messing around with WSJT-X and the logging there is its own whole thing. right now im piping WSJT-X into Log4OM through the UDP broadcast and it mostly works but i get dupes showing up occasionally that i know i already worked. wondering if anyone else has a workflow that ties all three of these together without losing your mind

so ive been messing with APRS for a few months now and finally got a TNC-Pi running on a Pi 4 with Direwolf and everything seems fine on the RF side — my Baofeng hits the local digi no problem, i can see my packets getting repeated on the RF channel when i monitor with a second radio. but they never show up on aprs.fi or findu or anywhere online. the digipeater is definitely active because other stations are showing up fine on the map. im using WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 path which should be right for my area, and my SSID is set to -9 since im mostly mobile. Direwolf is configured as a TNC passthrough basically, not running its own igate. is that the problem? do i need a separate igate in the area picking me up directly? i thought the digi would handle forwarding to the internet but maybe i have that wrong. the digi owner hasnt responded to my emails so im kind of just guessing at this point.

You'll need to go into LoTW and prepare the application yourself - select the QSOs you want and make payment there. I'd suggest starting with LoTW since it's faster and cheaper. The online fee is about half of the traditional paper application, plus you'll get your certificate sooner!

I'm looking to get into DX spotting on my phone while traveling for work. Currently using QRZ's web cluster on my mobile browser but it's a bit clunky. There's a DX Spots app that shows live feed of the cluster network on all bands and modes with many filters to choose from, but wondering what others are using? Also curious about HamAlert - it's a companion app to hamalert.org that lets you get push notifications when desired stations appear on the Reverse Beacon Network, SOTAwatch, POTA, the DX cluster or PSK Reporter. Anyone have experience setting up triggers for specific DXCC entities or contest stations? What's your go-to setup for mobile spotting and alerting? Looking for something that won't drain battery but keeps me informed of good openings.