James Brown39

so we finally got our county ARES group to run a proper SET last Saturday and honestly it was way more eye-opening than I expected. been doing this hobby for about 12 years and thought I had a pretty good handle on how emergency comms would go but wow, we had some real gaps show up fast.
the scenario was a prolonged power outage across three counties, EOC activations, the whole deal. we had maybe 14 operators show up which was actually better turnout than I expected but here's where it got interesting — about a third of them hadnt actually tested their go-kits in over a year. one guy's battery was completely dead, another had a radio that had been dropped at some point and the display was glitchy. nothing catastrophic but exactly the kind of stuff you dont find out about until you need the gear.
the other thing that really stood out was net control. we had two people sort of trying to be net control at the same time for the first hour because nobody had clearly been assigned that role ahead of time. message traffic was a mess. we use Winlink for our digital side and that went pretty smoothly actually, the VHF nets had more confusion than anything.
anyway curious if other groups do these regularly and what kind of scenarios you've found most useful. we're thinking about doing one that simulates a communications blackout where we have to fall back to HF only and work around it.

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

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.

so ive been chasing summits for about 6 months now and finally decided to just do it and activate one myself. going up W4T/SU-017 tomorrow morning, its only a 2 pointer but its close to home and the trail isnt too brutal so figured it was a good one to start with.
got my KX2 packed, a 40/20m linked dipole im gonna string up between some trees if i can find a good spot, and a 4ah lipo that should be more than enough for a couple hours. spotted myself ahead of time on SOTAwatch already, set for 10am local which should give me time to get up there and get set up.
honestly the thing im most nervous about is the actual operating part — like what if i cant get 4 contacts and dont qualify the summit. i know 4 sounds easy but ive read posts where people said conditions were rough and they were up there for an hour calling CQ with nothing. also not totally sure on the proper way to do the summit-to-summit exchanges if another activator calls me, do i just do a normal QSO or is there specific info i need to log?
anyway just wanted to see if anyone had any been-there-done-that advice before i head out

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.

honestly just jump in, worst thing that happens is you make some contacts and have fun. sweepstakes is actually a good one for newer operators because it keeps you domestic so youre not dealing with crazy pile-ups from dx stations at 3am. the exchange is a little weird at first (there's like 5 or 6 pieces of info you swap) but you get used to it fast
your 7300 is a great radio for contesting by the way, the bandscope alone makes it so much easier to find activity

so ive been chasing summits for about 6 months now and finally decided to just do it and activate one myself. going up W4T/SU-017 tomorrow morning, its only a 2 pointer but its close to home and the trail isnt too brutal so figured it was a good one to start with.
got my KX2 packed, a 40/20m linked dipole im gonna string up between some trees if i can find a good spot, and a 4ah lipo that should be more than enough for a couple hours. spotted myself ahead of time on SOTAwatch already, set for 10am local which should give me time to get up there and get set up.
honestly the thing im most nervous about is the actual operating part — like what if i cant get 4 contacts and dont qualify the summit. i know 4 sounds easy but ive read posts where people said conditions were rough and they were up there for an hour calling CQ with nothing. also not totally sure on the proper way to do the summit-to-summit exchanges if another activator calls me, do i just do a normal QSO or is there specific info i need to log?
anyway just wanted to see if anyone had any been-there-done-that advice before i head out

Finally bit the bullet and ordered the HYS TC-YG08UV dual-band Yagi after reading good things about 9.5/11.5dBi gain figures. Got it mounted on a 20ft mast, but I'm seeing some strange behavior. SWR shows acceptable at 1.8:1 on 2m but jumps to 2.3:1 on 70cm when the boom is pointed north-south. When rotated 90 degrees east-west, both bands drop to under 1.5:1. Has anyone experienced directional SWR variation with these Chinese Yagis? The element mounting screws were indeed tough to tighten as advertised - took considerable effort but everything seems mechanically solid.

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

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