Michael O'Connor

im kind of in the same boat as you actually, been at it for like 3 weeks using the LCWO website which is free and browser based. its based on Koch and you can set your own speed targets. i started at 15wpm character speed with Farnsworth spacing and its been rough but i can do the first like 9 characters pretty reliably now one thing i read was that trying to do more than 20-30 min a day doesnt really help, something about how your brain needs to consolidate the sounds overnight. dont know if thats true but i figured id mention it. also morse code ninja on youtube has a ton of practice files at different speeds which i use when im bored in the car, just listening not copying, and that seems to help too

yeah what he said, AE7Q is the site you want. i went through this whole process about a year ago and spent way too long just browsing available calls on there. one thing i'll add -- think carefully about what you actually want before you apply because changing your callsign again later means going through the whole process again and waiting another 30 days. i picked mine kind of on a whim and its fine but in retrospect i wouldve thought harder about phonetics and how it sounds on the air, especially for HF where youre saying your call a lot. anyway good luck with it, its kind of a fun rabbit hole to go down

ok so ive been listening to a lot of HF lately and people keep saying stuff like QSL and QRZ and QTH and honestly i have no idea what any of it means. i know theres like a whole list of Q codes somewhere but when i look it up i get like 50 of them and i dont know which ones actually get used vs which ones are just historical or whatever also people say things like 73 and 88 and i figured out 73 means best regards kind of but what does 88 mean and why do people use numbers instead of just saying the words. and sometimes i hear people say things like OM or YL or XYL and i dont know if those are callsigns or what. im a new tech who just got my license last month so sorry if this is a dumb question

so ive been working on getting my CW speed up over the past few months and im stuck around 18-20 wpm. the problem isnt really copying, its my sending that falls apart. i use an old Bencher BY-1 paddle into a Winkeyer USB and at slower speeds everything sounds clean but once i push past like 22 wpm the dits start running together or i get extra dahs i didnt intend. ive messed with the weight setting in the Winkeyer software a bit but honestly i dont fully understand what im tweaking. im wondering if its a paddle tension issue or if its just my technique needs work. the gap between the two paddles feels about right to me but i honestly dont have anything to compare it to. been doing CW for about a year and a half, passed my general last spring. any advice from people who have been through this would be really appreciated, feeling a little stuck

yeah i ran that exact combo for about two years, N1MM for contests and Log4OM as my main shack log. the import/export isnt too bad honestly — Log4OM will take an ADIF just fine and N1MM exports to ADIF so you can pull your contest results in after the fact without too much headache. i set up a folder that WSJT-X writes its log to and then just do a periodic import into Log4OM so at least everything ends up in one place eventually the LoTW thing though, yeah thats where it got messy for me. WSJT-X has its own LoTW upload settings and if you dont have that sorted out youll have dupes or missing QSOs. i ended up just disabling auto-upload in WSJT-X and doing everything through Log4OM manually. more steps but at least i know whats actually been submitted Log4OM's award tracking is genuinely good if you work DXCC or WAS, way better than trying to do it in N1MM which really isnt designed for that at all

So ive been running WSJT-X for FT8 for about a year now and just logging everything to the built-in ADIF file and manually importing to my shack log every few weeks which is obviously a terrible way to do things. finally decided to actually set up proper logging software that talks to WSJT-X in real time. the two i keep seeing recommended are N1MM Logger+ and Log4OM. from what i can tell N1MM is really geared toward contest ops and Log4OM is more of an everyday general logger but supposedly both can interface with WSJT-X over UDP. my question is which one actually works better in practice for someone who does a mix of things — some FT8, occasional SSB contests like sweepstakes and field day, and general rag chewing when the bands cooperate. i dont really need the full N1MM contest powerhouse stuff but i also dont want something that falls apart when i actually sit down for a contest. heard Log4OM can do contest logging but also heard its kind of an afterthought in that software. anyone actually use both and have an opinion that isnt just "well i use X so X is the best"

Oh man I remember being exactly where you are. Honestly the Baofeng UV-5R debate is kind of a rite of passage in this hobby. Here's my take after going through a few radios myself — the Baofeng isn't bad for learning, it's just a bit of a pain to program without the software and cable, and the build quality is what you'd expect for $25. If your budget goes up to $150 I'd seriously look at the Yaesu FT-65 or maybe a used FT-60 if you can find one. The FT-60 is basically a tank and the receive is noticeably cleaner on the local repeaters compared to the cheaper stuff. For APRS down the road you'd eventually want something like the VX-8DR or look into a TinyTrak setup but that's a whole other rabbit hole, don't worry about that yet. Just get on the air first and figure out what you actually need as you go.

passed mine about 6 months ago, hamstudy was the main thing i used too. honestly i spent more time than i needed to because i was trying to actually understand everything instead of just learning the answers. both approaches work but if you just want to pass the test the fastest way is drilling the question pool. you can always learn the why later once you're on the air. one thing that tripped me up was the regulations section, like remembering which frequencies techs are allowed to operate on, the band privileges stuff. just made a little cheat sheet for myself and ran through it a few times. also the exam itself is only 35 questions and you need 26 right so theres more wiggle room than you'd think

ok so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, like probably a year of just watching youtube videos and lurking on forums like this one, and i finally decided i actually want to go through with getting licensed. but honestly im kind of overwhelmed about where to start. theres the technician exam obviously but i dont even know what study materials are actually worth using vs just noise. someone at work mentioned the ARRL book but then someone else said just use hamstudy.org and dont bother with books at all. also how hard is the test really? i did fine in school but that was a long time ago and i havent really done anything with electronics or radio stuff in years. any advice would be appreciated, i just dont want to spend months studying for something i could have knocked out in a few weeks

lol same. i just got my tech a few months ago and half the time i just sit there not sure what to actually do. my elmer said just listen for a while but at some point i feel like im just procrastinating actually transmitting

went through the same confusion when i upgraded lol. one thing that helped me was just downloading the ARRL band plan chart and keeping it next to the radio for a while. also yeah the band edge thing burned me once, i was on 7.299 thinking i was fine and someone told me i was technically splattering outside the band. felt pretty dumb but live and learn i guess

nice, ive been wanting to try this for ages. did you self spot or did someone else spot you? thats the part im not sure about with my setup, i dont always have cell service on the summits near me and im not sure how the whole alerting thing works without data

the linked dipole on a spiderpole setup is pretty much what we use for every exercise and it works great, we've done it on 80/40/20 with a 40ft jackite and it holds up fine in moderate wind. 40 feet of LMR-400 is a little heavy but yeah you'll appreicate the low loss especially if you're running modest power. on the power question — i cant speak to the bioenno specifically but i will say dont underestimate how much the laptop draws if it's got a big screen or a dedicated GPU. some of those logging laptops people drag out are old chunky things that pull 40-50w by themselves. measure it with a watt meter before you commit to leaving the generator home, just tape the meter in line for a couple hours during a practice session and you'll know exactly what you're dealing with. kind of a pain but worth it to not get caught at hour five with dead batteries.

i had almost the exact same thing happen with my first 40m dc receiver a few years back. ended up being that i had the audio output wire running right next to the input coil and it was feeding back just enough to make a mess. moved the wiring around and half the birdies went away. ugly construction is great but sometimes you gotta be a little intentional about where stuff physically sits relative to each other. also dont underestimate the wall wart if thats what youre powering it from, switching supplies are awful for this kind of thing. i switched to a 7812 off a small transformer and it cleaned up a lot.

yeah i ran RemoteHams for about two years with an IC-7300 at a remote site about 45 miles from home. the audio path in the newer client versions is pretty much direct UDP between you and the host machine, theres a server in the middle for the initial handshake and session negotiation but the actual audio and CAT data goes peer to peer once the connection is established, at least thats how it worked when i last dug into it. so your latency is basically your internet path plus whatever the host machines processing overhead is. the SDR panoramic thing though, thats where it gets interesting. ive seen people feed an SDRplay into SDR-Console and then kind of run that alongside the RemoteHams session in a separate window so you get the waterfall from the SDR while the actual TX and RX audio goes through the rig. its a bit janky to set up honestly and you end up with two separate connections but it does work. the delay i had on CW was workable, maybe 150ms on a good day over my home cable connection, not great but i could still copy and send without completely losing my mind. 200ms plus though and it starts feeling really wrong.

Oh man yeah that doubling thing happens to everyone at first, dont stress about it at all. The pause thing is kind of feel by feel honestly — on most nets i wait about a second after net control finishes before I key up, sometimes two seconds if the band sounds busy. Some guys count to like half a breath and just go for it. You'll start to get a sense of the rhythm after a few weeks. And no, checking in with nothing further is completely fine and totally normal. A lot of people do it every single week just to be counted and support the net, that's actually kind of the point. Net control knows who you are after a while and it's all good. The main thing is you showed up and made the effort, that counts for something.

okay so the short version is you dont HAVE to use all of them but most active hams end up using at least LoTW and paper cards eventually, eQSL is kind of optional depending on what youre after. LoTW is the one you want if youre chasing DXCC or any of the ARRL awards, confirmations there are the only ones that count for official credit. the interface is a bit clunky i wont lie, but once you get your certificate set up and you understand how to sign your logs with TQSL it becomes pretty automatic. the key thing is both stations have to upload their log and the system matches them up, so you might upload a contact today and not see a confirmation for weeks or months until the other guy gets around to uploading his log. eQSL is more casual and yeah you do see a lot of european and russian stations using it, also a big chunk of the digital mode crowd. it doesnt count for DXCC but theres its own award system if you care about that. some people use it just because its fast and you get a little graphic card which is kind of fun. paper cards through the bureau are slow, like really slow, we're talking months sometimes, but theyre great for keeping or framing. if someone sent you a card and you want to send one back you can just send it direct to their callsign at their national society address, thats the easiest way when youre starting out. printing a small batch of cards isnt that expensive, sites like KB0TTL bureau info page or even just googling custom QSL cards will get you there. honestly just get your LoTW uploads automated first, thats the most important one if awards matter to you at all

yeah the D2101 is the right one on most of the 857D boards, at least on the ones ive seen. the D2103 thing throws people off because some older documentation had it wrong or was for a different revision. on the SSB bandwidth thing — what guide were you following? theres a couple floating around and one of them has the trimmer pot labeled backwards compared to how it actually works on the board, so you end up going the wrong direction. i made the same mistake on mine and spent an hour wondering why my voice was getting thinner when i was trying to open it up. if you have the service manual the procedure in there is actually pretty clear, you just need a proper audio analyzer or at minimum a second radio to A/B against while someone talks into the mic. doing it by ear alone is rough.

ok so i just got my technician license a few weeks ago and ive been trying to get on the local 2m repeater. i can hear people on it just fine but when i try to transmit nobody seems to hear me. i programmed the offset and everything but a guy at the club meeting mentioned i might need a tone? i looked it up and it says CTCSS which i guess is also called PL tone depending on who you ask, and now im reading about DCS too and honestly my head is spinning a bit. my radio is a baofeng uv-5r and i found the repeater on repeaterbook but the listing just says 100.0 for the tone. do i put that in as the transmit tone or both transmit and receive? i dont want to be keying up and causing problems if i dont have it set right. also someone mentioned something about waiting a couple seconds after the repeater tail before transmitting — is that a real thing or just superstition

honestly for just hitting local repeaters on 2m and 70cm the placement matters way less than people make it sound online. ive got a lip mount on the drivers side of my Tacoma hood edge, been there for 3 years, works great. the ground plane isnt perfect but a decent antenna like a Larsen or a Diamond will cover the difference easily enough. the stake pocket thing can work but yeah the ground plane in the bed is not great, metal everywhere but its kind of broken up and youre farther from the cab which is where your radio is, so youre running longer coax and if you dont do the coax routing right you can get all kinds of noise from the truck electronics bleeding in. id probably do a hood mount or look at one of those hatch/trunk lip mounts if you really dont wanna drill. drilling is better long term but i get the hesitation when you still owe money on something.

i use all three honestly but for different reasons. LoTW is the one that actually counts for awards so i make sure everything goes there. eQSL i kind of upload to just because its easy and some people only confirm there. paper cards i only send direct now for the really rare ones because the bureau is soooo slow, like months sometimes. one thing nobody told me when i started was that you should be uploading your log regularly, like not waiting until you want to apply for an award. its way easier to just have it as a habit after every session or every week. also make sure your clock is accurate when you're logging because LoTW is pretty strict about time matching between both stations

yeah the latency thing on CW is real and it doesnt really get better no matter how fast your connection is on both ends because theres just processing overhead baked into RCForb that you cant get around. i switched to a straight hamlib + flrig setup over a VPN tunnel about two years ago and honestly for CW it made a huge difference. still not perfect but controllable down to around 80ms round trip on a good day. the hybrid SDR idea isnt as crazy as it sounds — i know a couple guys in the ARRL SDR working group type circles who do exactly that, airspy at the remote end running spyserver and they just monitor on that while using a separate control path for the actual rig. the receive audio really is that much better it kind of ruins you for the compressed stuff. downside is youre managing two software stacks and when something breaks at 0200 chasing a rare one you really dont want to be troubleshooting two separate systems remotely. for contesting specifically id probably not trust RemoteHams infrastructure, too many single points of failure you dont control. roll your own if youre serious about it

the band plan vs allocation thing confused me too when i started. basically allocations are the law, band plans are more like gentlemens agreements the amateur community came up with so everyone isnt stepping on each other. ARRL publishes a band plan that says things like 'hey lets keep digital modes around here and SSB phone over there' but none of thats in part 97, its just tradition and courtesy. so you wont get your license revoked for ignoring the band plan but you will annoy a lot of people lol. the legal stuff is what matters for staying out of trouble, the band plan stuff is for not being that guy on the air

oh man i had the exact same thing with my 7100 when i first installed it. turned out the power cable was zip tied right next to a bunch of the car's computer wiring behind the glove box and that was causing problems. i just rerouted it further away and most of the hum went away. still had a tiny bit left and ended up getting one of those ferrite chokes and clamping it on the power leads close to the radio and that finished it off. took me forever to figure it out but once i did it was totally fine. good luck with yours, mobile installs are always kind of an adventure

im in basically the same boat as you, been licensed about a year and had the exact same confusion. what finally made it click for me was thinking of them as just different systems that different people use and none of them really talk to each other. i do all three now just because i want to make sure im confirming contacts with whoever wants to confirm them. paper through the bureau is slow but some older ops really only do paper and its kind of nice to respect that. took me forever to figure out the bureau system though, that was its own whole learning curve lol