David Anderson74

so we have a county-level ARES exercise coming up in about 5 weeks and im trying to figure out the best way to run our portable station for the full 12 hour op period. last time we ran off a Honda eu2200i which worked fine but hauling that thing plus fuel cans to a hilltop site is kind of a pain, and one of the guys in our group is pushing hard for a lifepo4 battery setup instead. the issue is we're running two rigs simultaneously most of the time — an IC-7300 for HF and a TM-D710 for local VHF/UHF coordination, plus a small laptop for winlink and occasionally a second laptop. rough estimate puts us somewhere around 30-35 amps draw at moderate TX duty cycle. i did the math and even a 100ah lifepo4 gets you maybe 2-3 hours of real use at that load before you're babysitting the voltage. obviously you could chain batteries but that adds weight pretty fast. antenna side we're planning a homebrew NVIS for 40/80 using about 130 feet of wire in an inverted V off a 31 foot Jackite pole. worked okay in testing but we're on a site with a lot of trees and the feedline run is kind of awkward. anyone done a similar setup and had issues with the feedline picking up noise from a generator running nearby? that was another complaint last time, we had some RFI from the eu2200i that took a while to track down. would love to hear what other groups are doing for sustained field ops, especially if youve found a power solution that doesn't require a forklift to set up

i passed mine like two months ago so pretty fresh memory here lol. i used the HamStudy app basically every day on my lunch break, maybe 20-30 questions at a time, and then watched some of the KB6NU no nonsense study guide videos on youtube for the parts i was really lost on. the manual is good but it can feel like a lot when youre just trying to get through the exam. i think i spent maybe 3 weeks total and felt pretty comfortable going in. got a 90 something on the actual test so the practice questions are pretty representative of whats on there

so ive been sitting on doing this for about two years now and finally just did it last weekend. the mars/cap mod on the ft-857d to open up the tx range. pretty straightforward once you find the right resistor to pull, took maybe 20 minutes with a decent soldering iron and some patience not to strip the tiny screws on that chassis. honestly the main reason i did it was for some local emcomm stuff where we occasionally need to hit some non-ham freqs during exercises with the right authorization. but also just wanted to see if the rig would behave any differently on the regular ham bands after, and i honestly cant tell a difference which is probably a good thing. anyone else done mods on the 857 specifically? theres also a mod i saw floating around about the internal fan threshold, mine runs pretty warm and the fan kicks in late it seems like. not sure if thats actually worth messing with or if ill just make it worse somehow.

yeah im kind of in the same boat as you actually, been trying on and off for a few months. i use an app called Morse Mania which is at least a little more structured than some of the random ones. what helped me more than anything though was just listening to actual QSOs on the air even when i could barely copy anything, just to hear what real CW sounds like at different speeds. there's also some W1AW practice broadcasts you can tune into on HF if you have a general or extra, or i think you can stream them online somewhere. not sure i'm the best person to give advice since im still pretty slow but just wanted to say youre not alone in finding it confusing at the start

so i was just sitting down with coffee around 9am local and figured id spin the dial on 10 meters just to check, not really expecting anything since its been pretty dead here for the past few weeks. and out of nowhere im hearing stations from south america coming in like they're next door, like genuinely S9 signals from argentina and brazil. worked about a dozen contacts in maybe 40 minutes before it started fading. even heard a couple european stations briefly which i havent done on 10m in a while. anyone else catch this? im up in the northeast so im curious if it was a more regional thing or if guys further west were seeing it too. solar flux has been creeping up lately and i saw somewhere that we might be getting close to cycle 25 peak sooner than originally predicted but i dont really follow the propagation stuff that closely. anyway just wanted to share because it made my whole morning honestly

honestly the pi zero W isnt that overkill for this, i know it sounds like it but once you have python doing the serial stuff it's actually way easier to debug and the threading thing you mentioned is real — blocking loops on the arduino are annoying when you're dealing with timing sensitive serial protocols. i run a pi zero in my shack handling CAT control, a small web interface for remote logging, and a couple gpio lines for PTT and band data all at once and it doesnt even break a sweat. the only downside is boot time if you lose power but you can hack around that pretty easily.

congrats on the activation. im still just doing the training nets at this point and havent been through a real one yet. can i ask -- did you need anything special equipment wise or did your basic HT setup handle it okay? my EC keeps telling me i should get a mobile rig eventually but right now im just running an HT with a better antenna and wasnt sure if thats going to cut it in an actual deployment.

so ive been trying to get Winlink working for probably three weekends now and i think im close but something is still off. im running Winlink Express on a windows 10 box connected to my IC-7300, using vara HF for the modem side. i can see the waterfall, VARA is making noises like its doing something, but messages just sit in the outbox and never actually send. my question is basically about how the RMS gateway piece works. like i understand in theory that the RMS gateway is a node that connects to the Winlink CMS servers on the internet, and i connect to that gateway over radio, and then my message gets forwarded through. but im not clear on whether i need to configure something specific on my end or if i just point at the gateway frequency and let it rip. ive tried a couple of the gateway stations listed in the RMS list and got what looked like a partial connection once but it dropped. also not sure if this is a baud rate thing or a timing thing or what. using 7.101 MHz LSB, which i thought was one of the common Winlink frequencies in the region. any pointers welcome, this has been driving me nuts

yeah i dont have an amp so im always at 100w and i still manage to work a fair amount of rare dx, its definitely more about technique. the hardest part for me is just patience honestly, i get antsy and start calling when i shouldnt be and it never helps. congrats on the T32 that ones been on my list too, was the signal decent into your qth?

so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and done a fair bit of HF work, some VHF contesting on 2m and 70cm, but ive always been kind of fascinated by EME. watched a few videos of guys working the moon and it just looks insane to me that you can bounce a signal off the actual moon and have someone on the other side of the planet copy it. anyway i started looking into what it actually takes and honestly got a little overwhelmed. like i understand the path loss is absolutely brutal — something like 252 dB on 2m if i remember right — and you need either a big dish or a yagi array to make up for that. ive seen setups ranging from a single long yagi and 100w all the way to these massive EME stations with 4x or 8x yagi arrays and a kilowatt amp. the JT65 and Q65 modes have obviously changed things a lot compared to the old CW days but i still feel like i dont know where the minimum viable station actually is. my current setup is a 9 element yagi for 2m with a decent preamp and about 150w out of an IC-9700. i know thats not going to cut it for most EME but im wondering how far off i am. do i need to go full array or is a longer single yagi with more power even worth attempting? and whats the realistic path to a first contact, like do you just get on JT65 and call CQ on 144.120 and hope for the best or is there more coordination involved than that any pointers appreciated, ive read the K1JT stuff and a bunch of the old VHF-DX pages but real world experience from people who have actually done it would be helpful

so i finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend, been meaning to do one for months and kept putting it off because i wasnt sure i had the right gear or whatever. ended up just throwing the KX2 in a bag with my linked dipole and drove out to a state forest about 45 minutes from home. the reference is a KFF one so it counts for both the US and the worldwide WWFF program which is cool. got there around 9am and honestly the setup took maybe 20 minutes, found a decent tree to throw the wire over and just started calling on 40m. i was honestly expecting to sit there and get nothing but the pile up started pretty quick once i spotted myself on the WWFF spotter network. ended up with like 67 contacts in about 2 hours which i know isnt huge but for a first time i was pretty happy. got a bunch of hunters calling in and a few people that seemed pretty excited to get the reference. the whole thing was just really enjoyable, way more relaxed than contesting and you actually get to sit outside and enjoy where you are. already planning my next one. anyone else do a lot of WWFF activations? any tips for finding good references that arent already activated a million times?

that florida contact from ohio on 3 watts is legit, i wouldnt have believed it before i started doing QRP but propagation does weird things sometimes and 40m especially at certain times of day just carries. what time were you out there roughly? im curious because ive had similar results in the afternoon when the skip is right.

so i finally signed up on sotadata and picked out my first summit to activate, W4T/SU-001 up near where my brother in law lives. im planning to take my KX2 and a linked dipole and just see how it goes. ive read through the activator guide on the website like three times but honestly some of it still feels a little fuzzy to me. main thing im not sure about is the timing. do i really need to post a spot on SOTAwatch before i go up or is that just kind of a courtesy thing? and if i dont get 4 contacts do i just... try again another day? also wondering how people handle logging in the field, i was just going to use a paper log and transfer it later but curious if theres an app or something most people use now. anyway its a 2.4 mile hike so not super brutal but i want to make sure the radio side goes smoothly so im not fumbling around on the summit. any advice appreciated, even the stuff that seems obvious cause i probably havent thought of it

Just got my first Tech license a few months ago and thought I'd apply for a vanity call to get something more personal than my sequential KD2XYZ assignment. Filed online through the FCC system and listed 8 different calls I liked, but my application was dismissed. The vast majority of applications are rejected for requesting call signs that aren't available, or requesting call signs that are outside of their license class. What am I missing here? I thought I did my homework but obviously something went wrong.

so ive been working on my CW for about a year now and i started at 5wpm with just der borse and some youtube videos and honestly getting from 5 to around 12-13 felt pretty natural, like it just clicked at some point. but now im completely stuck and its been maybe 3 or 4 months of just spinning my wheels at this same speed and i cant figure out what im doing wrong. i practice for like 20-30 minutes most days, mostly copying random 5 letter groups from an online generator, but im starting to wonder if thats actually the problem. someone at my radio club mentioned the Farnsworth method and i kind of half understood what they were said but didnt want to ask too many questions. also wondering if i should just be trying to copy actual QSOs instead of the random letter groups. my goal is 20wpm eventually, doesnt need to be fast, just enough to be comfortable on 40m cw. any advice from people whove been through this would be great, im not giving up on it just frustrated

so i finally did my first activation last weekend, went up to a local summit here in the Appalachians, W4V/SH-001 or something like that, took me forever to find the actual reference on the database but eventually got it sorted. brought my FT-818 and a linked dipole i built from a kit, ran it up a telescoping pole and just kind of... hoped for the best honestly. made 4 contacts on 40m SSB which i know is the minimum to qualify but man it felt close. tried 20m for a bit but wasnt getting much, maybe my antenna angle was wrong or just bad timing, it was around 2pm local. also tried calling on the SOTA frequencies but im not sure i had those right, was using 7.285 which i thought was the common one but now reading more it seems like 7.195 gets used too? little confused on that. anyway the bigger question i have is about self-spotting. i had cell service up there barely enough to load sotawatch and i spotted myself but by the time chasers would have seen it i was already done with most of my contacts. do people usually alert in advance and then spot when they get on air? feels like i was doing it backwards. also curious if anyone does CW only activations and if thats harder to get the 4 contacts or actually easier because more chasers monitor CW frequencies

welcome to the hobby, dont worry you'll get the hang of it pretty quick. the CTCSS thing is almost certainly fine if you can hear the repeater — that part is just receive side and doesn't need a tone at all. the tone only matters when you transmit to open the repeater's squelch. one thing to double check on the baofeng is that the tone is set to transmit only and not encode/decode both ways, because if you have it set to filter incoming signals by tone too then you might be missing some traffic. menu 11 and 13 if i remember right on most of those radios. as for nobody responding — honestly a lot of repeaters are pretty quiet during the day and you might just be kerchunking into dead air. what you can do is key up and just say something like your callsign and that youre monitoring, like "[callsign] monitoring" and see if anyone comes back. just keying up without saying anything is considered a bit rude on most repeaters because the other users dont know if someone is trying to reach out or just accidentally sitting on the PTT. listening first is good advice but on a quiet repeater sometimes you just gotta say hi and see who's around.

The context is everything! During contests I notice my copy speed jumps because the exchange formats are so predictable. Learn each character as a sound. Morse code is a language of sounds. Your brain starts filling in gaps when it knows what to expect. Keep building that on-air time - it only gets better!

the noise thing is real, at least in my experience. my vertical absolutely picks up more local crud than the dipole does, especially in the evening. but for DX the vertical has edge on me just because of the low angle radiation — a dipole at 25 feet on 40m is way too low to do much for DX, youre right that its basically NVIS at that point which is actually great for regional stuff, talking to guys 300-800 miles out works pretty well. if you want both, honestly the cheapest thing to do is just lay out some radials and throw up a quarter wave vertical and compare them yourself. took me a weekend and maybe 20 bucks in wire. you might find the noise situation kills the vertical for you, or you might not notice it much depending on what your actual noise sources are. theres no universal answer here which i know is annoying to hear but its true

i did the same mod last year for the same reason, ARES stuff. works fine and i havent had any problems. one thing i'll say is just make sure you're not transmitting out of band by accident since the radio wont stop you anymore, easy to do if you fat-finger a frequency. learned that the hard way during a net when i was fiddling with VFO and ended up way off where i meant to be. nothing bad happened but it couldve.

so ive been putting this off for like two years because i was nervous about voiding warranty and also just kind of intimidated by opening up the radio, but last weekend i finally did the MARS/CAP mod on my IC-7300 and honestly it was way less scary than i expected. just a couple of jumper pads on the board, takes maybe 20 minutes if youre not rushing. the reason i finally pulled the trigger was i picked up a second 7300 for a good price at a hamfest so i figured if i bricked one it wouldnt be the end of the world. spoiler: i didnt brick anything. both radios came through fine. now the thing is i dont actually do MARS or CAP work, i mainly wanted the extended TX range for some experimentation on the low end of 160 and also just to have the flexibility. the mod itself is well documented, there are a few youtube videos and the usual forum threads if you go looking. my only gripe is the reassembly — the ribbon cables on that radio are a little fiddly and i slightly bent one of the connectors but it seated fine in the end. has anyone done any other mods on the 7300 worth talking about? ive seen some people mention the cooling fan replacement because apparently the stock fan can get noisy over time. mine isnt bad yet but im curious if thats actually worth doing preemptively or just wait til it becomes a problem.

yeah the ground height is almost certainly your issue, or at least a big chunk of it. when the ends are that close to the ground the antenna loads differently than the free-space formula assumes. the 468 constant kinda presumes the thing is up in clear air, not 8 feet from dirt. try pulling your ends up higher if you can, even another 5 or 6 feet makes a noticeable difference. also the inverted V configuration itself tends to shift resonance a bit higher compared to a flat top because the angle changes the effective electrical length somewhat. if you cant get more height just add a few inches to each leg at a time and retune. i usually leave myself a foot extra when i first cut and trim down rather than the other way around but its not the end of the world, splicing a bit on works fine too just solder and weatherproof it properly.

yeah the compression thing trips up almost everyone at first. on the 7300 specifically you want to keep the speech processor level pretty modest — like maybe 3-4 out of 10 to start. crank it too high and you get exactly what youre describing, that muffled overprocessed sound where your voice just turns into noise. the ALC should be dancing around the middle of the scale during normal speech peaks, not pegged constantly. mic gain is probably the bigger culprit though. back it off until your ALC is behaving and then tweak from there. also where you hold the mic matters more than people think — you dont want to be eating it but you dont want to be a foot away either, maybe 2-3 inches off to the side of your mouth so you're not blasting plosives straight into it. the TX equalizer on the 7300 i usually boost a little around 2-3k to cut through and roll off some of the lows below like 200hz, voice doesnt carry anything useful down there anyway on SSB and it just muddies things up.

not a dumb question at all, this trips up a lot of new generals. so the short version is the FCC part 97 is what's actually legally binding, the ARRL band plan is just a gentlemens agreement basically. on 40m phone as a general you can operate 7.175 to 7.300 MHz, that's your legal limit. the 7.125 you might have seen is the extra class lower edge for phone. the band edge thing is about your signal not just your carrier. if youre running SSB your signal has width to it, maybe 2-3 kHz depending on your rig and how wide it's set. so if you park your dial right on 7.300 your upper sideband is actually going outside the allocation. thats why people say leave some room, usually 3 kHz or so from the edge is the rule of thumb i use. its not a hard FCC rule about the buffer itself but transmitting outside your allocation definitely is a rule so you do the math

so my club has a table at the tri-county hamfest saturday and i was just wondering if any of you guys are planning to show up. its at the fairgrounds off route 9, been going there for like 4 years now and its always a decent swap meet even if the flea market side has gotten a little smaller each year. last time i picked up a barely used 706 for way under market price so you never know what you'll find. if you're coming by look for the ARES table near the back entrance, ill be the one drinking terrible coffee and complaining about it