David Miller

so ive been trying to get winlink working for a couple weeks now and i keep hitting walls. my basic setup is a IC-7300 feeding into a signalink USB for the audio interface, running vara HF on the PC. i can see the waterfall moving when i key up and the audio levels look reasonable in vara, but i cant seem to actually complete a session with any of the RMS gateways i try. what happens is vara shows it connecting, sometimes it even shows a partial handshake i think, but then it just drops and winlink express gives me a timed out error. ive tried like 6 different gateway frequencies from the RMS list and same thing every time. the signal gets out, my buddy a few miles away can hear me on the frequency so its not a TX issue. wondering if its something with my vara registration or maybe the RMS stations themselves are just picky about signal quality. anybody been through this and figured it out?

yeah same boat here not too long ago. one thing nobody told me that actually helped a ton was just listening to a lot of CW, like actually a lot. i had W1AW practice sessions on in the background while doing other stuff and eventually the rhythm just kind of sinks in and you start to hear when your own sending is off. also koch method if you havent tried it — theres a free app called lcwo.net that i used and it genuinely works even though it feels impossible the first week or two

i was confused about the same thing when i upgraded honestly. what helped me was just downloading the ARRL band plan pdf and keeping it open while i was getting started. took me a while to realize the band plan and the actual regulations are two different documents lol. i still kind of just avoid anything that feels like it's near the edge tbh, easier than trying to do the math on SSB bandwidth in my head

so ive been a General for about two years now and i keep going back and forth on whether to bother with the Amateur Extra. like i passed the General no problem but when i looked at the Extra question pool a while back some of that math made my head spin a bit. impedance matching, filter theory, all that stuff. i did okay in school with math but that was a long time ago and im a little rusty. mostly i want the Extra for the HF privileges, theres a few spots on 75 and 40 that i cant use right now and it bugs me when im trying to join a net and the frequency is just outside my range. also just feels like i should finish what i started you know? anyone been in this situation and actually gone through with it, was the extra theory as rough as it looks or does it kind of click once you study for a while?

yeah the northeast has some decent ones, depends on the state really. i've done a bunch in the Catskills and some of the New England ones and honestly the views make it worth it even if the activation itself is uneventful. the linked dipole is a solid choice, i keep telling people to skip the end-fed transformer nonsense when they're starting out but nobody listens lol the cold thing is real btw. i started keeping a pair of thin liner gloves specifically for operating, still awkward but way better. also get the sotawatch alerts set up ahead of time if you can, self spotting on the summit is always a crapshoot with the signal

im also pretty new to all this and just ordered a pixie kit which i know isnt quite the same thing but reading about your build is making me more excited to try. did you have any previous soldering experience or did you kind of just figure it out as you went

I went last year for the first time and honestly didnt know what to expect but it was pretty cool. felt a little overwhelmed at how much junk there was to look through but in a good way I guess. didnt buy anything but got my ticket signed off for a contact which counted toward something my club was doing. might go again if I can get the weekend off work

dont stress about it, the technician exam really isnt that bad. no morse code required anymore, hasnt been for years. the test is 35 questions and you need to get 26 right, and the best part is the entire question pool is public so you already know every possible question that could show up before you even sit down. honestly the easiest way to do it is just go to hamstudy.org and start running through practice questions every day. like 20-30 minutes a day for a couple weeks and most people pass no problem. there is some basic math, mostly ohms law stuff, but the site kind of walks you through it and after a few repetitions it clicks. i studied for maybe 10 days before my first exam session and got a 32 out of 35. the ARRL handbook is great but its way more than you need just to pass the tech exam, id save that for later once you actually have your ticket and want to go deeper. find a local club too if you can, they usually host exam sessions and sometimes do free study nights. your neighbor probably knows where the nearest club meets.

so ive been running a trapped vertical for a few years now and honestly it was fine but i always felt like i was leaving something on the table, especially on 40 where it just never seemed to perform as well as guys running dipoles. anyway i finally had a free weekend and put up a fan dipole — three separate dipoles all fed from the same feedpoint, cut for 40, 20, and 15 meters. ran about 60 feet of RG-8X down to the shack. the interaction between the elements is definitely a real thing you have to deal with. my 40m legs came in a bit long after i put the other elements up, which makes sense because of coupling, so if youre doing this expect to do some trimming after everything is in the air. i ended up with the elements spread out at maybe 20-25 degrees from each other which seems to help keep the interaction manageable. overall swr is well under 2:1 on all three bands without a tuner which is kind of amazing compared to the vertical. noise floor seems lower too which i wasnt really expecting. on 20 especially the difference is pretty noticeable, im hearing stations i would have completely missed before. havent done any serious A/B comparison but subjectively its a big improvement for basically the cost of some wire and a few hours of work. anyone else running a fan dipole and have tips on dealing with the element interaction thing? and has anyone tried adding a 10m pair to one of these without everything going sideways?

so i've been messing with this for about three weeks now and im at the point where it works maybe 60% of the time which is better than zero but still frustrating. running Winlink Express on a windows 10 box, got a Signalink USB going into my IC-7300, using Vara HF for the modem side of things. i can connect to the RMS gateways just fine when conditions are decent, the handshake goes through, messages go out, but then randomly mid-session it just drops and logs something vague about a protocol timeout. i spent a lot of time going through the gateway list and sorting by distance, figured id try the closest ones first. theres a couple within maybe 300 miles that i can usually hit on 40m no problem. but the timeout thing happens with pretty much all of them so im thinking its not a gateway-specific issue. maybe something with my audio levels? i went through the VARA calibration thing and got it green across the board but who knows. also kinda confused about the message handling side of things. like once a message goes out through the RMS and into the winlink network, how long does it actually sit there before it expires? i sent a test message to my own callsign and it showed up like 4 days later when i finally connected again, so clearly theres some storage happening but i dont really understand the backend of it.

congrats on the first activation, 14 contacts is actually totally fine for WWFF — the minimum is 44 for a full activation but you can still submit the log and it counts as a partial, and the reference still gets credit toward chasers hunting it. some of the less-activated references only ever see partial logs so dont worry about it too much, just get out there again and you'll hit 44 easier than you think once you get the hang of pouncing chasers on parksnpeaks or the WWFF logger. for the log upload just head to wwff.co and create an account if you havent, then you can upload an ADIF directly. most logging programs spit out a standard ADIF that works fine, i use Log4OM and never had an issue. the signal report thing doesnt matter, just needs callsign, time, band and mode really. the website is a bit clunky but you get used to it

so ive been playing around with cluster spotting for a few months now and i think i finally have a decent workflow but wanted to see if anyone else does something similar or has tips to make it better basically i have DXwatch open on my second monitor and when something interesting pops up i tab over to QRZ to look up the callsign, check the country, see if its a new one for me, then sometimes i'll also check DX maps just to see propagation because if the band conditions are garbage i dont even bother running across the room to the rig the thing i cant quite figure out is the filtering on dxwatch — like i know you can filter by band and mode but sometimes spots come through that are clearly dupes or the dx station has already gone QRT and nobody updated the cluster. is there a way to know which spots are actually fresh? i feel like im chasing ghosts half the time also tried the QRZ logbook integration thing and its pretty handy for the DXCC tracking but it feels a little slow sometimes, not sure if thats my connection or the site itself. anyway curious what tools other people are using day to day for this stuff

the isolation thing is real and people underestimate it. i blew a preamp once because i didnt have the sequencing right and keyed up while the other radio was still receiving on a shared antenna. just something to keep in mind if you do go down that road, the interlock isnt optional its just the price of admission for running two radios simultaneously. for what its worth i run SO2R in the big contests but i built up to it over like three years. started exactly where you are, second radio just for S&P listening, then started transmitting on it for mults only, then eventually got comfortable enough to do real exchange SO2R on slow band conditions. your 130/hr on a good run will absolutely go up once you stop losing time waiting for the pile to clear and just flip over and work someone else. but yeah its not a weekend project.

Congrats on the first activation, getting that first one done is honestly the hardest part. 10 contacts in 45 minutes is totally respectable for a first go, dont be too hard on yourself. For time of day, i generally try to get on the air by 9 or 10am local if im doing 40m, the morning greyline can be really good and you get the east coast hunters before they wander off. Midday on 40 in summer is rough because the skip gets long and you kind of fall into a dead zone where you're too far for local contacts and not far enough for the big DX stations to bother. Some activators switch to 20m around midday and that can really open things up, especially if you want spots from hunters across the country. Also check out the POTA spotting page before you go out, you can self-spot from your phone once you're on frequency and that makes a huge difference. Seriously the pile up starts almost immediately once you're spotted. Just have your logging sorted before you key up or it gets chaotic fast, ask me how i know lol.

I went 7300 about 18 months ago coming from an older Kenwood and the waterfall alone made it worth it for me, but I do a lot of casual band-watching so that makes sense for my situation. For straight SSB ragchewing though? Probably not a huge deal. The 590SG receiver is no joke, Kenwood did that radio right.

the inverted vee angle thing is real but probably not as dramatic as you're worried about. i ran one for years at about 40 feet apex and was still working europe pretty consistently on 40m during good conditions. the pattern broadens out which actually helps in some ways, less of a sharp null off the ends. the bigger issue with an inverted vee at 45 feet is that on 40m your apex is only a bit over a third wavelength high which isnt ideal but its workable. fan dipoles are pretty forgiving honestly. ive built a few and as long as you spread the elements out at least 30 degrees or so from each other the interaction is manageable. youll likely need to trim each element individually because they do affect each other a little, but nothing terrible. just do it methodically, tune the highest frequency element first then work your way down. feed it all with a 1:1 choke balun and youre good. compared to your vertical situation it'll be a noticeable improvement on receive for sure, that much i can almost guarantee.

so ive been putting together a go-kit for some emcomm stuff and also just general field day type operating and im running into the usual headaches with power. right now im thinking about bringing a little honda eu2200i and also a 100ah lifepo4 but honestly im not sure if i even need both or if thats overkill for what im doing. the setup is gonna be an IC-7300 running maybe 50-100w, a laptop, and probably a small LED panel for lighting. might throw in a second HF rig if space allows but lets not get ahead of ourselves. antenna wise im planning a linked dipole on a 31ft fiberglass mast, nothing fancy but it works. my main concern is runtime. if im doing a 12 hour activation i dont want to be babysitting fuel or worrying about the battery crapping out. but the generator is loud and heavy and i kinda hate dragging it to sites where other people are around. anyone run a similar setup without the genny and just battery? how long are you realistically getting at like 50w average power assuming you're not transmitting 100% of the time? also curious what people are using for antenna mounts in open fields where you cant tie off to anything. i've been just staking the mast base with tent stakes but it gets sketchy in any kind of wind.

yeah 10m has been wild, i worked a ZL station on Tuesday afternoon just running 50 watts and a dipole that i threw up in a hurry like two years ago and never really optimized. thing just lit up. my logging software showed it as my first ZL on that band which was a nice surprise. honestly the solar flux has been climbing pretty steadily and the wwv numbers have been looking better than they were even six months ago so i think were in for a good stretch if the geomagnetic stuff stays quiet. on the icom firmware thing — i did see something about that on one of the facebook groups but i cant find the original post now. someone said it was a minor update related to the spectrum scope display, not sure about the filter stuff. might be worth checking the icom japan site directly since the US site is sometimes behind on that stuff.

so ive been licensed for about 8 years, mostly HF stuff and some weak signal VHF but i keep coming back to the idea of doing EME properly. i did a few contacts years ago with a buddy's setup but never on my own gear. starting to think seriously about building toward it. the thing is every time i start researching i get overwhelmed pretty fast. like i know the basics, signal goes up hits the moon comes back, round trip path loss is absolutely brutal, you're looking at like 252 dB or something on 2m. thats just an insane number to wrap your head around. but then i see guys working EME with 4 yagis and 1500 watts and it seems doable, and then someone else is talking about needing a dish the size of a small shed and i dont know where reality is anymore. im thinking 2m to start since thats where most of the activity seems to be. i have a tower with a couple yagis up for terrestrial weak signal work already. current setup is 2x M2 2M5WL yagis stacked, about 400w at the feedpoint, sequencer, good coax. is that anywhere close to enough to even hear anything on EME let alone make contacts, or am i kidding myself. running WSJT-X for JT65 pretty regularly so at least that part isnt new to me.

yeah the spotting thing makes a huge difference, honestly night and day. once you put yourself on the map the hunters find you pretty fast. i usually spot myself before i even finish stringing up the antenna so by the time im ready to call CQ there are already people watching for me. parkspots app makes it pretty easy from your phone. and dont stress about the park number, you can fix it in the log when you upload to the POTA website. happens to everyone at some point. ive seen guys running 50+ contacts and then realize they had the wrong reference the whole time, its not a big deal just correct it before you upload and youre good. 12 contacts is a solid first activation especially without spotting yourself, so you actually did pretty well all things considered.

so i heard the Columbus hamfest is back this year after they skipped it or scaled it back or whatever happened the last couple years. thinking about making the drive, its maybe 2.5 hours for me. last time i went i picked up a really clean 706 for way less than i expected so im kind of hoping lightning strikes twice. anybody else planning on going or been to that one before and know if its worth it

Yeah 10m has been absolutely delivering this cycle, honestly better than i expected going into the fall. I worked Japan twice last week just running 100 watts to a dipole, nothing fancy. The solar flux has been sitting up high enough that even mediocre antennas are performing well right now so if anyone's been on the fence about trying HF this is genuinely a good time to jump in. On the Icom thing, i saw some photos floating around that looked like a mid-range mobile rig, maybe a replacement or update to the 2730 line? But honestly i've been burned before by leaks that turned out to be mockups or just old units with the badging taped over for a trade show. I'd wait for something official from Icom's site or at least a reputable dealer announcement before getting too excited. Ham Radio Outlet sometimes posts stuff early so worth checking there. Sweepstakes phone portion i believe is the third weekend in November but double check the ARRL calendar, i might be off by a week.

so ive been using N1MM pretty much exclusively for a few years now and its great for contests obviously but honestly outside of contests i find it kind of clunky for just day to day logging. the interface feels like it was designed by someone who only ever thinks about contests which i guess it was anyway a buddy at the club keeps telling me to try Log4OM and i downloaded it a couple weeks ago but havent really dug into it yet. main thing i care about is decent WSJT-X integration since i do a lot of FT8, and also being able to pull in my old N1MM logs without losing everything. anyone actually made that switch or are you running both? i kind of dont want to run two separate programs if i can help it but maybe thats just how it goes also does Log4OM handle contest logging at all or is that still really N1MM territory

honestly the theory isnt as scary as it looks when you first flip through the question pool. the smith chart stuff tripped me up too but there's really only a handful of questions about it and once someone explained to me that it's basically just a visual way to show impedance transformation it clicked a lot faster. gordon west's study book breaks most of the harder concepts down pretty well if you want something more than just flashcards. that said i know plenty of people who just ran through the pool on HamStudy for a few weeks and passed without understanding half of it. nothing wrong with that approach if you just need the ticket. but honestly since youre already thinking about learning it properly you might as well, because some of that filter and transmission line theory actually comes up when you're trying to troubleshoot real antenna stuff. i used to wonder why my tuner was acting weird on certain bands and it made way more sense after i went through the extra material. took me about six weeks of casual studying and passed with a few to spare.

Be careful with mechanical considerations when elevating radials. I used telescoping fiberglass poles to support mine at 10 feet, but ice loading took out two radials during a winter storm. Consider investing in a quality balun at the feedpoint. Also found that tuning shifted slightly - had to trim about 3 inches off each radial to restore minimum SWR point to center of band.