David Miller

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

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.

so ive been using Log4OM for about two years now as my main shack logger and honestly i really like it for day to day stuff, the award tracking and the way it handles LOTW sync is pretty solid once you get it set up right. but every time a contest rolls around i end up fumbling around because Log4OM just isnt really built for that kind of fast paced exchange logging, at least not the way N1MM is.
been thinking about just keeping both installed and using N1MM strictly for contests then importing the ADIF into Log4OM afterward but i've heard that can get messy with dupes and the way each program handles things like sent RST and contest specific fields. anyone actually doing this workflow? does the ADIF import from N1MM into Log4OM cause headaches or does it mostly just work.
also slightly separate question but does anyone pipe WSJT-X through Log4OM or do you just let WSJT-X log to its own file and deal with it separately. feels like theres a dozen ways to do this and none of them are obviously the right one

From a technical standpoint, FT4's four-tone CPFSK at 23.4 baud with 90 Hz bandwidth trades some sensitivity for speed. The math works out - you're processing more information faster but need stronger signals. Perfect for contest scenarios where band conditions support it.

So ive been seeing some chatter on a few other forums about Icom possibly dropping something new in the HF lineup later this year, cant find anything concrete but a couple guys at the club meeting last week were talking about it like it was pretty much confirmed. Anyone else heard anything? I take all the pre-release rumor stuff with a huge grain of salt after the whole IC-705 hype cycle took forever but still its fun to speculate.
Also completely separate topic but 17 meters has been absolutely wild this past week. I made contacts into eastern europe and got a pretty solid signal report from a station in ukraine which honestly surprised me given everything going on over there. Those guys are still on the air which I always find kind of remarkable. 10 meters also had a decent opening yesterday afternoon around 1800 UTC if anyone was paying attention, worked a few south american stations without even trying hard.
Anyway if anyone has actual info on any upcoming gear releases or heard about any big events coming up id love to know, I feel like I miss half the news unless someone tells me directly because I dont always keep up with the ARRL stuff.

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

i did my first activation a few months ago and had almost the exact same experience lol. the pile up dying was the most stressful part for me too, i just kept second guessing whether i should move bands or respot or just keep calling CQ into the void. ended up doing all three in a kind of panic honestly. it gets easier though, my last activation i had a much better sense of the rhythm of it. what park was it if you dont mind me asking

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.

From a technical standpoint, FT4's four-tone CPFSK at 23.4 baud with 90 Hz bandwidth trades some sensitivity for speed. The math works out - you're processing more information faster but need stronger signals. Perfect for contest scenarios where band conditions support it.

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.

ok so i just passed my general a few weeks ago and got my sequential callsign assigned, which is fine but its kind of a mouthful and id really like something shorter or maybe with my initials if possible. ive been reading about vanity calls on the FCC website and honestly the way they explain it makes my head spin a little.
from what i can tell you apply through the FCC ULS and there's like a filing window where everyone who applies during a certain period gets considered at the same time? and then it goes by license class so extra class gets priority over general which gets priority over tech? but im not totally sure if i have that right. also i saw something about a 18 month waiting period if you want a callsign that was previously held by someone who is deceased, is that still a thing or did they change that?
also does it cost money now i thought i heard something about a fee being introduced a while back. anyway if anyone has gone through this recently id love to hear how it went for you, the FCC docs are just kind of dense to read through

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.

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.