Steven Johnson

So ive been messing around with remote station control for about a year now and finally got to a point where things mostly work but its kind of a patchwork of stuff. I have a Pi running rigctld, a separate audio path through mumble, and then some custom scripts to handle the antenna switching. It works but its fragile and every time something reboots in the wrong order the whole thing needs to be babied back to life. A buddy at the club was showing me RemoteHams and the SDR remote side of things and honestly it looked pretty polished compared to what im running. But I'm not sure if its worth switching over or if id just be trading one set of headaches for another. The internet linking part is what im most curious about — does anyone actually use it for serious HF work or is it mostly casual listening and ragchewing. Like can you run a contest remotely through it or is the latency too painful for that kind of thing. Also curious if anyone has tried mixing SDR remote for receive monitoring with a traditional transceiver on the transmit side. Seems like that could work but idk if the RemoteHams client handles that kind of hybrid setup gracefully.

check your elevation. sounds dumb but when i first set up for EME i was so focused on the software and azimuth tracking that i didnt notice my elevation rotator was reading like 8 degrees off because of a calibration issue after i remounted the antenna. was basically pointing at nothing useful for a whole session before i caught it. also the preamp placement matters a lot more on EME than on any terrestrial work — if its not literally at the feedpoint youre losing noise figure in the coax run and at those signal levels that eats you alive. whats your coax run length from the mast to the shack and what are you using?

yeah you basically do pick it up over time but here are the ones youll hear constantly so you dont feel totally lost. QSL means confirmed or acknowledged, basically yes i got your message or i confirm the contact. QRM is interference from other stations, like man-made noise. QRN is natural static and noise, like lightning crashes and stuff. QSB is when your signal is fading in and out. QRZ means whos calling me or sometimes people use it wrong and say it when they mean something else but officially its asking whos calling. QTH is your location. QRP means low power operation, youll see that all over the place especially as a club or operating style thing. and QSO just means a contact or conversation. honestly those eight or so will cover probably 90% of what you hear on the air day to day. the rest you can look up as you encounter them. theres also a bunch of non-Q abbreviations that get used constantly, like 73 means best regards and 88 means love and kisses which you mostly hear if someone is saying goodbye to a close friend or spouse. HI HI is laughter in CW. and OM means old man which is just how guys refer to each other, doesnt matter how old you actually are

ok so ive been going back and forth on this for like three weeks now and i cant make up my mind. i have a decent sized backyard, probably 120 feet of usable run if i do a dipole at maybe 35 feet, which isnt great but its what i got. the alternative is throwing up a vertical in the corner of the yard, probably a hustler or something similar with a few radials. mostly interested in 40m for evening ragchewing and maybe some light dx chasing. not really a contester. my noise floor here is already kind of bad, S5 or so on a quiet night, neighbors with solar inverters and all that junk. heard that dipoles tend to reject more noise than a vertical but also heard the low angle radiation on a vertical is better for dx. i feel like im reading contradictory stuff everywhere. does anyone actually have side by side experience with both on 40? like real world not just antenna modeling software. and yeah i know the answer is probably just try both but id rather not buy a vertical if the dipole is gonna walk all over it for what im doing

5w is totally fine for most activations honestly, ive done probably 40 or 50 summits now and rarely go above 5w unless conditions are really bad. the KX2 at 10w will eat your battery noticeably faster and for most contacts on 40 or 20 you just dont need it. i usually bring a 3ah lipo and it lasts all day at 5w with no issues. if you start doing winter activations or trying to work DX from a summit then maybe think about it but for now id just stick with what works

you're not overthinking it, its genuinely kind of inconsistent in practice and thats just how the hobby is. the short answer is there's no hard rule on HF outside of certain nets or emergency comms where they'll specify. on a clear freq with good propagation a lot of guys will just say the call letters because it's faster and everyone can hear fine. when conditions are rough or you're working DX with a pile-up then phonetics really matter because the other op might only catch half your call and you want to make sure they get the right letters as for non-standard phonetics, yeah some old timers use their own versions, some guys say New York for N or Boston for B and so on. technically the NATO alphabet is what you're supposed to use and its what most of the world recognizes, so if you use it you'll be understood everywhere. the custom ones can cause confusion especially working foreign stations. i'd just stick with the standard ones until you have a reason not to

honestly the General exam is not that bad, i was in the same spot as you about two years ago. the math looks scary but theres really only a handful of formulas that show up and if you just grind through HamStudy.org for a couple weeks youll start recognizing the questions pretty fast. i think i spent maybe 3 weeks studying maybe 20-30 minutes a day and passed no problem. the electrical theory stuff like impedance and reactance sounds worse than it is when you actually see what they're asking. as for where to hang out once you get your ticket, i'd say 40 meters is a good starting point for newer HF folks, lots of activity day and night and you dont need crazy antennas to make contacts. 20 meters is kind of the workhorse band for DX during decent conditions. just get a decent wire antenna up and start listening before you transmit, youll figure out the culture pretty quick. the upgrade is definitely worth it, it opens up so much more of the hobby.

so i finally worked up the nerve to check into the tuesday evening 2m net on our local repeater, been licensed for about 4 months now and ive been just listening for like three of those months trying to get the hang of how it all flows. anyway i checked in fine, gave my callsign when the NCS asked, all good. but then later in the net when they opened it up for comments and announcements i kind of jumped in a little too early i think, like i unkeyed and then just started talking and i think someone else was already mid-transmission or just starting one. there was this awkward doubling thing and the net control guy just kind of repeated "any further comments" and moved on. nobody said anything to me directly and the net kept going fine but i felt really bad about it. is there like a standard way you're supposed to wait before transmitting so you dont step on people? i know you're supposed to leave a pause but how long is long enough i guess is my question. and is it considered rude if it happens by accident, like will people think im just not paying attention?

so ive been on hf for about two years now and i have somewhere around 140 confirmed entities in logbook of the world but i never actually applied for anything because honestly the whole award credit system kind of confused me and i kept putting it off a buddy at my club finally sat down with me last weekend and showed me how LoTW confirmations automatically count toward DXCC credits once you submit the application fee and it kind of clicked — but now i have a bunch of paper QSLs sitting in a shoebox from stuff before i got on LoTW and im wondering if i should bother sending those in or just work with what i have digitally also while im at it — does anyone chase WAS and WAZ alongside DXCC at the same time or do most people focus on one at a time. i feel like a lot of my contacts probably count for all three but i dont really know how to track that without it getting messy. using WSJT-X and log4om if that matters

so ive been licensed for about 4 months now and i mostly just do local 2m stuff on the repeater and occasionally some HF when conditions are decent. my question is kind of dumb maybe but when people are using phonetics is that like required or do people just do it because its what everyone else does like i was on a net the other night and the net control asked for my callsign twice because apparently my signal was a bit rough coming in and i just repeated it normally and he got it the third time. someone told me afterward i should have gone phonetic but i wasnt sure if that was actually a rule or just convention. i know the NATO alphabet obviously like alpha bravo charlie etc but i always feel kind of weird saying it out loud like im on a military radio or something. does it really make a difference

so ive been messing around on 17 and 20 meters the past couple weeks and the band conditions have just been all over the place. one evening ill work a station in japan no problem and then the next day i cant even hear europe and i'm in the midwest. checked the solar flux index and its been bouncing around between like 150 and 190 which i thought would be good but honestly i cant predict whats gonna happen anymore been doing this about 4 years now and i feel like the bands have a personality of their own lately. had a wild opening to south america last tuesday around 1800z that lasted maybe 45 minutes and then just gone. like someone pulled a plug. my buddy in iowa didnt hear any of it. is this kind of thing normal during rising solar cycle or am i just lucky/unlucky with timing also been checking DXmaps and pskreporter obsessively which probably isnt helping my sanity. anyone else riding the solar rollercoaster right now

Great guide! I'd add that listening off-air is cheapest if you have a receiver - lots of CW transmissions on the bottom ends of HF bands, especially 80m and 40m where you can find slower transmissions. Some national amateur radio societies have schedules of slow Morse transmissions for practice.

The training might seem like a lot, but it's designed to prepare you for real emergencies. Level 1 is for those new to emergency communications, and your local ARES group will adapt the training to meet local needs. Attend a few nets first to get comfortable with radio procedures, then tackle the online courses.