Steven Johnson

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

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

So I finally decided to just go do it. Been hunting for about three months now and figured it was time to actually get out there and activate something. Im heading to a state park about 45 minutes from me, K-4892 I think, never seen anyone else activate it so maybe that'll help with the pileup situation or whatever.
Bringing my KX3 and a 40m EFHW that I've used in the backyard a few times, should be fine I think. Planning to hit 40m and maybe try 20m if conditions look good. My question is mostly around the logging — do I really need to self spot on the POTA app or will people just find me on the RBN? And how strict are they about the 10 contact minimum, like what happens if I only get 8 and have to leave?
Also not sure how early to post on the activator schedule thing. I've seen some activations pop up the morning of, some a few days before. Does it matter much for a relatively rare park?

Heading out on a weekend camping trip and want to maximize my Kenwood TH-D74A battery life. I've seen tests showing these draw about 0.5A average, but that seems optimistic for real-world use.
Besides using low power mode and carrying spare batteries, what other energy-saving tricks work well? Should I avoid the backlight and other power-hungry features?

congrats on the first one, those are always fun. so yeah the 44 contacts thing is for the full Flora Fauna Diploma credit, but 10 is all you need to count the activation as valid for the reference itself. you did fine with 18.
for logging you basically upload your adif to the WWFF log submission — there's a spot on the wwff.us site or the global one depending on which program you're working through since there's a North American group too. the field you want in the adif is SIG and SIG_INFO, so SIG would be WWFF and then SIG_INFO is the actual reference like KFF-1234 or whatever yours was. a lot of the standard logging programs have added this but phone apps can be hit or miss. i usually just edit the adif manually in a text editor before submitting, takes like two minutes once you know what youre looking for.
LOTW is separate and doesnt really handle the WWFF references natively so that upload is mostly just for regular qsl purposes. the WWFF database is its own thing.

same boat here a while back. ended up just building a 40m vertical out of some aluminum tubing i got from a hardware store, maybe 33 feet total with a loading coil to shorten it a bit cause i couldnt get full height. threw down about 20 radials and it was fine but not amazing. the dipole still beat it into europe most nights if im being honest. vertical did seem a bit better into asia and the pacific though so i guess it depends where youre trying to work. probably just keep both if you can.

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.