Lisa Thompson

so i was just doing some casual monitoring yesterday afternoon and 10 meters just exploded out of nowhere, i mean i havent heard it like that in probably two years at least. was working stations in europe and south america back to back for like 45 minutes straight with my vertical and only 100 watts, no beam or anything fancy. propagation reports were showing some solid F2 going on and the solar flux has been creeping up lately which i guess explains it. felt like the old days honestly. also on a totally different note has anyone been following the chatter about the new Icom IC-7760? ive been reading bits and pieces on various sites and it sounds like they might be going with a remote head design similar to what they did with the 7100 but obviously way more capable. theres a post floating around from some Japanese ham who got a look at it at a regional show and the specs if they're accurate are pretty wild. curious if anyone here has seen more recent info cause i cant find anything confirmed from Icom directly yet.

yeah i did the QCX+ last year and it was my first real kit build and i was nervous but it went together fine. the manual is incredibly detailed, Hans really put a lot of work into it. only issue i had was i socketed the processor chip and had a loose fit which caused some weirdness until i figured out what was happening. once that was sorted it's been rock solid. took it to a state park for a POTA activation and made 12 contacts including one in canada which i was not expecting at all running 5 watts into a linked dipole.

Currently using N1MM+ for contests but considering Log4OM for daily logging. N1MM Logger+ dominates contesting in 2025, used in major events worldwide for its speed and reliability. This free Windows program supports CW, SSB, and digital modes with fast entry, real-time dupe checking, and networked multi-op setups. However, Log4OM is a free logging software designed for amateur radio operators who require an integrated environment for station management and QSO logging. It is widely used by DXers due to its strong database capabilities and its integration with common online services. What are your experiences with both platforms? Enhanced standalone contest support with integral CAT display. Integration with N1MM, PSTRotator, QARTest, WSJT-x, JTDX, JTAlert and FLDigi suggests Log4OM might handle both roles.

I struggled with the same thing! What helped me was making flashcards with the formula on one side and a sample problem on the other. Practice tests that give you feedback on areas you need help with are crucial - they'll show you exactly which formulas you're getting wrong.

The IC-2730A is solid too, but check your local repeater activity first. The question about which bands are more populated depends on location - you can check the ham radio database to see how many VHF and UHF repeaters are in your area.

yeah the ALC thing is huge and most people run too much mic gain, that was me for the first couple years too. the way i think about it — the ALC meter should barely be moving, like just kissing the bottom of the scale on voice peaks. if its bouncing around a lot youre overdriving the front end of the TX chain and it sounds squashed and harsh on the other end even if it sounds fine to you locally. the 7300 specifically tends to react pretty fast with its ALC so you really dont need much gain at all. on the bandwidth thing — yeah wider sounds fuller and more natural, narrower cuts the highs and lows which makes voice intelligibility actually better in noisy conditions but sounds thin on a clear band. i run 2.4kHz for most casual QSOs, drop to 1.8 or so if the band is crowded or there's a lot of QRM. its a tradeoff not a right or wrong answer. also check your speech processor if youre using it — a little processing goes a long way for punchiness on marginal paths but too much and youre back to sounding like a buzzy mess. most guys overdo it. id honestly start with the processor off until you have the gain and ALC dialed in first.

so i've been a ham for about three years now and keep telling myself i'll get a proper go-kit together but never actually do it. well after watching what happened to some folks in the flooding last month i finally sat down and started pulling stuff together this weekend. right now i've got my FT-891 set aside for it, a 40ah LiFePO4 battery, some coax, and a random wire antenna i built last year. i threw in a notebook and some pens because my ARES group lead always says paper logs when everything else fails. i've also got a small DC power strip thingy from Powerwerx. but i feel like im definitely forgetting stuff. like i know theres more to it than just the radio and power. anybody who actually deploys with their kit — what do you wish you'd thought of before you needed it the time? not looking for a perfect list just real world stuff people forget

For your first paddle, I'd suggest looking at a Bencher BY-1 or BY-2. I upgraded to a Bencher years ago and it's been rock solid. The BY-1 is single lever, BY-2 is dual - either will serve you well within your budget. Don't overthink it at your stage, just get comfortable with the keyer timing first.

the other thing worth knowing is people use some of these in ways that drift a bit from the original ITU definitions, like QRP technically just means reduce power but the whole low power community has basically adopted it to mean operating under 5 watts period. so sometimes context matters. same with QSL which started as a procedural code but now also refers to the confirmation cards people collect and send to each other. you'll figure it out as you go, i still occasionally hear one that makes me go huh and have to look it up

ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i keep seeing people talk about uploading logs to LoTW and eQSL and also sending physical cards through the bureau and im honestly not sure what the difference is or if i even need to bother with all three. like is one of them more "official" than the others? i set up an LoTW account a few months back and uploaded a couple logs but i dont think ive actually gotten any confirmations yet, not sure if im doing something wrong or if people just dont use it much on 40m ssb which is mostly where ive been operating. also someone at my club mentioned the QSL bureau and i had no idea what that was, apparently my club handles it but nobody explained how it actually works. do i need to send physical cards to get confirmed on certain awards? or can everything be done digitally these days. i dont want to spend a ton of money printing cards if i dont have to but i also dont want to miss out on confirmations that matter for awards down the road

so ive been using N1MM for contests for a few years now and honestly its great for that, no complaints really, but for everyday QSO logging its kind of a pain to deal with outside of contest mode. i tried setting it up for general logging a while back and it just felt clunky compared to what i wanted. somebody at the club mentioned Log4OM and i downloaded it but havent really dug in yet. looks like it does a lot more for day to day stuff — awards tracking, LoTW integration, all that. but my concern is the contest side of things. i do mostly state QSO parties and the occasional ARRL contest, nothing super serious, and i really dont want to give up N1MM for that because muscle memory at this point. what are people actually doing here — running two separate programs and importing logs, or is there a cleaner way to handle this? also curious how WSJT-X fits in for people who do both FT8 and CW contesting. right now i have WSJT-X logging to a separate ADIF and then importing into N1MM after the fact which feels wrong but it works i guess. any thoughts appreciated, especially if you've actually run Log4OM alongside N1MM rather than just read about it

PA bias being low is probably your smoking gun honestly. on the 7300 theres a trimmer for the final PA bias and if it drifted or got nudged somehow you'll see exactly what you're describing — rig acts totally normal otherwise but just cant make full power. the service manual has the procedure for setting it, you need to look for a specific idle current spec i think its around 600mA total for the finals but dont quote me on that, definitely pull the actual manual. a near-miss from lightning or even just a nasty transient through the power line can absolutely cause a trimmer to drift, ive seen it more than once. before you go poking at bias trimmers though make sure you rule out the driver stage, if the driver board took a hit the finals could be getting underdriven and show the same symptoms. you can check drive level at the input to the PA board if you have a decent scope. not saying it is that, just worth checking before you start tweaking bias and chasing your tail.

ok so i just got my technician license last month and ive been trying to get onto the local 2m repeater. i programmed the offset and everything and i can hear people talking on it just fine but when i key up nobody seems to hear me. a guy at the club meeting mentioned something about a PL tone but i wasnt sure what that was exactly so i just nodded along like i understood lol. did some googling and i think i need to set a CTCSS tone on my radio? the repeater directory listing shows 100.0 but i honestly dont know where to set that in my baofeng. ive been messing with the menus for like an hour. also is there some kind of etiquette i should follow when breaking into a conversation that's already going? i dont want to be that guy who just talks over people

so i've been licensed for about two years now and kept telling myself i'd put together a proper go-kit for emergencies but just never got around to it. well after the storms we had last month knocked out power for three days in our county i figured i really need to get my act together on this. right now i have a Yaesu FT-891 that i use at home and a Baofeng that i mostly just carry around and forget to charge. i know the Baofeng isnt exactly a serious emcomm radio but its what i got for now. my question is really about the whole kit itself — like do i build around a single bag, a pelican case, multiple smaller bags? i see people online with these incredibly elaborate setups and it kind of feels overwhelming. i dont know if i should be thinking about HF capability or just focus on VHF/UHF for local ARES stuff first. also power is a whole thing i havent even figured out yet — battery, solar, what size... anyway figured i'd ask here before i go down a rabbit hole of youtube videos for three hours

For RF safety, focus on the key power levels: 100W PEP for most VHF/UHF, and remember that distance is your friend - doubling distance quarters the power density. The math questions always use round numbers to make calculations easier.

yeah 40 has been weird lately. i think a lot of guys moved to FT8 and just never came back to phone. which is fine i guess but it does make the band feel empty if your not running digital. try later like 11pm or midnight, thats when the band really opens up long path and you get some interesting stuff coming in. also might depend on where you are, propagation has been kinda all over the place this week.

congrats on getting out there, 12 contacts is a solid first activation especially on a weekday with mediocre conditions. dont stress too much about the numbers, ive had activations where i barely squeaked by with 10 and activations where i hit 80+ — a lot of it just depends on timing and propagation that day. for the logging side of things, if youre using paper in the field (which i still do too, old habits) i just use a simple template i printed out with the fields i need and then type it into ADIF Master when i get home before uploading. theres also some people who use their phone with apps like Hamlog or just a notes app and then sort it out later. whatever works for you honestly. one tip for next time — try to get out earlier in the day if you can, like late morning before the afternoon doldrums hit on 40. or try 20m if conditions allow, ive had really good luck pulling in european stations on 20 which helps with the hunter counts. the wwff community is pretty international which is one of the things i like about it compared to some other operating activities.

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now (general class) and i keep hearing people talk about checking into nets but honestly i havent really done it yet. i get a little nervous about it which is dumb i know. i did a quick search on the ARRL site and found a few but the schedules are kind of confusing and i dont know which ones are actually active vs just listed there and never updated. my setup is pretty basic — a baofeng and a home base with a 2m/70cm dual band. i also have HF capability now with an IC-7300 but i haven't really used it on the air much yet. i live in the midwest so i figure there have to be some good regional nets i could join on a weeknight when i have time after work. anyone have a go-to net they check into regularly that they'd recommend for someone still kinda finding their feet? also totally separate question — is there like a good resource for special event stations? i saw something about a park activiation thing and it looked cool but i missed it and dont know how to find out about those ahead of time

yeah the doppler thing trips everyone up the first time. for a linear transponder like on AO-73, the standard practice is to tune your receiver (downlink) to compensate for doppler and leave the uplink more or less alone — your transmitted signal will drift a little in the transponder passband but thats fine, the guys youre trying to work will just tune to find you. if you have two radios running full duplex you can hear yourself and make small corrections to the uplink too, but with a single radio setup like the 818 just focus on keeping your receive frequency correct. gpredict is genuinely better for satellite work, heavens above is fine for visual passes but gpredict gives you real-time doppler corrected frequencies and can even drive a rig via CAT which is nice if your radio supports it. the signal dropping at the end of a pass is completely normal, youre fighting lower elevation and more atmosphere at the horizon, anything below maybe 5-10 degrees is usually pretty rough depending on your local terrain.

oh man i had the exact same problem when i started out lol. mine turned out i had the tone set but i had it on the wrong setting — my radio had like a T-CTCSS option and a TSQ option and i picked the wrong one. TSQ means youre also filtering incoming signals by tone which is fine sometimes but wasnt what i needed. just make sure your radio is set to transmit the tone, not just receive filtered by it. also dont stress too much about etiquette, honestly just being aware of it means youre already ahead of a lot of people. the worst thing you can do is just key up and talk over someone mid-sentence, but even then people will usually just say hey someone was already on or whatever. just listen for a few minutes before jumping in and youll be fine.

Think of it this way - if you're transmitting SSB at exactly 14.350 MHz, your upper sideband extends above that into the non-amateur spectrum. It's good practice to stay a little bit inside the band edges when you transmit, giving yourself a safety margin. Most experienced hams try to stay at least a few kHz inside the band.

35 degrees is workable but yeah its not ideal for troubleshooting. i spent like two months thinking my setup was broken and it turned out gpredict was using a TLE file that was like 6 weeks old and the pointing was just off enough that i was missing the pass. update your TLEs like right before the pass, celestrak has a current amateur sat file. sounds dumb but that fixed it for me.

40 feet of LMR-240 at 440mhz is gonna cost you somewhere around 3-3.5dB which isnt nothing but its not catastrophic either. the PL-259s are probably adding another half dB or so if theyre not done perfectly. i'd actually look at the antenna itself first — the x50a is fine but its gain numbers on 70cm are honestly a bit optimistic on the box. i ran one for years and eventually put up a separate 5/8 wave collinear just for 70cm and yeah the difference was noticeable, maybe 2-3 S units on received signals from the local repeater. if you really want to chase it down, LMR-400 or even LMR-600 on that run would drop your loss considerably. but honestly for a roof-mounted antenna you might just be fighting the physics of a dual band compromise design. a dedicated yagi for 70cm if you're doing anything directional would be a totally different world.

I went through the same struggle on my first Class E build. Start with a simple Class C amplifier first to get comfortable with RF construction techniques. Class E is definitely advanced territory - maybe save it for your second or third QRP project?

yeah the process is actually pretty straightforward once you get your head around it. you apply through the FCC ULS system, there's a 30 day waiting period after a callsign becomes available before anyone can apply for it, and then once the application window closes they do a lottery if multiple people applied for the same one. if you're the only applicant you basically just get it. the fee thing — yes there is a $35 fee now for vanity applications, same system they use for everything else. kind of annoying but it is what it is. as for the format, a 1x2 (like W1AB) or 2x1 (like WA1B) requires at least an Extra class license. with a General you're eligible for 1x3 format calls which are still way shorter than most sequential ones depending on your district. definitely worth checking what's available in your call district on the ULS or one of the third party sites like ae7q.com — that site is super useful for seeing what calls are available or coming up soon.