Lisa Thompson

W4T/SU-001 is a solid first pick actually, ive driven past it a few times. just make sure you post an alert on SOTAwatch the night before if you can, you'll get way more chasers tuning in if they know youre coming. i skipped the alert on my first activation and basically had to beg for contacts lol. also 40m around 10am on a weekend should be decent, maybe also string up something for 20m if you can, theres a lot of chasers in Europe that are specifically hunting for US summits on 20 and it adds up for your activator score faster than you'd think

not a dumb question at all. general is definitely a step up from tech but its not like some huge wall. the question pool is bigger and yeah the electrical theory does get a bit more into it - things like impedance, some antenna theory, propagation stuff. but honestly if you just use HamStudy or even the ARRL general book you'll be fine. i studied for maybe 3-4 weeks casually, like 20-30 minutes a day while eating lunch, and passed no problem. the thing i'd say is dont just memorize blindly for all of it. like the band plan questions are worth actually learning because once you're on HF you'll actually need to know where to point your radio. but a lot of the electrical stuff you can get by with pattern recognition if theory isnt your thing. as for what opens up - you get HF access on most of the good chunks of 40m, 20m, 15m, 10m and a few others, which is really where most of the action is. 20m alone will keep you busy for years. just go for it, the exam fee is cheap enough that even if you dont pass first try its not the end of the world

congrats on the ticket. i remember my first qso was on 2m simplex with a neighbor two streets over, nothing fancy but i was absolutely buzzing for like an hour after. the baofeng is fine for getting started but once you get a feel for what you actually want to do you might want to look at something a bit more solid. anyway welcome aboard, what repeater were you on if you dont mind me asking

yeah newer cars are definitely a headache for this. what i usually do is look around the firewall on the drivers side near the brake booster area - a lot of manufacturers still run wiring harnesses through there and sometimes you can slip coax alongside an existing grommet if you're careful about not nicking the rubber. a plastic spudger or a small screwdriver to gently open up a bit of space in the grommet works pretty well, then just use a little silicone or self-fusing tape to seal it back up after. on the coax loss thing for the longer run, honestly for typical dual band mobile use the extra few feet isnt going to kill you as much as you'd think unless you're using really cheap coax. if you went with lmr-400 or even decent rg-8x you're probably fine. the bigger hit is usually the connectors and how well the antenna itself is grounded, at least in my experience.

so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now and finally decided to just go for it and get licensed but honestly i dont even know where to begin. i downloaded some app i think its called ham study or something and just started doing practice questions but i feel like im just memorizing answers without actually understanding any of it. is that fine or do i need to actually understand the theory stuff. some of those questions about like electrical formulas and ohms law and whatever are kind of going over my head. also how hard is the actual test, like can you walk in knowing barely anything and wing it or should i actually study for a few weeks. i know the technician is the entry level one so im assuming its not that bad but i dont want to show up and completely bomb it either. any tips from people who already went through this would be great

So ive been reading about WWFF for a few months now and finally decided to just go do it. Theres a nature reserve about 40 minutes from me that has a valid reference (KFF- number registered and everything) and the weather looks decent for Saturday so im just gonna go for it. My plan is to bring the FT-891 with a 40m EFHW strung up between some trees, maybe bring a 20m option too if propagation cooperates. Should have plenty of battery to run a few hours. I know the basic rule is 44 QSOs to count as a valid activation but honestly id be happy with like 20 at this point just to get the feel for it. Anything I should know going in? I feel like im probably overthinking the setup and should just go do it. Also do I need to spot myself or does that happen automatically somehow, i genuinely dont know how that part works.

the thing i always forget and then kick myself over is food and water, which sounds so obvious but when youre packing up radio gear thats just not what youre thinking about. showed up to a 12 hour simulated emergency exercise one time with zero snacks, nothing to drink, and my thermos was sitting on the counter at home. borrowed a granola bar from the EC and never lived it down. also honestly the laminated freq card thing is huge. i made one up in Word a few years back, just the local repeaters, the ARES net freqs, simplex calling, and the county EOC channels. laminated it at the library for like a dollar fifty and taped it to the inside lid of my kit. have used it more times than i expected, especially when im tired or stressed and my brain just stops cooperating. one more thing — a small notebook and a couple pens that actually work. not a phone, an actual paper notebook. power goes out, your phone dies, paper still works. sounds old fashioned but at a real deployment it matters.

i went through it about two years ago and honestly the math looks worse than it is. like the reactance formulas and the smith chart stuff — once you actually sit down with it for a few evenings it starts to click. i used the ARRL Extra Class License Manual and just worked through it chapter by chapter. the question pool memorization does help but if you understand even the basics of why the answers are what they are it sticks a lot better when you're sitting there in the exam session trying to remember. the transmission line section tripped me up at first because i never really dealt with SWR in any serious way as a General. but there's some decent youtube stuff out there that explains standing waves visually and that helped me more than reading about it. give yourself maybe 6-8 weeks of casual studying and you'll probably be fine. the actual exam felt easier than i expected after all the buildup honestly.

N1MM is what basically every serious contester runs and theres a reason for that. the Cabrillo export is rock solid, ive been using it for CQWW and SS for years without a single issue. yeah the interface looks like its from 2003 but once you learn where everything is it gets out of the way and you can just log. for everyday use its totally fine too, i use the non-contest mode and it tracks band slots, DXCC, all that stuff. as for WSJT-X, yes it does the UDP thing natively. you set WSJT-X to broadcast on the default port and tell N1MM to listen and they talk to each other pretty well. QSOs log automatically which is nice. only weirdness ive seen is occasionally a dupe gets through if you're running a pileup fast but thats pretty rare. havent used Log4OM much so cant really compare but from what ive heard the contest module is still not quite there yet, at least not for the big ones.

yeah solar cycle 25 has been really surprising a lot of people, its been outperforming the predictions pretty consistently for the last year or so. that SFI of 180 is solidly good, anything above like 150 and 10m starts getting genuinely fun, above 200 and it can be almost like a local repeater up there, just wall to wall signals. for tracking i pretty much always check DXmaps and also the WWV solar data — there's a page on spaceweather.com that's easy to read if you dont want to dig through a bunch of numbers. the DX cluster spots will also kind of tell you indirectly what bands are open because you'll see a sudden flood of 10m spots and know something's happening. i also have a widget on my phone that shows the A and K index, high K index means geomagnetic storm which can kill HF propagation even when the SFI is good, so that one matters too. sounds like you picked a great day to wander up there. south america on 10m is pretty routine when the band's open but Europe in the afternoon from wherever you are is a nice catch

yeah there's a ton of them and honestly most guys only use maybe 15-20 regularly so dont stress about memorizing the whole ITU list. the ones you'll hear constantly on HF are QRM which is interference from other stations, QRN is natural static like from thunderstorms, QSB is fading signal, QRZ means whos calling me, QRP is low power, QRO is high power, and QSY means change frequency. QTH and QSL you already got. 73 is just the standard goodbye, means best regards, everybody uses it. 88 means love and kisses and yeah its usually between people who know each other, mostly if theres a YL involved. not weird to hear them back to back if the operators are friends or family. after a while this stuff just becomes second nature, you stop even thinking about it

ha i remember my first QSO, i was shaking a little honestly. messed up my callsign on the first try. welcome to the hobby, it only gets more expensive from here

so we have a county-level emcomm exercise coming up saturday and ive been going back and forth on power for probably two weeks now. the plan is to set up a full station at the fairgrounds, run HF and VHF simultaneously, probably 100w on HF and whatever the 706 pulls on 2m. last exercise we used a honda eu2200 and it was fine but the noise floor was kind of rough even with the inverter type — not terrible but definitely noticeable on 40m when propagation was quiet. ive got a 100ah lifepo4 now that i didnt have last time and im seriously considering just running off that with a 30a balmar charger keeping it topped if needed. should handle a few hours no problem if im not transmitting constantly. the antenna situation is where i get more unsure — i have a 40-10 EFHW that i can get up maybe 25 feet with a painters pole, and a buddipole that honestly ive never been totally happy with but its fast. thinking about bringing both and using the EFHW for HF work and the buddipole as backup or maybe for a second operator position. anyone dealt with generator noise specifically on 40m during a field exercise? wondering if separation actually helps or if its mostly a lost cause with a small genny that close

so ive been going back and forth on this for probably two months now and i need someone to just talk me off the ledge. currently running a pretty basic 40m dipole, inverted-V style, apex around 35 feet up on a fiberglass mast. it works, like it genuinely works fine, but ive been reading about verticals and now i cant stop thinking about low-angle radiation and dx and all that stuff. the thing is my yard isnt huge. im in a suburban lot and ground radials are going to be a pain — i was thinking maybe 16 to 20 of them, maybe 30 feet long since i just dont have the room for quarter wave on 40. my neighbor is already giving me looks about the mast so i dont really want to put up a giant vertical and then have that conversation too. mostly i work domestic stuff, some occasional dx when conditions are decent. not a serious dxer but i wouldnt say no to a nice contact either. is the vertical actually going to make a meaningful difference for my kind of operating or am i just going to go through all that work and end up with roughly the same thing

not a dumb question at all, this stuff genuinely confused me for years when i first got started. ok so the short version is LoTW is run by ARRL and it's the one that counts for DXCC and most of the big awards, so if you care about chasing awards eventually you'll want that set up properly. eQSL is a separate thing, some people swear by it and others dont bother, it has its own award system and a lot of dx stations upload there too so it's worth having an account even if you dont check it every day. physical cards are totally optional but yeah there is kind of an unwritten expectation that if someone sends you one you send one back, especially if they included a self addressed envelope or an IRC. for FT8 contacts most people just do the digital confirmations and dont bother with paper but its really up to you. i'd say check your LoTW account, you probably have more confirmations sitting there than you realize, the interface is a little clunky but once you get used to it it makes sense. and go get yourself some cards made, QRZ sells them pretty cheap and its one of those things you'll be glad you did