Rachel Green

so i finally did my first activation last weekend up on W4T/SU-001 and honestly it went way smoother than i was expecting. got my 4 contacts pretty quick on 40m and then just kept going because the pile was still there. ended up with like 11 QSOs which felt great for just having a random wire thrown up in a tree. couple things i was confused about though — do i need to wait a certain amount of time after getting spotted on SOTAwatch before i start calling? i felt kind of bad because i spotted myself and then immediately started calling CQ and i think some chasers were still trying to tune in. also the summit reference, i was looking at the database and there are a few summits near me with really similar names, is there a way to double check im logging the right reference number? last thing i want is to submit points for the wrong summit lol. the whole thing was just a 40 and 20m dipole fed with some cheap ladder line and my FT-818, nothing fancy. already looking at the next one.

yeah im planning on going, dragging my buddy who just got his tech license along too so he can see what its all about. last year i went to the one over in Millbrook and honestly the swap meet tables were pretty thin, lot of the usual junk you see at every fest but a few guys had some decent stuff if you got there early enough. the forums and talks are usually worth sitting in on at Tri-County from what i remember though

so i passed my general about 8 months ago and joined our county ARES group back in the spring. been going to the monthly nets and a couple of the tabletop exercises but this weekend is my first actual activation — county emergency management asked us to provide comms support for a pretty big outdoor event that could go sideways weather-wise based on the forecast. my EC has been great about sending emails with assignments and stuff but im still kinda nervous about whether ill know what to do in the moment. like i know the ICS basics from the online FEMA courses i took (100 and 200 done, working on 700) and i know how to operate obviously, but theres a difference between knowing and actually doing it when someone hands you a radio and points you at a served agency rep who has no idea what amateur radio even is. anybody been through that first activation jitters thing? any tips for staying calm and just being useful without overcomplicating it? i dont want to be the person who freezes up or starts asking dumb questions at the wrong time

the hesitating then rushing thing is super common when youre starting out, dont sweat it. what helped me was just slowing the keyer ALL the way down, like uncomfortably slow, and forcing myself to think about each element before i send it. your brain wants to rush ahead to the next letter before your hand has finished the current one. on the ratio thing — most keyers default to 3:1 dash to dot ratio which is correct, so i wouldnt mess with that unless you have a specific reason. the more likely issue is just your paddle tension and the gap between the paddles themselves. the Bencher should have two little screws for adjusting the contact gap and the spring tension. if the gap is too wide youre working harder than you need to and it throws off your timing. try getting the gap down to just a hair, like barely any daylight between the paddle and the contact. took me weeks to get mine dialed in the way i liked it. as for going on air — honestly the CWT sprints on wednesday evenings are great for beginners because exchanges are super short, just your call and a number. nobody expects perfection. but if youre not ready for that yet just get on 40m around 7.050 and listen for a while, you'll start picking out calls and it clicks faster than you think.

yeah the two-software thing is what most serious contesters do and honestly its not as bad as you'd think once you get the ADIF import dialed in. N1MM is just in another league for contesting, theres really no comparison when it comes to rate display, the function key macros, the networked multi-op stuff if you ever get to that point. Log4OM is great but its trying to be a general logger and a contest logger and kind of does both okay instead of one thing really well for the WSJT-X to N1MM UDP thing, go into WSJT-X settings under the Reporting tab and set the UDP server to 127.0.0.1 port 2333, and in N1MM make sure UDP is enabled under config. it should just start populating. i had it working in maybe 10 minutes once i actually read the N1MM documentation instead of just guessing at it duplicates between the two logs are annoying but not a disaster, i usually just do an ADIF merge in Log4OM and let it skip dupes by callsign and band. never had a serious problem with it

honest answer — for 20-25 hours of a 48hr contest youre probably leaving more points on the table from operating habits than from not having SO2R. like the fundamentals matter way more than people admit. running a clean CQ loop, knowing when to S&P vs run, keeping your exchange crisp and not chatting, using the band decoder properly so youre not wasting time — all that stuff adds up way more than a second radio if youre not already dialed in that said i did set up SO2R a few years back with two K2s and an Array Solutions bandmaster and it absolutely changed my scores in CQWW. but i also had like 5 years of single radio contesting under my belt before that and i think that foundation mattered. the interlocking isnt that bad if you use a proper SO2R controller, the Array Solutions unit handles most of it, the real headache is your antennas and making sure you dont blow a preamp when you transmit on the second radio while the first one is in receive. separate antennas per band for each radio is really the right way to do it and thats where the cost and complexity actually lives so yeah id say get your rate up on single radio first, if youre consistently doing 80+ qsos/hr on 20m during a run then maybe look at SO2R, otherwise its just adding complexity

so ive had my 857d for about 3 years now and just recently found out about the extended receive modification where you open it up and move a couple diodes to unlock the wider rx coverage. been reading different things about it and some people say its totally fine and others act like youre going to blow the radio up or void some critical warranty which honestly at 3 years old i dont really care about the warranty anymore. what i actually want to know is whether the mod genuinely improves anything practical or if its more of a curiosity thing. i mostly do HF and some 2m/70cm but i do like scanning around and monitoring stuff outside the ham bands occasionally. the receive sensitivity supposedly drops off outside the normal coverage but how bad is it really, like is it unusable or just slightly worse. also has anyone done the mars/cap mod at the same time, seems like you might as well do both if you already have the case open. not really looking for a lecture about regulations or whatever, just practical experience from people who have actually done it

yeah the third party thing trips up a lot of new hams. basically your friend can talk through your radio as long as you're the control operator and you're present and responsible for what gets transmitted — you cant just hand someone the mic and walk away. the country thing is a separate issue, it means if youre trying to pass a message to a ham in say Brazil or wherever, there needs to be a formal third party agreement between the US and that country or you technically cant do it. most major countries have agreements, you can find the list on the ARRL site. the music thing — yeah you just cant broadcast music as content, like playing songs intentionally. incidental background noise generally isnt gonna get you in trouble, the FCC isnt sitting there with a stopwatch waiting for someone to sneeze on the air. use some common sense and youll be fine. the rules sound scarier than they are in practice, most hams never hear from the FCC in their entire lifetime.

yeah the hand tension thing got me too for a while. someone at my club told me to try operating with my elbow resting on the table rather than my wrist and it made a huge difference, less strain on the tendons i guess. also are you using the paddle on a slippery surface? i had mine sliding around and i didnt realize how much energy i was wasting just trying to keep it in place until i stuck some rubber feet on the base

so i finally pulled the trigger and did my first ever parks on the air activation last weekend at a state park about 45 minutes from my house, K-4566 if anyone knows it. i had been putting it off forever because i kept convincing myself i wasn't ready or my setup wasn't good enough or whatever excuse i could come up with. ended up throwing my end-fed halfwave up between two trees, ran about 15 watts on 40m and a little on 20m, and honestly i got my 10 contacts in like 25 minutes. i was not expecting hunters to just be waiting like that. every time i put out a spot on the POTA app someone came back almost immediately. had a few guys who clearly do this all the time, very patient with me when i fumbled my callsign exchange a couple times. the only thing that tripped me up was logging. i was using paper in the field which was fine but then uploading to the POTA website afterward was a little confusing at first, the adif format thing. figured it out eventually but maybe someone has tips on making that part smoother. anyway if you've been on the fence about doing one just go do it, the community is super welcoming