Kevin O'Brien

okay so ive been trying to get Winlink working for about two weeks now and im pretty sure i have the basic concept down but the actual setup is just not clicking for me. i have Winlink Express installed and i can see RMS stations in the list when i do a session but when i try to connect nothing happens, just times out every time. im using a Yaesu FT-991A into a Signalink USB, running Vara HF for the modem software. i think the audio levels might be off but i ran the calibration thing in Vara and it said it was fine. my question is mainly about whether i need to configure the RMS gateway separately or if Winlink Express handles all of that automatically when it connects. also do i need to specifically be a sysop to use an RMS or can i just connect to one as a regular user? i feel like i might be fundamentally misunderstanding what an RMS actually is here. also tried on VHF with a TM-V71A and a packet TNC but that just never worked at all so i gave up on that for now and focused on HF. any help would be appreciated, this is for emcomm stuff and id really like to get it working before our next ARES meeting.

so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and honestly i think im ready to try for general. been doing a lot of VHF/UHF stuff and some satellite which has been awesome but i really want to get on HF and actually talk to people further away. my buddy works 40m all the time and it sounds like so much fun. anyway i started looking at the question pool and some of it is pretty confusing. like the electrical stuff makes sense to me more or less but the regulations sections have me turned around. is it worth just grinding the question pool or do i need to actually understand all of it? i used qrz.com to practice for my tech and it worked fine but im not sure if general is harder in a different way or just more of the same. also once i actually pass, what HF privileges do i get right away? like can i just jump on 40m SSB or do i have to wait for the license to update in the system or something. i know there are some band portions i still wont have access to but i got confused reading the chart on the arrl site

congrats on the first one, 23 QSOs is totally solid especially if you're new to portable ops. the log upload — you've got a few days, i think technically its pretty flexible but most people try to do it within a day or two while everything is fresh. just go to the POTA website, create an account if you havent already and there's an upload section, it takes ADIF format which most logging programs export automatically. for spotting, the easiest thing is the POTA Spots app or just go to pota.app and you can self-spot right from there. put in your callsign, the park reference, your frequency and mode and boom, hunters can see you. a lot of people also announce on the POTA facebook group or the subreddit the day before if they want a bigger pileup. once you get comfortable with it you can also ask someone to spot you via a QSO which is handy if your phone signal is bad out there. sounds like you had a great time, that random wire setup works way better than people expect

yeah totally, i do this all the time actually. sometimes i just want the noise in the background while im doing other stuff around the shack. its almost like radio as ambient sound? my wife thinks im weird for leaving the rig on and walking away but theres something about knowing the bands are alive even when im not actively doing anything 40m evenings are great for that. you get everything from ragchewers to nets to the occasional weird propagation skip and you never quite know what youll hear next

yeah i passed my technician like four months ago after studying for maybe two and a half weeks, used hamstudy.org mostly and just did practice tests over and over until i was consistently getting above 80%. the actual test felt easier than the practice ones honestly. the math scared me too but its like two or three questions and if you learn the formula for ohms law youre basically fine

So i finally pulled the trigger on a FT-7900R and got it mounted in the cab of my F-150 last weekend. Overall pretty happy with how it turned out but i have a couple things bugging me still. First off the antenna — i went with a Tram 1185 on a mag mount for now just to get on the air while i figure out a permanent solution. I know mag mounts arent ideal but honestly the reception seems fine so far, been hitting all the local repeaters no problem. My question is about the coax routing. Right now im just running it through the door seal which i know isnt great long term. Has anyone done a clean install with a proper grommet through the firewall or somewhere else that doesnt look terrible? I have zero experience drilling into vehicles and im a little nervous about hitting something. Second thing — the radio is pulling power direct from the battery with 12 gauge wire fused at both ends like i read everywhere to do. But i notice when i key up on high power the voltmeter on the radio dips a little, like down to maybe 13.2 or so. Truck is running. Is that normal or should i be concerned? The previous owner had some kind of aftermarket stereo system in there and i wonder if there might be some other draw happening. Anyway mostly just excited to be mobile finally. Been operating from home for two years and its a completely different experience, so many more people on during commute times.

so ive been running an RTL-SDR v3 dongle for about a year now mostly doing aircraft stuff with dump1090 and some wideband scanning just to see whats out there. its been great for the price honestly but im starting to feel the limits of it, particularly on HF where the direct sampling mod only gets you so far and the noise floor is pretty rough. been looking at either the HackRF One or the SDRplay RSP1A and i cant quite decide. the HackRF has the transmit capability which is appealing even though i have no specific use case for it right now, and the RSP1A seems like it would actually be a noticeable step up for receive quality. budget is somewhere around $150-200 range so either one fits. anybody gone from RTL-SDR to one of these and actually felt the difference day to day? or is it one of those things where you spend the money and then realize the antenna was the problem all along

yeah what he said about LoTW is spot on. i was in the same boat maybe two years ago and honestly logging into LoTW for the first time and seeing i already had like 45 confirmed entities was a nice surprise. the ARRL interface isnt the prettiest but once you figure out the award credit submission process it's not too bad. one thing i'll add — dont stress too much about chasing WAZ until you've got a decent antenna situation. some of those zones are genuinely hard to work if you're running modest power or a compromised antenna, zone 23 and some of the polar zones can be real pain in the neck depending on the bands and season. WAS is way more achievable early on and keeps you motivated while you're building up entity count for DXCC. just my experience anyway

Don't sweat it too much, honestly. First activations feel way more stressful than they end up being. The POTA community is super active and once you spot yourself on pota.app the hunters will find you pretty fast, especially on 40m during morning hours. Just make sure your callsign and the park reference come through clearly every few calls so hunters can log you correctly, that trips up a lot of first timers who forget to say the park number out loud. One thing i always tell people is to listen on the frequency for like 30 seconds before you start calling CQ POTA, just to make sure its actually clear. And if contacts start drying up on 40 dont be shy about moving to 20, sometimes 40 gets noisy mid-morning and 20 opens up nicely. You got this, 10 contacts usually happens faster than you'd expect once the spot goes out.

welcome to the hobby, youre definitely on the right track asking this stuff early. so CTCSS (some people call it PL tone, which is a Motorola trademark that just kind of stuck) is basically a continuous low frequency tone your radio sends along with your voice when you transmit. the repeater's receiver filters for that specific tone and wont open up unless it hears it — keeps random interference and other signals from keying the machine up accidentally. for finding the right tone, the repeater directory on repeaterbook.com is usually pretty solid, just search your area and it should show the input/output frequencies and the required PL tone right there. you only need to set it on your transmit side, not receive, unless the repeater is also sending a tone back and you specifically want your radio to squelch on that — most people dont bother with the receive CTCSS setting. as for etiquette, yeah your elmer was right. after someone finishes a transmission there's usually a short pause — like a beat or two — before the next person keys up. that gap lets the repeater's courtesy tone beep (lots of machines have that) and it also lets someone break in if they need to. just listen for a while before jumping in, get a feel for how that particular repeater runs, they all have their own little culture sort of.

yeah what he said about T-CTCS is right. i had the exact same problem when i started, sat there wondering why nobody could hear me for like two weeks lol. one other thing — make sure your offset is right too, most 2m repeaters use a 600 kHz offset and if the offset is wrong direction you wont get in even with the right tone. repeaterbook usually shows a + or - next to the frequency for that. welcome to the hobby btw, repeaters are fun once you get it sorted out

so this is maybe a weird thing to admit but sometimes after dinner i just throw on the headphones and tune around 40m and just... listen. dont transmit, dont log anything, just kind of zone out listening to ragchews and the occasional DX pile up. its weirdly relaxing. had a net going out of somewhere in the midwest last night and i just sat there for probably 45 minutes listening to these guys talk about their grandkids and antenna projects and stuff. didnt feel like interrupting honestly. anyway curious if anyone else does this or if im just being weird about it

so ive been doing contests semi-seriously for a few years now, mostly CQWW and SS, and im always reading about SO2R and how the serious guys use it to basically never have dead air. but every time i start looking into it seriously i get overwhelmed by the station engineering side of things — the filtering, the antenna isolation, the keying interlocks, all of it. my current setup is a 7300 and a 991A collecting dust and im wondering if just throwing them together with some band decoders and a decent filter setup is actually worth it for a guy doing maybe 8-10 hours of a 24 hour contest, not going all out for a score. like my rate on a good run is maybe 120-130/hr on phone and a bit less on CW, and im not sure if the complexity of SO2R would even net me anything meaningful at that rate vs. just working S&P more aggressively on the second radio sitting there doing nothing. does anyone actually do SO2R at a casual level or is it one of those things that only pays off if youre committed to the whole setup and the operating discipline that goes with it

Congrats on the ticket first of all. Okay so here's my honest take — the UV-5R is fine for what you're describing. I know some guys act like they're radioactive but if you just want to hit a local repeater and chat with your friend on simplex, it'll do exactly that without any drama. The audio is a little rough and the menus are genuinely confusing at first but once you figure it out it works. That said, if you can stretch to maybe $100-130 the Yaesu FT-65 is a noticeable step up in terms of build quality and the receiver is just cleaner — less stuff bleeding in from nearby frequencies. I went the cheap route first and ended up buying a Yaesu six months later anyway so in hindsight I probably shouldve just done that from the start. But I dont regret the Baofeng either because messing around with it taught me a lot about how these radios actually work. Either way youre not gonna break anything by starting with what fits your budget. Just grab a copy of the chirp software if you go the baofeng route, programming it by hand is a bit of a nightmare.

CM-059 is a nice one, good choice for a first activation. dont stress too much about the spot timing honestly, most people post it the morning of and then update it once they're actually on frequency. some folks put an alert up a day or two ahead and then post the actual spot when they summit and get set up. the alert lets chasers know you're coming, the spot is what gets people to actually tune in. and yeah 5 watts on 40m should be plenty if you get a decent antenna up, i've done hundreds of activations with qrp and almost never struggle to get 4 contacts once i'm spotted. the random wire will work fine, just get it as high as you can. if conditions are weird try calling on 14.285 or watch the cluster for where the pile is. good luck and dont forget to log everything on sotadata when you get home, thats the part i always forget