Steven Wilson

The ARRL's net directory can be a bit of a mess yeah, some of those listings havent been updated in years. Honestly the best way I found was just to ask around at your local club or check with your regional section — most sections run their own weekly HF nets and those tend to be pretty active and welcoming to new folks checking in for the first time. For nationwide stuff, the 40 meter Slow Net is a good one if you ever want to try CW eventually, but since you want voice, the 75/80 meter rag chew nets are pretty casual and you can just tail-end in without a lot of pressure. Weekday mornings there are usually a bunch of traffic nets too but those move pretty fast and can feel a little robotic if you're just looking to chat. With a 7300 and a vertical you should get out just fine on 40 for regional and 80 for closer in, especially evenings.

Welcome to the rabbit hole, fair warning you may never come out haha. Okay so honestly the easiest thing to do is just start working whatever DX you can hear and make sure youre uploading to LoTW regularly. The vast majority of serious DX operators use LoTW now so your confirmations will stack up faster than you'd expect. Paper QSLs are still needed for a handful of entities where the operator just doesnt do LoTW, but its getting rarer. Some of the really rare DXpedition guys will actually do LoTW within a few months of the operation now which is great. For strategy — early on i'd say dont overthink it. The first 100 entities come pretty easy if youre on 20 and 17 meters and paying attention to the DX clusters. Its when you start getting into the 200s and above that you really have to start planning and waiting for activations of rare entities. WAS is totally worth doing at the same time, i worked most of my states just incidentally while chasing DX. WAZ is... yeah its harder than people expect because some of those zones are just rarely activated or the propagation to get there is tricky. Zone 2 and a few of the pacific zones gave me fits.

picnic table near the parking lot is totally fine, ive seen people do activations from their car basically. the purists might grumble but the rules dont say anything about how far you hike lol. congrats on the first one, it really does get easier. i do like 3 or 4 a month now and i still have days where the antenna just refuses to tune and i end up scrambling

Welcome to DX chasing! DX clusters are updated every 10 seconds and distribute spots to all connected participants. I personally use DXWatch for its modern web interface with real-time filtering and customizable views. Great for beginners since you can filter by band easily.

been running a remote setup through RemoteHams for about two years now, different rig (IC-7300) but same general idea. the SDR piece — its not streaming raw IQ the way like SDR# or SDRuno would. its more like compressed audio with some metadata on the side, its proprietary but it works pretty well once you tune the codec settings. latency is usually fine for SSB, i wouldnt try to do CW at high speeds over it unless your connection is rock solid both ends. the internet linking thing is kind of a separate feature honestly, you can tie it into repeater linking but most people just use it for the remote desktop style access to the transceiver. 15 megabit upload is more than enough, ive done it on way less. biggest pain for me was setting up the port forwarding and making sure my parents router didnt drop the connection every few days. ended up putting a small script that pings out every few minutes just to keep the NAT table happy.

yeah what he said. also just want to add that most net controls actually appreciate new check-ins even when things go a little sideways, keeps the net from being the same 6 guys every week. i net control our county ARES net on alternating Thursdays and honestly a new ham stumbling through a check-in is way more fun than dead air lol. one thing that helped me early on was just listening to the net for a few weeks before checking in, which sounds like you were already doing that so youre ahead of most people tbh.

so ive been doing contests pretty seriously for the last couple years, mostly single op on 20 and 40, and i keep reading about SO2R and how the top scorers basically all run it. im starting to wonder if its actually worth building out a second radio setup or if im just chasing diminishing returns at my skill level. my rate right now is pretty decent when the band is hot, im running a k3 into a 3el yagi on 20 and usually manage somewhere around 120-150 qso/hr when the run is good. but then the band shifts or gets quiet and i just sit there spinning the dial on the same rig while the clock ticks. i guess thats where the second radio comes in — you're supposed to be S&P on one while you're running on the other. the part that confuses me is the station management side of it. like how do you actually handle the audio from two radios at the same time, do people really just stereo split with one radio in each ear? and the bandpass filter situation for keeping the two rigs from blasting each other seems like it could get expensive fast. anyone whos actually done the transition from single radio to SO2R, was it a gradual thing or did you just go all in?

went through this myself not that long ago so i remember the confusion lol. one thing that helped me was just poking around AE7Q like the other guy said, seriously that site has everything. you can look up your own call, see what format it is, search for available vanity calls by format and district, all of it. i ended up applying for a vanity call about 6 months after i got licensed, just wanted something shorter and more memorable for when im doing voice contacts. the application itself through ULS wasnt too bad once i figured out the interface which is uh, not exactly modern. just make sure you list multiple choices if you can because popular ones go fast and if your first pick gets snagged by someone else before yours processes youre kind of out of luck for that round

Start on the simplex calling frequency 146.52. When activating within range of a populated area, you can usually just be successful calling CQ on the 2 Meter FM National Simplex Calling Frequency, 146.52 MHz. If no response, try the local repeater to ask folks to QSY to simplex. Good luck on your first one!

yeah 10m has been absolutely wild, you didnt imagine it. we're heading into solar cycle 25 maximum and honestly it snuck up on a lot of people because the predictions were kind of conservative early on but the actual flux numbers have been blowing those predictions out of the water. when SFI gets above like 150-160 you start seeing 10m come alive in a serious way and when it pushes toward 200+ like its been doing lately F2 propagation can basically make it work like a local band except youre working Europe and Asia. your dipole at 25 feet is totally fine for this, honestly on 10m a low dipole still works pretty well especially for DX at lower angles than you might think. enjoy it while it lasts, high solar flux periods like this dont come around all the time and 10m can go completely dead for years at a time. i remember sitting on 10m for months hearing nothing but static back around 2018 or so.

Totally understand the nerves, I felt the same way my first time. So basically most nets will have a net control station (NCS) who opens things up right at the scheduled time, usually says something like "the [whatever] net is now open" and then they'll ask for check-ins. That's your moment — just key up and say your callsign. You don't need to say anything fancy. Just your call, maybe your first name and location if it's that kind of net. As for not having anything to say, that's completely fine. Lots of people check in with just "no traffic" or "nothing further" and that's totally normal. The NCS will just acknowledge you and move on. The 7pm Monday thing on a repeater club site is almost certainly a social net or an ARES check-in, probably not a formal traffic net. Those are usually a bit more relaxed and honestly a great place to start. Just listen for a few minutes before the hour so you're on frequency and ready.

yeah the 15m CW thing is real, 21.025 to 21.200 i think, been a while since i looked. honestly part 97 is kind of a slog to read straight through, i'd look for a summary. the mexico trip sounds fun though, whats your HT, a baofeng or something nicer

Your LoTW rate seems low to me - I'm seeing closer to 30-35% on mine. Are you uploading regularly? The beauty of LoTW is confirmations can happen minutes after a QSO, versus cards taking weeks, months or years to arrive. Maybe some of your contacts haven't uploaded their logs yet?

Switched to LiFePO4 three years ago after lugging lead acid to too many Field Days. The runtime difference isn't as dramatic as the specs suggest - voltage sag under load with AGM kills you. For EmComm work, I'd go larger capacity LiFePO4 (60Ah minimum) to handle extended nets and digital operations. The voltage stability alone is worth it.

yeah im in kind of the same boat as you, started about 3 weeks ago using the morse code ninja stuff on youtube which i actually really like because he has these word lists organized by frequency so youre hearing common words over and over. i still feel pretty lost most of the time but i can copy maybe half the alphabet reliably now so thats something i guess. the app i use is called morse mania, its free and pretty decent for drilling individual characters. what i found is mixing up a few different resources helps because you dont get bored as fast

so ive been using Log4OM for about two years now and honestly its been fine for day to day logging, the interface took some getting used to but i like how it handles the logbook side of things and the QRZ integration works pretty well once you get the API key sorted out. but contest season is coming up and everyone keeps telling me i need to switch to N1MM for that. the thing is i also run WSJT-X pretty regularly for FT8 and right now i pipe that into Log4OM through UDP and it mostly works, occasionally i get duplicate entries or the grid square doesnt populate right but nothing deal breaking. my question is whether it even makes sense to use two different programs depending on what im doing or if there's some way to have N1MM handle everything including the WSJT-X side during a contest without it turning into a mess. i tried N1MM briefly a few years back and remember being pretty overwhelmed by the config but maybe i just didnt give it enough time. does it even do the UDP thing with WSJT-X the same way Log4OM does or is that a totally different setup

i was in the same boat when i got my tech. the part that got me was i kept reading about technicians having 10m privileges and i assumed that meant the whole band but nope, its just that slice at the top. i ended up just bookmarking the FCC part 97 subpart D page and ctrl+f searching for technician whenever i wasnt sure. its not the most readable thing but at least its the actual source and you know its right. also worth knowing that if you operate outside your privleges even by accident it can technically be an FCC violation so yeah its worth getting sorted before you start transmitting on HF

yeah i went through almost the exact same thing when i set mine up. turned out the gateway i kept trying to hit was actually offline and the map just wasnt reflecting it yet. i wasted like two evenings on that before someone on my local club net told me to just try a different one. there's also a telnet option in Winlink Express that goes through the internet instead of RF which is useful just to verify your account and software config are actually working before you blame the radio side of things

the bleedthrough thing is real but honestly at HF with 100w or less its probably not gonna kill you unless youre running a really critical setup. i built something similar with an UNO and one of those 4-relay boards and ran it for about 8 months without any issues i could notice on-air. the bigger problem i had was the relay coils generating noise that got into the audio — had to add some flyback diodes and a small cap across the coil supply. the cheap boards dont always have adequate snubbing. for the RF side if you're really worried just add a coax stub or a series choke on the unused ports, 50 ohm termination on the open ports helps too. but if youre just doing casual HF operation id just test it and see before spending money on proper RF relays. those surplus RF relays are great but finding ones rated for your power level at a decent price is a whole thing. the CAT integration sounds really clean by the way, been meaning to do something like that with my 7300 too. what library are you using for the serial communication on the python side?

honestly there's no hard rule written in stone about it, it's more of a situational thing. on a clear local repeater with good signal most people will just say their call straight and everyone hears it fine. but if you're on HF or conditions are marginal at all, phonetics can save you from having to repeat yourself three times. the reason the NATO alphabet exists is specifically because certain letters sound nearly identical over a scratchy RF link — B and D and E and G for example all kinda blur together. so the general practice most people follow is, first contact or if theres any doubt, go phonetic. after that if the QSO is going fine you can relax a bit. some guys phonetic every single time out of habit and thats fine too, nobody's going to complain. you'll develop your own feel for it pretty quick.

so ive been on HF for about two years now mostly doing digital modes but lately ive been getting more into SSB and i keep getting reports that my audio sounds muffled or like im talking through a sock or whatever. im running an IC-7300 into a heil headset, the PR40 boom mic element, and i thought that combo was supposed to be just plug and play basically. ive messed with the TX bandwidth settings, tried narrowing it down to like 2.4kHz thinking that would help but honestly i cant tell much difference from my end obviously. someone on 40m last week told me i sounded like an AM station and i wasnt sure if that was a compliment or not. i think he meant i was too wide maybe. what are people actually doing to dial in good SSB audio these days, like is there a standard set of adjustments on the 7300 that most folks run or is it all just personal preference and band conditions

so ive been running a mag mount for about two years now on my truck, just a basic dual band whip, works ok but i keep reading that a proper NMO through-the-roof mount is way better and i'm starting to believe it after messing around with the numbers a bit. the mag mount sits on the roof towards the back and honestly the swr is fine, like 1.3 or so on 2m and a bit worse on 70cm but nothing alarming. but i notice when im driving through hilly terrain i get a lot of dropouts talking to the local 147 repeater and i'm wondering if a solid ground plane from a real NMO would actually make a difference or if my dropouts are just terrain and i need to accept that. truck is a 2019 F-150 and yes i know drilling feels scary but ive done it on older vehicles before. the other option i was looking at was one of those lip mounts or a hatch mount but i heard those can mess with your ground plane even more than a mag mount. anyone actually done a side by side comparison? also debating between a larsen nmo150/450 and just going with a diamond mr77 or something. not sure if the antenna choice matters as much as the mount at this point.