Mark Thomas

so i finally did my first real activation last weekend at a state forest about 45 minutes from my house, K-4829 if anyone knows it, and i had this whole plan worked out. antenna up, radio ready, log sheet printed, the works. except i completely forgot that the park closes the main gate at 5pm and i was so busy chasing contacts i didnt notice until i heard someone dragging the chain across the entrance. had to sweet talk the ranger into letting me out which was actually fine he was super nice and curious about what i was doing. anyway before all that i managed 12 contacts on 40m SSB and 4 on 20m which i know isnt a ton but its enough to count as a valid activation right? i was running my IC-705 into a EFHW that i threw over a tree branch and it held up pretty well. signal reports were decent, a couple guys gave me 57-59 which surprised me given the band conditions that day. biggest lesson honestly was just that i need to self-spot earlier. i waited too long and spent like 20 minutes calling CQ with nothing before i finally put myself on POTA.app and then the pileup hit almost immediately. felt dumb but also now i know. anyone else have a memorable first activation story?

so ive been using a cheap RTL-SDR v3 dongle for about a year now, mostly just scanning the local repeaters and doing some NOAA weather sat stuff with WXtoImg. works fine for that honestly. but ive been wanting to get into HF and actually listen to some shortwave, maybe poke around the 40m and 80m bands to get a feel for propagation before i even try transmitting. someone at the club mentioned the RSP1B and it does look pretty solid on paper, the dynamic range is supposedly way better than the rtl dongle and it covers DC to 2GHz without needing a ham-it-up upconverter which i was about to buy anyway. but its like $120 and i dont know if im gonna get that much more out of it vs just slapping the upconverter on what i already have. im running SDR# on windows if that matters, though i did try SDRuno briefly and it felt kind of overwhelming at first. anyone here actually gone through this comparison or been in this situation? is the noise floor difference noticeable enough on HF that its worth it or am i just gonna end up chasing my tail with antenna issues anyway

so ive been chasing for a few months now and finally decided to just go for it and activate a local summit this weekend. picked out W4T/SU-068 which is only like a 2 mile hike and should be easy enough for a first time. got my KX2 and a linked dipole i built last fall, planning to run 10w on 40 and maybe try 20 if conditions look okay. my main confusion is around the summit reference and the AZ when i log on sotawatch. do i need to post an alert the night before or is it fine to just spot myself from the summit? ive seen people do both but wasnt sure if theres like an etiquette thing im missing. also do i need to log the exact summit reference in every QSO in my logbook or just note it once? probably an obvious answer but i dont want to mess up my first activation and have it not count. any tips from people who have done a bunch of these would be great, especially if you've done that particular summit or anything in the SU group

so ive been meaning to do this for like two years and after the storm last month knocked out power for three days I finally got serious about it. got a Yaesu FT-857D that I want to make the centerpiece of the kit, already have a couple of LiFePO4 batteries (one 20ah and one bigger 50ah) and a small solar panel setup. throw in some coax, a wire antenna I can string up in a hurry, and I figure im most of the way there. but then I started reading more about go-kits and everyone seems to have slightly different opinions on what actually needs to be in one. some guys have these massive Pelican cases with everything including the kitchen sink and others keep it really minimal. my situation is I serve as an ARES net control occasionally and id like to be able to operate independently for at least 72 hours if I had to. so my question is basically what are the things people forget until they actually need them? like the non-obvious stuff. I have the radio gear handled I think but im worried about the stuff that seems obvious after the fact. power connectors? logging stuff? audio cables? I genuinely dont know what I dont know here.

I did several practice tests simulating test day conditions - set a timer, put away study materials, sat at a quiet table like I was at the testing center. This really helped reduce anxiety because the real test felt familiar. Arrive early and bring everything on the required list.