Carol White

yeah the head-patting thing is real lol, i remember my first few passes i was so focused on trying to find my own downlink signal that i completely missed a CQ from someone and then the bird was gone. what i do now is just pick a spot in the passband a little above center on the downlink and call CQ once the bird is like 5-10 degrees elevation on the way up, before the doppler shift gets too wild. and dont worry too much about perfect doppler at first, close enough usually gets the job done on SSB, were not talking about narrow digital modes here

i was in the same spot last year and just decided to go for it. failed my first attempt by like 2 questions which was annoying but passed the second time. the oscillator and amplifier theory sections tripped me up the most, that and some of the amateur satellite stuff which i have zero practical interest in but whatever you gotta know it anyway.
the extra band privileges honestly havent changed my life dramatically but i do like being able to work the whole band without thinking about where my license lets me operate. theres something kind of freeing about it even if youre not constantly using those extra segments

oh man yes absolutely remember mine, i kept forgetting to say my callsign at the end and the guy on the other end had to remind me twice. its one of those things where you know the procedure in your head but when youre actually doing it everything just goes blank. congrats on the first one though, it really does get easier fast. after like 5 or 6 contacts it starts feeling pretty natural. get that general ticket, 40m is waiting for you

oh man the WAZ zones thing confused me too when i was starting out. basically the world is divided into 40 Callsign zones by the CQ magazine system and you need to work one station from each zone. some of them are pretty easy to get, others are a real pain because the zones cover really remote areas. like zone 23 is central siberia and good luck with that one on a weekday afternoon lol
honestly with 30+ countries and 35 states already in the log i'd say just keep doing what youre doing and let the awards kind of happen naturally. WAS might actually come together fastest for you since youre already most of the way there. set up LoTW though seriously, a lot of stations especially in the US only confirm via LoTW now and you might already have confirmations waiting. ARRL has a walkthrough on their site for setting it up, its a bit of a pain with the certificates but worth doing once

same boat here honestly, im still figuring out the whole propagation thing. what i started doing recently was just checking pskreporter before i get on the air to see where other people are being heard, gives you a real quick snapshot of whats actually open right now rather than trying to predict it from indices. not perfect but way more useful than me staring at numbers i dont fully understand yet lol

so i picked up the ARRL technician manual a few weeks ago and ive been going through it but honestly im kind of lost on where to even start. theres so much in there and some of it doesnt seem relevant to what i actually want to do which is just get on 2m and maybe HF someday. a guy at my local club told me to just memorize the question pool and not worry about understanding everything but that feels wrong? like i want to actually know what im doing out there. anyway is the ARRL book even the best way to go or is there something else people use. ive seen ham study dot com mentioned a few times but i dont know if thats enough on its own or if you still need the book

So ive been seeing a lot of chatter on the reflectors lately about the IC-905 and microwave operating in general, feels like theres a bit of a resurgence happening or maybe im just noticing it more. Also caught wind that there were some pretty decent 6m openings last week across the midwest and I completely missed them because I had the radio off all day, typical.
Anyway curious if anyone here has actually gotten their hands on the 905 or even demoed one at a club meeting or hamfest. The SHF capability is interesting to me but I honestly dont know if Id ever use it practically. Feels like a lot of money for something I might just set up once and then it collects dust. Thoughts? And yeah if you caught those 6m openings last week please rub it in, I want to hear about it.

haha i did the exact same thing with the lurking on the repeater before actually transmitting, sat there for weeks just listening. my first contact i forgot to give my callsign at the end and the other guy had to remind me, was pretty embarasing. gets easier fast though

the linked repeater thing is actually pretty cool once you get used to it. yeah basically some repeaters are tied together through internet linking or RF linking so a conversation on one gets rebroadcast on the others at the same time. some systems use Allstar or EchoLink for that. it can be a little weird at first because theres sometimes a slight delay and you have to make sure youre not stepping on someone who's already mid-sentence coming in from a linked node somewhere else. i made that mistake a few times when i was new and felt pretty bad about it lol. just pause a second after the repeater's courtesy tone before you start talking and you'll be fine.