Michael Rodriguez

so im finally doing my first activation this weekend, been chasing for a few months now and figured its time to actually get up on a summit myself. im doing W6/NC-271 which is a pretty easy hike not too far from where i live, only 2 points but whatever gotta start somewhere right my question is about the summit references and how the whole thing works on the day. i get that you need 4 QSOs to qualify the summit but im a little fuzzy on the self spotting stuff. do i spot myself on SOTAwatch before i start calling or after i make contact with someone? and is it bad form to ask the chasers on frequency to spot me if i dont have cell service up there? ive seen people mention RBNhole and i honestly have no idea what that even does gear wise im bringing my KX2 with a 40m EFHW and a small tripod mast thing, done a few parks on the air activations so im not totally green but SOTA feels a little different somehow. also do most activators announce a planned frequency ahead of time or just post to the reflector and hope for the best

so ive been licensed about 3 years now and until last weekend id never really tried to break a serious pileup. i mean ive called a few times on the bigger ones and given up after a minute or two but this time i actually stuck it out and learned a lot, some of it the hard way. there was a VP6 operation on 17m and the pileup was absolutely nuts. i'm running an IC-7300 into a hexbeam at about 35 feet, so not a powerhouse station by any means. at first i was just throwing my call out whenever i felt like it, same as everyone else, and getting nowhere. then i started actually listening to where the operator was pulling calls from — he was clearly working split and listening about 3-4 up, and he had a pattern where hed work a few NA stations then swing to EU for a bit. once i figured out his listening window i started tail-ending — like waiting until he came back to someone and throwing my call in right at the tail end of that QSO — and within maybe 6 or 7 calls i got through. i was kind of shocked honestly. my question is, is tail-ending considered bad form? i've seen arguments both ways online. also curious what other techniques people actually use, not the textbook stuff but what really works at your station level.

honestly the pattern difference is real but whether it matters depends a lot on what you're trying to do. the inverted V has more of an omnidirectional pattern which isnt a bad thing at all for general operating, and the flat top starts favoring broadside to the wire which can help if you know where you want to point. but at 35 feet on 40m neither one is doing anything dramatic, youre mostly getting a cloud warmer either way at low angles where i think the flat top genuinely wins is if your ends are at a decent height, like 20+ feet. if your ends are going to be 8 feet up youre going to have ground losses eating into you and the inverted V with a higher center might actually outperform it in practice. i ran both back to back a few years ago on 40m and the difference was maybe a couple S units at most in any given direction, and it went back and forth depending on conditions. i wouldnt tear down a working inverted V to put up a flat top unless youve got the real estate to do it right

so ive been a ham for about 3 years now and keep telling myself ill get a proper go-kit together and never actually do it. well last month we had a pretty bad ice storm here and the power was out for almost 4 days and it really drove home the point that i am absolutely not ready for anything serious. right now i have a Yaesu FT-857D which i love, a couple of antennas including a jpole i built and a random wire i throw up in trees when i need HF, and a deep cycle battery with a cheap battery tender that i honestly havent checked in probably 8 months. i also have a HT, the Baofeng everyone has, but i know i know. my question is more about the organizational side of it. like how do you guys actually have your kit set up so you can grab it and go? do you keep everything in one bag or case? i feel like every time i think about it i get overwhelmed by all the little stuff — coax, adapters, power cables with the right fuse, logging stuff, reference cards — it just multiplies. also wondering if the battery situation is a problem because mine is pretty heavy and getting it in and out of the garage is kind of a pain already. anyway any advice from people who have actually used their kit in a real situation would be great, not just stuff that sounds good on paper

yeah 10m has been really good lately, i worked like 30 countries in one afternoon a few weeks back which honestly felt surreal after years of that band being basically dead. we're climbing toward solar max so this is kind of what everyone who survived the low years was waiting for. the short version on your flux question is that the solar flux index reflects how much UV and X-ray radiation the sun is pumping out, and that radiation is what ionizes the F2 layer up in the ionosphere. the higher that ionization gets, the higher the maximum usable frequency climbs, and 10m sits right up at the top of the HF range so it only opens up when conditions are really cooking. during solar minimum the MUF often doesn't even reach 10m for most paths so the band just sits there dead. 12m is kind of the same deal, it's a bit more forgiving than 10m but still needs decent solar support. might just be timing on 12m, try it mid-afternoon your time when the path geometry is right for wherever you're trying to work.

haha the sunscreen thing got me the first time too. i keep a little checklist now in my pack just for radio stuff separate from the hiking gear checklist because i kept forgetting one or the other. congrats on the first one though, the feeling you described is exactly it

yeah im going, already got the hotel sorted out. been going most years for a while now and its still worth it even if the flea market side has shrunk a bit compared to back in the day. always good to walk around and see whats there, picked up a barely used 857 two years ago for way less than i expected. if your club swap meet is anything like ours its worth going to those too honestly, more laid back and you can actually talk to people without getting trampled

Ugh yes! Got into an argument with someone last week who insisted I was "doing it wrong" when I was just trying to have a casual QSO. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother getting on the air anymore.

ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i keep hearing people on the air talking about their DXCC count or that they need a certain entity for some award and honestly im still trying to sort out how all these different awards relate to each other. like i understand DXCC is 100 countries (well entities i know i know) but then there's WAS which is all 50 states and WAZ is the zones thing and some guys are working on all three at the same time apparently. my question is really just... where do most people start? i've been logging contacts in WSJT-X and most of my FT8 stuff has been domestic so i probably have a decent start on WAS without even realizing it. but i dont know if i should be focused on one at a time or just work everything and let the credits pile up. also does LoTW confirmations count for all of them or is it different per award? i uploaded my log last week and have like 40 something confirmations already which felt exciting but i have no idea if those are counting toward anything specific

the JS8Call thing with no response might just be propagation timing, ive had that happen a lot where i can see someone fine for a few minutes and then the band shifts and they're gone before the QSO gets anywhere. also some operators set JS8Call to only respond to directed messages not CQ replies so that could be part of it. i dunno i find it frustrating sometimes too but when it works and you actually get a real back and forth going it's way more satisfying than FT8 ever felt to me personally

had basically the same debate last year and ended up going with the dipole, no regrets. the vertical i had before just always seemed noisier to me, probably a ground issue or the radials werent great. dipole fed with ladder line into a tuner and it loads up on 80 and 20 too which is a bonus. ts-590 should be happy with whatever you end up with that thing has a solid tuner built in for minor adjustments.

yeah spotting early is huge, i made that same mistake my first time out. also try posting in the POTA facebook group the morning of with your planned frequency and time, you'll have people waiting for you. 40m has been kind of rough in the afternoons lately anyway so dont get discouraged by the low count

so i finally got to participate in my first actual ARES activation last weekend, not just a training exercise but the real thing. county emergency management called us in because of the flooding over near the river and they needed backup comms at a few of the shelters since the phone lines were spotty and their repeater was having issues. i've been to maybe 4 or 5 of the monthly nets and did the ARRL EC-001 course online a while back but nothing really prepares you for showing up to an actual shelter with your go-bag and just... being useful. or trying to be anyway. i was assigned to the high school gymnasium which was running as a red cross shelter and basically my job was passing traffic between there and the EOC on the county simplex frequency. honestly the thing that surprised me most was how much of the job is just waiting around and being ready. like 90% waiting, 10% actually keying up. but when they needed a welfare message relayed or a supply request passed along it felt like it actually mattered which was kind of a cool feeling. my EC was great about checking in on me periodically which helped since i was a little nervous about screwing something up. anyway i guess my question is — for anyone who's done a lot of these activations, what do you wish you'd known going in? i felt underprepared in some ways and not sure what to work on before the next one.

im kind of in the same boat actually, sitting at around 15wpm and have been for a while so watching this thread closely. one thing that did help me a little was switching from writing everything down to just typing on a keyboard — something about not having to think about handwriting freed up some mental bandwidth i guess. also started doing the daily QST on LCWO which has real words instead of random strings and that felt way less frustrating for some reason.

so ive been a general for about 3 years now and honestly i use maybe 40 meters and 20 meters for the most part, do some local stuff on 2m, nothing crazy. a buddy at the club keeps telling me i should just go ahead and take the extra exam but i dunno, ive looked at the question pool and some of that stuff is way over my head. like the stuff about filter design and transmission line theory and all the math parts... i passed my general without really digging into that stuff too deeply and it worked out fine. i guess my question is does having the extra actually change how you operate day to day? like is the HF access that different from general? i know you get a few more khz here and there on certain bands but i havent really run into a situation where i needed them. maybe im just not doing the right kinds of operating. or is it more about the knowledge you pick up studying for it that makes it worthwhile

I found listening off-air really helped - tune the bottom of HF bands where CW contacts are easy to hear. Start with 80m or 40m for slower transmissions. Real conversations have rhythm that practice apps don't capture.

45 feet is around 0.3 wavelengths on 40m which yeah isnt ideal but honestly its not as bad as people make it sound. the pattern will be a bit more toward the horizon than a lower dipole which actually helps for DX some. the bigger thing is whether you can orient the dipole in a useful direction. a dipole at that height will have some directivity so if you can point the broadside toward europe or wherever you care about, that might actually be better than your vertical in some directions. i ran a dipole at 35 feet for years and it worked fine, made plenty of contacts. your radial field on the vertical is good though, 32 is solid. id say put up the dipole and just compare them for a few weeks, the switching back and forth is honestly how you learn what each one actually does rather than just theorizing about it.

yeah what he said about SSB bandwidth is the key thing that tripped me up too when i first got my general. i was parking right on 7.300 thinking i was fine and somebody on the air politely told me i was splattered outside the band lol. also worth knowing that 7.125 to 7.175 is where you'll find a lot of DX phone activity even though US generals cant transmit there, so dont be surprised when you hear a pile up happening in a spot you cant use. kind of frustrating honestly but thats just how it is with the different ITU regions having different allocations

dont worry about it at all, everyone steps on someone their first time checking into a net, even people who've been doing it for years still clip somebody occasionally when the timing is weird. the main thing is you actually did it which is the hard part. as for phonetics, it kinda depends on the net honestly. on a local 2m net where the audio is clear most people just say their call normally and maybe spell it out if their suffix is something that sounds ambiguous. but on HF nets or anything with a lot of QRM you pretty much always want phonetics. i'd say just listen to a few more check-ins from other people before you key up and match whatever they're doing. net control usually sets the tone too, if they're using phonetics when they call for check-ins then go ahead and use them yourself. the pause thing is just feel honestly. give it maybe a beat or two after the previous station finishes and before you key up. youll get a sense for the rhythm after a few times. sounds like you did fine for a first check-in.

so ive been running my 857D for about 3 years now mostly mobile and some portable ops and lately ive been noticing on 40m especially it just feels like its not pulling in the weaker stations as well as my buddy's IC-7300 does sitting on a desktop. now i know thats not a totally fair comparison since the 7300 has a better front end to begin with but still it got me thinking about whether there are any worthwhile mods for the 857 that actually make a real difference vs just being a rabbit hole. ive read a few things about the collins filter mod and also some stuff about tweaking the noise blanker but honestly a lot of that info is pretty old and i cant tell whats still relevant. there was also something about replacing the stock BPF board but i dont remember where i saw that. anyone actually done any of this stuff and seen measurable improvement or is it more of a "feels better" kind of thing not really trying to make it into a base station, just want to squeeze a bit more out of it for weak signal work on 40 and 80

I found working DX-peditions was a lot less stressful than the constant yelling on phone or keying on CW trying to bust a pile up. The automated nature really helps when you can barely hear the DX station but FT8 pulls them out of the noise.

Check your contact spacing first thing - the bencher might be set different than your old bug was. also make sure the keyer is set to iambic mode A if you're used to that, some keyers default to mode B and it feels totally different when you're sending. i had the same issue when i switched from my old vibroplex to a begali paddle and drove me nuts for about a week until i figured out the mode thing

ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now and i keep hearing people throw out all these Q codes and abbreviations and honestly i only know like QSL and QTH and thats about it. was on 40m last night and someone was asking if the other station could QSY and i kind of figured it out from context but i dont want to just guess every time. is there like a master list somewhere or do people just memorize the common ones over time? also what does 73 actually stand for, someone told me it means best regards but where does that even come from, feels like it could be a whole rabbit hole

so i finally pulled the trigger and built out a proper SO2R setup for this years SS and honestly im still not sure if the juice was worth the squeeze. been contesting for about 12 years now mostly single radio and always felt like i was leaving points on the table watching the mult station guys rack up numbers while i was running a frequency. the setup itself was the usual nightmare — two radios, the microHAM station master deluxe handling the interlocking, had to rework my antenna switching because my 40m yagi was sharing a feed line with a dipole and the isolation just wasnt there. spent probably 6 weekends sorting out RFI issues before i was confident enough to actually use it in a contest. the second radio kept getting into the audio chain on the first one whenever i was running on 20 and hunting on 40 at the same time. actual contest operating though, once i got past the brain overload of managing two radios simultaneously, the rate went up noticeably. like genuinely surprised at the difference. im running N1MM and the SO2R features there are pretty solid once you get the band map talking to both radios properly. my question really is about strategy — when youre running on one radio, how aggressive should you be about S&P on the second one? i kept second-guessing myself, dropping a run frequency to chase a mult on radio 2 and then losing the run frequency entirely. felt like i was constantly making bad tradeoffs

One thing to consider - with wfview, over long periods the latency can creep up even on local network, but restarting wfview fixes it. I haven't experienced that issue with RemoteHams. For contest work, I need absolute reliability so I stick with RCForb despite the steeper learning curve.