Michael Rodriguez

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

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

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

yeah the setup time thing is real, took me like 3 or 4 activations before i got my kit dialed in enough that i could be on the air in under 15 minutes. biggest thing for me was pre-cutting all my guy ropes to the right length and putting little loops in the ends so i wasnt messing around tying knots with cold fingers. also i stopped using the linked dipole honestly, switched to an end fed halfwave and just use a single wire which is so much faster to deploy. the tradeoff is you need a tuner but i keep mine clipped to the feedpoint so its all one piece.
40 minute setup is totally normal for a first time out though dont sweat it, you still qualified and thats what matters

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

im pretty new to all this propagation stuff too so take this with a grain of salt but i started using the DX toolkit app on my phone and it shows solar data, the A and K indices, all that. i dont fully understand everything it shows yet but it helped me figure out why some days i just couldnt reach anybody. my elmer told me to check the flux index first thing in the morning and if its below like 100 the higher bands are gonna be rough — not impossible but rough. above 150 and apparently things get pretty exciting on 10m and up. havent personally experienced a good 10m opening yet since i just got licenced in spring but i keep checking.

yeah the noise issue is almost certainly your power supply and the relay transients coupling in. USB power from a laptop is notoriously noisy for analog work. try running the arduino from a separate regulated 5v supply and use a 10uf tantalum plus a 0.1uf ceramic right at the AREF pin — that made a huge difference for me on a similar project. also if you can, put a small RC filter on the pot wiper before it hits the analog input, something like 10k and 1uf, that'll roll off the high frequency garbage.
the relay chatter thing is a real problem. you probably want to add flyback diodes if you havent already and maybe put the relay coil drive on a separate ground trace that only joins at the power input. or honestly just swap to a motor driver IC like an L298 and ditch the relays entirely for a cleaner setup. the T2X motor isnt pulling that much current if i remember right.
for hamlib integration later, look at the rotctld daemon and there are already some arduino sketches floating around that speak the hamlib protocol directly over serial. saves you having to write that part yourself.

so ive been running a flat 40m dipole at about 35 feet for the last couple years, fed with coax through a 1:1 balun, oriented roughly northeast to southwest. works okay but ive always wondered if i was leaving something on the table by not going inverted V. the thing is my center support is a tree thats maybe 45 feet up and i could probably get the ends down to about 10 feet off the ground if i let them slope, which feels low but ive heard guys say it doesnt matter much.
the reason im even thinking about this is my buddy runs an inverted V on the same band and swears it works better, but he's also got a better location than me, less RF noise, not surrounded by houses. so hard to compare really. i did some modeling in EZNEC a while back and the flat dipole showed a slightly lower takeoff angle which should be better for DX but honestly i rarely work DX on 40, mostly regional stuff 500-1500 miles.
anyone actually done a side by side with these two configurations and noticed a real difference? or is this one of those things where the answer is always 'it depends' and i should just leave well enough alone

yeah 30% confirmation rate on LoTW is actually pretty typical, especially when you're working a lot of domestic stations or newer hams who don't bother with it. some people only upload once a year, some never do. the rate goes up a lot when you're working DX because those guys are usually award-chasing and stay on top of their uploads.
as for physical cards — definitely still a thing, especially in the DX community. the general rule of thumb is you should send one back if you receive one, its just good manners. some people use the bureau system through ARRL which is way cheaper than direct mail for international stuff, you basically batch up cards and they sort and forward them. takes forever though, like months sometimes.
eQSL is kind of the weird middle child. some awards accept it, DXCC doesn't, so a lot of serious DX chasers don't prioritize it. but its fine for keeping a record and some people really like the customization options for making their own card designs. honestly just use all three and don't stress it, confirmations will pile up over time.

Just got my General but want to learn morse code to try CW. Complete beginner - never learned it before. I'm overwhelmed by all the different methods and apps out there.
What's the best approach for someone starting from absolute scratch? Should I start with the Koch method or Farnsworth timing? Any specific apps or programs you'd recommend?
Looking for practical advice from those who've been through this journey recently.

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.

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

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.

Just got my General but want to learn morse code to try CW. Complete beginner - never learned it before. I'm overwhelmed by all the different methods and apps out there.
What's the best approach for someone starting from absolute scratch? Should I start with the Koch method or Farnsworth timing? Any specific apps or programs you'd recommend?
Looking for practical advice from those who've been through this journey recently.

yeah the setup time thing is real, took me like 3 or 4 activations before i got my kit dialed in enough that i could be on the air in under 15 minutes. biggest thing for me was pre-cutting all my guy ropes to the right length and putting little loops in the ends so i wasnt messing around tying knots with cold fingers. also i stopped using the linked dipole honestly, switched to an end fed halfwave and just use a single wire which is so much faster to deploy. the tradeoff is you need a tuner but i keep mine clipped to the feedpoint so its all one piece.
40 minute setup is totally normal for a first time out though dont sweat it, you still qualified and thats what matters