Rachel Johnson

so ive been at this CW thing for about 4 months now and im stuck around 13-14wpm and it feels like a wall. when i was at 5wpm it felt like progress was happening every week but now i feel like im spinning my wheels. i practice with the koch method every morning for maybe 20-30 minutes before work and i can copy most of what i hear but i still get tripped up when the speed jumps even a little bit. mostly curious how long it took other people to get from that beginner zone up to actually being useful on the air like 20wpm range. i know everyone says just get on the air and do it but i dont feel ready and id probably just freeze up and embarrass myself. are there any tricks that actually made a difference for you or is it just one of those grind it out things

get there way before gates open, like seriously people line up early. the outdoor flea market is where all the action is and yeah the good stuff goes fast. i grabbed a barely used kenwood ts-570 for way under market price two years ago but i was basically sprinting when they let us in lol. bring cash, small bills especially, a lot of the vendors dont want to mess with bigger denominations early in the morning when they havent made change yet

dont sweat the 40m thing, that happens to everyone starting out. propagation can be really uneven and sometimes the net control just flat out cant pull you out of the noise even if you did everything right. best thing to do is listen to a full net session before you try checking in again, just to get a feel for the pacing and how net control handles the list. for finding nets, the ARRL has a net directory but honestly i find it kind of outdated. better bet is to ask around your local club or just monitor the popular frequencies at the same time each week and see what pops up. most nets run on a pretty rigid schedule. the 7.268 afternoon net has been running forever if youre on 40m. the lighthouse event stations are a totally different vibe, theres no formal check-in or anything like that, you just call them like any other station and exchange a signal report and maybe your state or grid square depending on what theyre collecting. much more relaxed than a formal net. world lighthouse on the air weekend is a good one to look for.

honestly its mostly just feel after a while. on a local repeater with decent signal nobody really cares if you just say your call normally, most people there know you anyway. but on HF especially when the band is doing weird things or youre working someone with a thick accent or heavy QRM, phonetics can save you a lot of back and forth. i always default to phonetics when giving my call to someone who hasnt heard me before, or when conditions are marginal. once youre in a regular ragchew and the other guy clearly has your call written down, dropping them is fine. the real place phonetics matter most is contests and DX pileups where everything is fast and noisy and a B and a D or an M and an N can totally get mixed up

so ive been a tech for about two years and finally upgraded to general last month and one of the things i really want to do is get into cw but i honestly have no idea where to begin. like i downloaded a couple apps and they all seem different and i dont know if im supposed to learn the letters one at a time or just kind of throw myself at it and see what sticks. also not sure if i should learn to write it down or just hear it in my head, someone at my club said dont ever write it down but another guy said writing helps at first and now im just confused. is there like a standard way people do this or does everyone just figure out their own thing

i had the exact same thing happen on my second activation lol, sat there calling for like 45 mins wondering why nobody was answering and then someone finally told me about spotting. also tuesday afternoons on 40 can be rough depending on where you are, i've had way better luck around 5-7pm local when people are getting home from work and firing up their rigs. the KX2 and EFHW combo is solid though, i run almost the exact same setup

HamStudy is good, also the Ham Radio Prep app if you want something on your phone. i'd also say dont overthink the theory stuff at the tech level, you dont need to fully understand every formula just kind of recognize what they're asking. the one thing that tripped me up was the band plan questions, like knowing what modes are allowed where on which bands. just make sure you spend some time on that section. once you pass tech you can get on HF with some limitations right away so its worth pushing through to general eventually but start with tech, one step at a time. also depending where you live theres sometimes online proctored exams now which is pretty convenient if theres no local VE session nearby

40-50mph is not that bad for a yagi if its mounted right tbh. ive seen people worry way too much about that. the real issue is ice loading, if you get icing up there a long boom yagi can get absolutely hammered. colinears handle ice a bit better just due to their profile. something to think about depending on your climate.

so i finally did my first activation last weekend, took a hike up W4T/SU-001 with my KX2 and a random wire antenna i strung up between two trees near the summit. managed to get my 4 contacts to qualify which i was honestly not sure would happen because i wasnt sure if my signal was making it out at all at first. ended up working about 9 stations total on 40m SSB which felt pretty good for a first time out. my question is about the summit reference thing — i logged the activation on SOTAwatch but im not totally sure i picked the right reference for that peak. like is there a way to verify after the fact that you were actually within the activation zone? i looked at the rules and it says within 25 vertical meters of the highest point but i wasnt using anything with elevation data in real time. also does it matter what order you submit the log, like do i need to do it within a certain time window or is it fine to wait a few days overall it was a really cool experience, way more fun than just sitting at the home station. the summit was pretty exposed and windy so setting up took longer than expected but once i got going the pile actually built up a little which surprised me

so i finally did my first real SOTA activation last weekend, W4C/EM-003 if anyone knows it, and wow i was not prepared for how different it is from operating at home. got up there after about 2 hours of hiking with my KX2 and a end fed half wave that i've used a bunch in the backyard, figured i'd just throw it up in a tree and start working people. problem is there weren't really any good trees near the summit so i ended up using my trekking pole which worked okay but the wire kept sagging and i think my SWR was a mess. managed 4 QSOs on 20m which is enough to activate but barely, and the whole time i felt like i was fumbling around. spotted myself on SOTAwatch which helped a little but the pile up i was expecting never really materialized, maybe 20 minutes and then nothing. i did get one S2S with somebody in Tennessee which was honestly the highlight. anyway looking for advice on antennas that actually work well when there's no trees, and also how do people usually handle the spotting and timing so chasers actually show up. im sure im missing something obvious

so ive been messing around with this idea for a few weeks now and finally got something half working. basically i have a hex beam and a vertical out back and im tired of running out to the shack every time i want to switch between them for different bands. figured an arduino with a relay board could handle the switching logic and maybe tie into my radio's band data output. got a uno sitting on the bench that wasnt doing anything and wired up one of those 4 channel relay modules from amazon, the blue ones. logic is pretty simple, just reading the BCD band data off the accessory port and then firing the right relay. problem is im getting some weird RF getting into the arduino when i transmit, like it just resets or goes haywire on 40m especially. shielding the whole thing didnt seem to fully fix it. anybody dealt with this before or have a better way to isolate the control lines from the RF environment in the shack also been thinking about whether a raspberry pi would be better for something like this since i could tie it into logging software too but honestly the arduino feels right for something this simple, dont need a whole linux box just to flip a relay

so i finally did my first SOTA activation last weekend, summit was only a 4 point peak but man i was not ready for how exhausting the hike up is when you're also carrying all your gear. had my KX2, a 40m EFHW, some snacks, water, the whole deal. took me like 90 minutes to get to the activation zone and by the time i set up the antenna i was totally gassed. anyway got my 4 contacts no problem, even had a guy from ohio call in which was cool considering i was only running like 5 watts from a summit in vermont. but the whole packout was rough and i think i need to seriously rethink my kit. the reel the wire came on kept snagging on everything and i spent probably 20 minutes just trying to get it sorted after i took it down. anyone else have this problem with wire antennas on summits or is it just me being dumb about how i'm storing it

yeah this took me a while to figure out too when i was coming up. honestly the first thing id try is bumping the weight down a little, like to 45 or even 42. some people run higher weight thinking it helps spacing but it can actually make transitions mushier at 15wpm where you dont have as much timing margin to work with. also check your paddle gap. the Bencher is great but if the gaps are too close you're gonna get false contacts, especially on the dit side when your thumb is hovering. i like just a hair of visible gap on both sides, enough that theres a tiny bit of resistance before it makes contact. takes some fiddling but once you get it dialed in it really does make a difference. give iambic A a shot too if you havent, some people never click with mode B and switching fixed everything for them

yeah its still at the fairgrounds from what i saw on the club website. table fees went up a little but nothing insane, think its like $15 now. i went last year and it was smaller than i remembered but still worth the trip, grabbed a decent mic and some coax connectors. bring cash, half the guys there dont do venmo or anything like that

path might also be part of it depending on your area. WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 is fine for most places but if youre in a dense metro with a lot of digis sometimes trimming it back helps, less collisions on the channel. 144.390 gets pretty congested in some markets especially during events or when someone leaves their tracker beaconing every 10 seconds like a maniac lol. not saying thats your issue but worth looking at the raw packets on aprs.fi and seeing how many hops your packets are actually making before they hit an igate.

thats pretty much how i got my ticket renewed after like a 12 year gap lol. just started listening again before i even got on the air and remembered how much i liked just hearing whats out there. 40m on a rainy day is underrated for sure

the 6 hour timestamp thing is actually pretty normal, the gateways dont update their status in real time, some of them can show as active for days after they go offline. i'd try a different gateway first just to rule that out — hit the winlink web map and find one a bit further away or on a different band. 40m during the day at 40 miles can be tricky depending on the time, skip distance and all that. you might actually have better luck with a nearby VHF gateway if theres one in your area, packet on 145.09 or whatever your region uses, just to confirm your pat setup is actually working end to end before you troubleshoot the HF side. also with pat on linux make sure your vara HF license is sorted if you're using vara — the free tier has speed limits but it should still connect. if you're using ardop instead of vara that changes things too. worth double checking which modem you actually have configured in pat because i've seen people have the wrong one selected and wonder why nothing happens.

had almost the exact same situation with a neighbors 7300 last spring. first thing i checked was the PA transistors on the final board — on his it was one of the RD100HHF1s that took the hit. you can probe across the drain-source on each one with the radio off and if you get a dead short on any of them thats almost certainly your culprit. also worth checking the low pass filter board because the switching relays on there can get cooked and sometimes they just weld contacts in a weird position that kills output without leaving any visible damage. get the service manual from the usual places, not hard to find if you know where to look, and trace through the TX path systematically. dont just start swapping parts blind or youll waste money.

yeah i had almost the exact same experience on my first net check-in lol. what helped me was actually emailing the net manager beforehand and just asking what format they preferred. felt kinda silly doing it but the guy was super nice about it and now i check in every week. some nets are really formal and want phonetics every time and others are totally casual and just a quick callsign is fine. depends a lot on the net.

Good question and yeah there's no hard rule that says you MUST use phonetics every single transmission, it's more situational. On a clear local repeater where everyone knows you, saying your call straight is totally fine. Where phonetics really matter is when conditions are rough — like on HF when there's QSB or QRM and the other station is struggling to copy you. The NATO alphabet exists specifically because those words were chosen to sound distinct even through noise and different accents, which is why using your own made-up ones can backfire. "Apple" and "Alpha" don't sound that different through static but "Alpha" versus something like "Able" which some guys use from the old phonetic alphabet can cause confusion. Just practice the NATO ones until they're automatic and use them whenever there's any doubt the other op might miss a letter.

so ive been doing contests for about 3 years now mostly single op on one radio and doing okay, usually finish somewhere in the middle of the pack for my category. my rates are decent during the opening hours but i fall apart in the slow periods and i think thats where SO2R guys are killing me. like during a slow stretch on 20m they can just flip to 15 and work a run there while keeping the freq on 20. makes sense in theory but i dunno if its actually worth the setup headache for someone whos not super serious about it. my current setup is a k3 and an ic-7300 sitting there doing basically nothing during contests. i have two antennas that are reasonably separate so the RFI issue is maybe manageable? i tried running both radios once and it was a mess, couldnt keep track of what i was doing on either one. wondering if its more of a practice thing or if theres some software/hardware trick that makes it less chaotic. im using n1mm and i know it has SO2R support but havent dug into it yet. also curious if anyone has tips for rate optimization that dont involve SO2R because honestly even getting my single radio strategy better would probably help more at my skill level. like when do you decide to stop running and go SandP, that kind of thing.

yeah the window system is still how it works, you basically got it right. when you apply for a vanity call there's a 30 day filing window and if nobody else applies for the same call during that window you get it, pretty straightforward. but if someone else also applies for that same call during the window then it comes down to license class and then years licensed, so an Extra with 20 years would beat out a Tech who just got their ticket. that part stings a little if youre going after a popular call. as for your grandfathers call — that actually might work in your favor depending on how long ago he let it lapse. calls that belonged to a deceased family member can sometimes be applied for and there used to be a preference for that situation, though the exact rules have changed a bit over the years so id double check the current Part 97 language or look at the ARRL vanity call page, they usually keep that updated pretty well. its definitely not impossible though. good luck, hope you get it.

the RBN saving you is so funny, that happened to me on my second activation, i was so nervous i completely forgot everything i planned. 23 contacts on your first time out is really solid too im jealous, i barely got 5 on mine because i picked a summit with terrible takeoff to the east and most of the chasers were that direction. lesson learned about looking at the terrain before you go up lol. what state are you in, maybe i can chase you on the next one

the ICS forms thing is smart, I totally forgot those the first time I showed up for a drill and felt like an idiot. one thing I'd add — a laminated card with your callsign info, any relevant credentials or ARES member number, and the net control frequencies. sounds dumb but when things are chaotic you don't want to be digging through your phone. I'm still pretty new to all this (got my general last year) so I'm also kind of building out my own kit as I go. been following this thread with interest actually

yeah i had the same dilemma last year and went collinear, no regrets. ended up with an X50 on a push-up mast around 35 feet and the difference from my old attic antenna was kind of embarassing honestly. that said if the linked repeater is really the main thing you care about a 5 or 6 element yagi even just ziptied to a fixed pipe in that direction would probably knock your socks off. you could always do both if you have a second coax run and a cheap coax switch, keep the collinear as your everyday antenna and switch to the yagi when you want to ragchew on that linked system. thats kind of what i ended up doing eventually anyway.