Rachel Johnson

okay so ive been licensed for about 4 months now, just a technician, and i keep reading different things online about what frequencies im actually allowed to use. like i know i have VHF and UHF privileges but then someone at a club meeting mentioned i can also use some HF bands? and i looked it up and found something about 10 meters and also maybe 40 meters for phone or something? i tried reading the actual Part 97 rules on the FCC website and honestly it was kind of overwhelming, lots of legal language i wasnt really following. is there like a simple breakdown somewhere or can someone just tell me basically what my actual privileges are without me having to parse through all that. also is there anything i should specifically NOT do that techs accidentally do and get in trouble for

so ive been a general for about two years now and honestly i use maybe 20% of the privileges i already have. but theres part of me that keeps thinking i should just go ahead and get the extra. mostly because i hate the idea of there being parts of the bands i cant touch, you know? the 20m extra portion especially bugs me during contests when everything sounds packed and im stuck just above it. my question i guess is how bad is the theory on the extra exam. i remember the general had some stuff that was pretty out there but i mostly memorized my way through it. is the extra the same kind of thing where you can just hammer the question pool or is it actually stuff you need to understand to pass. some people ive talked to say the filter theory and the amplifier questions are rough, others say if you just use hamstudyorg you'll be fine in like a month. im not an engineer or anything, i work in logistics, so advanced electronics isnt exactly my wheelhouse

yeah i noticed this too, seems like pota spots have been spotty (no pun intended) on hamalert recently. i think part of the issue is that some parks cross state lines and the system cant figure out which state the activator is actually in, so you might be missing some. also check if you have any frequency or time limits set that might be filtering stuff out

timing is probably 80% of it honestly. what i do is listen for a few cycles before i ever key up — you want to get a feel for the DX operator's rhythm, how long they take between QSOs, where in the split they seem to be pulling from. a lot of operators will work up the split for a while then jump back down, so if you just blindly sit on one frequency you might be in the wrong spot for 20 minutes without knowing it. one thing that actually helped me a lot was giving just my suffix when the pileup is really thick. if the dx is clearly hearing partial calls, sending just the last two letters can cut through way better than your full callsign getting stepped on. you do have to be careful with that though because some operators get annoyed and want full calls. listen to what theyre responding to before you commit to that. also and this sounds stupid simple but make sure your audio is actually competitive. i had a guy on the air tell me my signal was mushy and turns out my mic gain was way too hot and i was just making a splattered mess. cleaned that up and my rate through pileups improved noticeably. RF output matters less than a clean signal sometimes.

so ive been building this 40m direct conversion receiver from scratch, mostly just following a design i found in an old QST article from like 1994 and some stuff i cobbled together from online schematics. the VFO is a colpitts oscillator running around 7 MHz and the mixer is just a pair of diodes, pretty basic stuff. it actually receives signals which honestly surprised me because my PCB layout is kind of a disaster. the problem is the audio coming out of it sounds like garbage. not like weak or anything, i can hear stations, but theres this really annoying hum and also kind of a motorboating sound when i turn the volume up past like halfway. i put a 100uF cap on the power supply rail to the audio stage which i thought would help but it really didnt do much. using an LM386 for the final audio amp stage. also the whole thing is really microphonic, like if i tap the bench the audio freaks out. im guessing thats the VFO being sensitive but not sure. anyone dealt with this kind of thing before? its my first homebrew receiver so i might just be in over my head here

so ive been on HF for about 8 years now and done a fair bit of VHF contesting, mostly 2m and 6m, and the EME thing has always been in the back of my mind as like the ultimate challenge. i finally started reading more seriously about it and honestly i feel like im looking at a completely different hobby at this point. im on 2m, running a single 9 element yagi right now which i know is basically nothing for EME but i figured id ask what the realistic minimum looks like these days. i keep reading about people doing it with 4 yagis and a decent preamp but then other people say youre gonna sit there hearing nothing for hours. is JT65B still the go-to mode or has that shifted, i see some mention of Q65 now and im not totally sure what the difference means practically. also the az/el rotator situation is kind of daunting. my current setup is az only and i know i need to add elevation but the mast situation at my house is gonna make that a real project. anyone done EME with like a marginal station and actually made contacts, or is it basically just the big gun guys working each other most of the time

im kind of in the same boat as you, been licensed about 18 months and just started really paying attention to propagation stuff this year. what helped me a lot was finding the VOACAP online tool, you can put in your location and where you want to work and it'll show you a prediction of which bands are likely to be open and when. its not perfect obviously but it really helped me understand why sometimes i can work europe on 15m in the morning and then later in the afternoon 17m is better and stuff like that. also pskreporter is really cool if you do any digital modes because you can actually see where your signal is being heard in real time, like you can transmit on FT8 and watch dots appear on the map showing you exactly where you're getting out. kind of addicting actually

congrats man. what radio are you running if you dont mind me asking, i just passed my tech too and im still trying to decide between a few handhelds before i make my first transmission

DC power cables. like extra ones with the right fuse holders already on them. i showed up to a deployment once and the guy next to me had a perfectly good radio and a dead cigarette lighter adapter and nothing else and we spent 45 minutes improvising something. also a cigarette lighter to powerpole adapter if your battery doesn't already have powerpoles which it probably does but still. the 857 is a solid choice for a go kit by the way, runs HF/VHF/UHF so you dont need a second radio for local stuff which really simplifies things. only thing is it eats a bit more current than some people expect on transmit so keep that in mind with your 35ah battery when youre planning how long you need to run.

ok so i've been licensed about 8 months and i still feel weird about this. like i know the nato phonetic alphabet, alpha bravo charlie etc, but i dont always know when im supposed to use it vs just saying the letter normally. on my local repeater nobody really uses phonetics much except when giving their callsign sometimes, but then i hear guys on HF using them constantly for everything. is there like an actual rule or is it just kind of a feel thing based on conditions? also sometimes people use non-nato words, heard a guy say 'america' instead of 'alpha' the other day and i wasn't sure if that was just an old habit or if thats actually acceptable. i dont want to sound like an idiot either way so i've just been kind of winging it

oh man the first pile up is always a surprise haha. i totally froze my first time too, just kept saying "uh, go ahead" to everyone at once which helped nobody. what helped me was watching some activation videos on youtube before i went out again, there are a few operators who record their whole activation and you can really hear how they manage the pile, like calling for specific call sign endings or geographic areas when it gets busy. K-state and W-state type stuff. takes a little practice but it clicks pretty quick.

pi zero is probably overkill for relay switching yeah but if you ever want to add a web interface to control things remotely or log switch events it starts making more sense. i run a pi zero W for my rotor controller and being able to just pull up a webpage on my phone is pretty handy. that said the latency when it boots is annoying and if power goes out you gotta be careful with the SD card corruption thing — learned that one the hard way a few times.

so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and mostly just been messing around on 2m and 70cm local stuff but honestly im getting a little bored and everyone keeps telling me to get my General so i can get on HF. my question is how hard is the actual exam compared to tech? i remember the tech exam not being that bad but people are telling me the General pool is a lot tougher especially the electrical stuff and i was never great at math in school lol. also is it worth it just for HF or am i missing something else that General gives you. i have an old icom 718 that someone gave me and i just want to get on 40m and maybe 20m eventually. any tips for studying would be appreciated, im using hamstudyorg right now which is what i used for tech but wondering if theres something better for General prep

congrats on the first one, 12 contacts on your debut is solid especially if you werent spotted. yeah spotting yourself on the POTA website or the app is kind of the key to getting a pileup going, most hunters have the map open and they're watching for new spots to pop up. once you post a spot you'll usually start getting replies within a minute or two, sometimes less if the band is decent. there's also the POTA Spots app which a lot of hunters run on their phone so they get notified automatically. the frequency thing is just part of it honestly, 40m can be a zoo especially on weekends. some activators have luck dropping down to the lower end of the phone portion, like around 7.200 or so, others go up higher. just takes a feel for it. and dont worry too much about the paper log chaos, most people either use an app like HAMRS or just a voice recorder and transcribe later. you validated the activation though so it counts 100 percent, messy handwriting and all.

passed my general like 6 weeks ago coming from tech same as you and honestly just use HamStudy, the app is free and it tracks which questions you keep getting wrong which is super helpful. took me maybe 2 weeks. the electrical stuff tripped me up at first but you start to see patterns in how they ask the questions. still working on the HF side myself lol so cant help much there but everyone in my club said 40m is the best band to start on for actually hearing people

so ive been at this morse code thing for about 3 months now and im stuck somewhere around 10-11wpm on a good day. started with the Koch method using LCWO and it worked great getting me from zero up to around 5-6wpm but now it feels like im just hitting a wall. i can copy most characters fine when theyre sent slow but the moment i try to bump up the speed i just freeze up and fall behind and then i panic and miss the next 4 characters trying to catch up on the ones i already missed lol. my goal is 20wpm by the end of the year which seemed really reasonable when i set it but now im not so sure. been doing about 20-30 minutes a day which i thought was enough. is there some trick to pushing through this plateau or is it just... more time? my elmer says i should try head copy instead of writing everything down but honestly that sounds terrifying right now. how long did it take you guys to get from around where i am to solid 20wpm copy? just curious if my expectations are realistic or if im being way too optimistic

For dealing with poor operators, one technique for controlling poor operators is simply a hidden black list - the offending operator is simply ignored until he exhibits the proper procedure - this is the Pavlov technique. Don't feed the trolls, just ignore them completely.

yeah the timing thing is huge and most people completely ignore it. ive noticed the really skilled DXpedition operators will sometimes shift their listening frequency deliberately to shake out the pileup — like if everyones clustering around 5 up theyll suddenly start pulling from 8 or 10 up and half the callers are still stuck in the wrong place. pays to keep sweeping around rather than planting yourself on one spot and hammering it. one thing i do that helps on CW is shorten my callsign exchange to absolute minimum. no signal report, no nothing extra unless they ask, just respond to their partial if they got part of my call right and confirm the rest. ive seen guys send their full callsign three times in a row after getting a partial and it just buries them in the next wave of callers. get in, confirm, get out. on SSB its harder honestly. you really do need to be a bit more aggressive because everyone is talking over everyone. i try to speak clearly and at moderate pace rather than trying to shout through the noise. the DX op is listening for intelligible audio not loudest signal necessarily.

Looking at upgrading from my aging TH-D7A for better APRS functionality. The new TH-D75A adds USB-C charging/data interface and digipeating capability, plus simultaneous reception of 2 D-STAR signals compared to the D74. The FT-5DR is significantly cheaper but wondering about APRS modem performance. For serious APRS work including emergency communications, which would you choose? Both have integrated GPS and TNC but curious about real-world decode sensitivity differences.

yeah the listening thing is massively underrated. i used to just jump in and start calling and wonder why i never got through. took me embarassingly long to realize the dx op has a method even when it doesnt seem like it. some of them work by region, some by frequency discipline, some by callsign suffix and if you dont pick up on which one youre just wasting everyones time including your own. one thing i'd add is callsign length matters more than people think in a cw pileup. shorter suffix is a real advantage, nothing you can do about that, but you can at least make sure your sending is clean and at a speed that matches what the op seems to prefer. ive heard guys blasting away at 35wpm into a pileup where the dx is clearly running 20 and it just doesnt help. the power thing you mentioned is interesting. i half agree. below a certain threshold youre just not making it through the noise but yeah there's definitely a point of diminishing returns and a lot of lid behavior is people cranking everything and just creating splatter.

congrats on getting it on the air, first scratch built receiver is a big deal. the image problem with a single conversion 455kHz IF is pretty much expected, your image is going to be 910kHz away from whatever youre tuned to and with no preselector the front end is just letting everything in. a simple LC bandpass filter ahead of the mixer will make a huge difference, doesnt have to be super tight just enough to knock down the image frequencies. some guys use a double tuned circuit for that, wound on T50-2 cores or similar, you can find designs all over the ARRL handbook or just look up W7ZOI's stuff, he has some really practical preselector designs that arent overly complicated. as for the LM386, yeah its kind of notorious for being buzzy. decoupling is usually the issue, make sure you have a cap from pin 7 to ground and also try beefing up the supply decoupling right at the chip. a 10uF in parallel with a 0.1uF right at the Vcc pin helps a lot. some people also put a zobel network on the output. it wont make it a hi-fi chip but it can calm it down considerably.

As a newcomer to radio repair, this systematic approach is exactly what I needed! When troubleshooting a radio receiver, it's essential to follow a systematic approach to diagnose and identify the underlying issues. Here are some diagnostic techniques to consider: Visual Inspection I've been randomly swapping components - no wonder I keep making things worse.

congrats on passing the exam, welcome to the hobby. okay so here's my honest take — the Baofeng hate is somewhat earned but also overblown. for a brand new ham who wants to hit repeaters and learn the ropes, a UV-5R or the slightly nicer UV-82 will do exactly that and you wont cry if you drop it. the audio isnt great, the menus are a nightmare without CHIRP, but for under $30 you can have something in your hand this week and start making contacts while you figure out if you even like HT operating. that said if you can stretch your budget a bit, the Yaesu FT-65 is in the $80-90 range and its just a much more solid radio. better receive, easier to use, feels like an actual piece of equipment. i gave one to my daughter when she got licensed and she loves it. CHIRP works fine with both of them, the learning curve is maybe an hour if you follow one of the decent youtube tutorials and honestly once you've done it once it clicks. APRS on a handheld is totally doable but you'd want something like a TH-D74 or you can use an external TNC with a regular HT — that might be a phase two thing once you know what direction you want to go. dont let it drive your first radio decision.

Consider looking at the Airspy R2 or SDRplay RSP1A if you want better RX performance in that price range. The HackRF shines for learning about RF and doing TX experiments, but it's definitely not the best scanner replacement. I use mine mainly for GNU Radio development work.

nice one on the EU contacts, i'm also in the midwest and 10m to Europe is always kind of a treat when it happens. i've been trying to catch openings too but keep missing them because of work stuff one app i started using is hamclock, it shows the greyline and some propagation stuff all in one place and ive found it helpful just to have running on an old tablet. might be worth looking at if you havent already