Michelle Davis

I just passed my Extra last month after being a General for like 5 years of dragging my feet so I feel this post. Honestly the thing that finally got me was just deciding to stop overthinking it and treat the pool like a project. I didnt try to deeply understand every single question, some of the RF safety and regulations stuff I just flat memorized because the theory behind the exact numbers doesnt really matter for operating. The advanced theory sections like the reactance and Q factor stuff I did actually try to learn for real because there were enough questions touching on the same concepts that memorizing each one separately felt harder than just getting it. Your mileage may vary on that approach but it worked for me. Took the test at a local club session and passed with a few wrong, probably the operating procedures section tripped me up a bit. Whether the privileges matter depends on what you do I guess. I was excited about it but then realized my antenna situation limits me more than my license class ever did, so there's that.

so after years of telling myself id get around to it, im actually building a proper go-kit. been a ham for about 6 years and never really had anything more organized than just grabbing my HT and hoping for the best. with some of the weather we've had lately it really hit me that I need to be more prepared. right now ive got a Yaesu FT-891 that im planning to use as the main rig, a 40Ah LiFePO4 battery, a basic dipole that I can string up pretty quick, and im putting it all in a Pelican case. also throwing in a notebook and some pencils because yeah apparently that matters when everyones phone is dead. what I keep going back and forth on is the antenna situation. do most of you run something like an EFHW for portability or do you just stick with a simple dipole? also wondering about power — is 40Ah enough for a full day of operating if im not transmitting constantly? feels like it should be but I honestly havent done the math. also any stuff you wish you had included that you didnt think of at first? ive seen people mention things like coax adapters and spare fuses and that kind of thing, trying not to forget the small stuff that bites you later

so i finally pulled the trigger and tried my first activation on Saturday. been chasing for about 6 months and figured how hard can it really be right. picked a 1 point summit close to home, W4T/SU-099 if anyone knows it, the hike wasnt bad at all maybe 45 minutes up. brought my KX2 and a linked dipole i built from the sotabeams kit and my phone for the reflector. everything was going fine until i got to the top and realized i forgot to spot myself before losing cell service about halfway up. so im up there calling CQ on 40 and 20 for like 20 minutes getting nothing. a couple QRM situations but no actual contacts. eventually someone came back to me on 20 but i couldnt pull their call out of the noise at all, was really frustrating. ended up sitting there for almost an hour and only got 2 contacts total, didnt qualify the summit. not giving up though. i think i need to either prespot before i lose signal or figure out the SMS spotting thing. also wondering if my dipole was even resonant up there, i tuned it at home but the feedpoint height was way different on the actual summit. anyway just wanted to share, felt like a bit of a failure but i know these things happen

I took mine last spring after putting it off forever and I'll be real with you, the hardest part for me was the band plan stuff and remembering which frequencies Generals can actually use vs what's still Extra only. there's a few questions on there about operating privileges that tripped me up during practice. the math questions look scary but theres usually only a couple and if you learn ohms law and a few basic formulas you can usually figure it out even if you never memorized the answer. one thing nobody told me beforehand — even after you pass you still need to wait for your license to show up in the FCC ULS database before you can actually operate on HF. took mine like 4 days. i was just sitting there staring at my radio lol

been doing cw for about 6 months now with my old vibroplex bug and honestly im getting frustrated. everyone keeps telling me to get a paddle and keyer but i dont really understand what the big deal is. isnt morse code supposed to be about developing good timing and rhythm? feels like using a keyer is kind of cheating or something. maybe im just old fashioned but my granddad worked the world with a straight key back in the day anyway just curious what you guys think, am i missing something obvious here or should i stick with what im doing