Steven Wright

so ive been using a cheap RTL-SDR v3 dongle for about a year now and honestly its been great for what it is, got me into the whole SDR rabbit hole. been doing some aircraft stuff, some NOAA weather sat decoding, occasionally poke around the HF bands with a long wire and the direct sampling mod. works well enough but im starting to feel the limits of the noise floor and the dynamic range is pretty rough when theres anything strong nearby. so now im looking at either jumping to a HackRF One or going with the SDRplay RSP1B. the price difference isnt huge, hackrf runs around 300-350 for a clone or 400ish for the real Great Scott Gadgets one, RSP1B is like 100-120. but obviously theyre pretty different things. HackRF can transmit which is appealing even though i dont really have a use case for it right now, and it covers a ridiculous range. RSP1B seems like it would just be a straight up better receiver though, 12-bit vs 8-bit, better sensitivity, the RSP series has a decent reputation. mostly i want better HF performance and cleaner reception overall. not planning to do any serious transmitting with SDR, i have my FT-991A for that. anyone been down this road? is the RSP1B just the obvious choice here or am i missing something about the HackRF

yeah the audio level thing is almost certainly your problem. if the deviation is too high or too low the packet goes out but nothing can decode it properly. your second radio picking it up and it sounding like a packet doesnt mean its actually a valid AX.25 frame, it just means the radio keyed up and made noise. what you want to do is find someone locally or use a websdr near you to actually decode your own packets and verify theyre coming through clean. also worth checking — some phones do weird things with audio processing, like noise cancellation or auto gain control on the mic input, and that absolutely trashes packet audio. theres usually a setting buried in the developer options or you need a specific cable that bypasses the mic preamp. the Mobilinkd should have some level indicator in its companion app if i remember right, try to hit somewhere around 60-70% and see if that helps. once i got my levels dialed in my igate started seeing my own beacons almost immediately.

i was in the same boat a few months ago. i ended up just doing all three honestly — LoTW for anything serious, eQSL because some people only confirm there, and i ordered a batch of cards from one of those online printers to send out physically to anyone who sends me one. its kind of addicting once you start getting cards back in the mail ngl one thing i'll add is Club Log is another one worth knowing about if you start chasing DX, some expeditions only upload there. just another thing to make an account for lol

Welcome to EmComm! I'd actually suggest starting with a quality dual-band HT and building from there. A Baofeng UV-5R is a great budget starter at around $30, covering 2m and 70cm bands with access to most local repeaters. Get comfortable with local nets first, then expand to HF when you understand your deployment needs better.

oh man i went through this exact same confusion like a year ago. the arrl award stuff is not the most intuitive thing to navigate i will say that. what helped me was just calling the arrl directly, the awards desk people are actually really helpful and patient and they walked me through the whole application process in like 10 minutes. saved me a lot of head scratching. also just a heads up — for WAZ specifically you need all 40 CQ zones confirmed and some of those zones are genuinely hard to get, like zone 1 up in the arctic regions or some of the pacific zones. so WAZ is kind of a longer game than WAS in my opinion. WAS i knocked out in maybe 8 months once i started trying, WAZ took way longer and im still missing two zones for the basic award

yeah 10m has been doing some really fun things lately, you kind of have to just be there when it happens which is the annoying part. the short answer on SFI is that once you start seeing numbers above like 150 or so, 10m gets a lot more likely especially on paths toward lower latitudes. closer to 180-200 and it can be open for hours and to all kinds of places. but honestly even at lower flux you can get sporadic-E openings that'll blow your mind, totally different mechanism though. as for the cycle, we're actually doing pretty well right now, cycle 25 has been outperforming a lot of the early predictions. some folks think we havent hit the peak yet, others think we're close. either way enjoy it while its cooking because 10m during a good cycle is just something else compared to the low years. keep an eye on DXmaps or pskreporter and you'll start to get a feel for when paths are opening up before you even key down

so I've been wanting to get into ham radio for a while now and finally decided to just go for it and take the technician exam. problem is I have no idea where to start with studying. I looked up the question pool online and theres like 400+ questions and it's honestly a little overwhelming. someone at work told me to just memorize the answers without really understanding them but that seems wrong? like I want to actually understand what im doing especially the electrical stuff. I downloaded the ARRL study guide PDF but I dont know if thats enough or if I should also be doing practice tests on top of that. anyone gone through this recently and have tips on what actually worked for them? also how long did it take you roughly, I'm hoping to take the exam in maybe 6 weeks

As a newly licensed General, I'm trying to understand my responsibilities as a control operator. Part 97 defines the control operator as an amateur designated to be responsible for transmissions from a station to assure compliance with FCC Rules. But what does this mean practically? If someone uses my station and violates a rule, am I liable? What about remote operations or guest operators? The rules mention local control, remote control, and automatic control - each requiring different approaches to achieve compliance. Can someone break down these control types and what my actual responsibilities are in each scenario?

i was in the same boat not long ago honestly. one thing that helped me was just listening for a while before transmitting anywhere. like i spent probably two weeks just tuning around 40m at different times of day and night and you start to get a feel for where the activity actually is vs what the chart says. the digital stuff especially kind of clusters on its own and its pretty obvious once you hear it. the band edge thing tripped me up too. somebody on another forum explained it to me as -- your carrier might be at 7.298 but the voice audio is riding on top of that so the actual rf is spreading up from there. caught me off guard the first time i thought about it that way

yeah the NCS handoff thing is such a common problem and honestly I think a lot of groups just assume it'll work itself out in the moment. it won't. we had the exact same issue in our group a couple years back and what ended up helping us was something pretty simple — we started doing what we called a silent NCS drill where we'd have a second person monitoring the whole net but not saying anything, and their job was specifically to count to 30 and then take over if the primary went quiet. having that mental assignment ahead of time made a huge difference. now we rotate who holds that backup role so everyone has done it at least once. the dead battery thing though... I mean I get it, life gets busy, people forget. we started doing a quick radio check the week before any exercise, just a brief net where everyone checks in with a signal report and confirms their gear is operational. weeds out the problems before they become problems on the day. sounds like overall you got some really useful data out of it though. the winlink piece working well is worth celebrating, that stuff takes a lot of practice to get smooth under pressure.

so ive been trying to learn CW properly for about 3 months now and i finally got a decent paddle, a Begali Traveler i picked up used, and i thought that would solve my problems but honestly my sending still sounds terrible. like the dits and dahs are all mushy and run together sometimes and other times there's these weird gaps. im using a MFJ keyer for now and i've messed with the weight and ratio settings but i can never seem to find the sweet spot. been practicing with the Koch method at like 15/20 farnsworth spacing and i can copy okay at that speed but my sending is just not keeping up. wondering if its a tension thing on the paddle or maybe i'm just gripping it too hard? my hand gets tired after like 10 minutes. any tips from people who've been through this would be great, i feel like i'm missing something obvious

yeah the tx expansion on that radio is pretty benign as mods go, its not like youre retuning finals or anything just unlocking what the hardware can already do. i wouldnt lose sleep over it. one thing i'd actually suggest if you havent already is looking at the mic gain and compression settings in the menu rather than hardware mods — a lot of people run the 7300 with way too much compression and it sounds processed and harsh on the other end. spent an afternoon dialing mine in properly and got more compliments on audio than from anything physical i ever changed. not as satisfying as opening the box up but it does something

so ive been running FT8 for about two years now and yeah its great for working new entities and all that but honestly after a while it starts to feel like i'm just clicking a button and watching the computer do everything. not really what i got into ham radio for been reading about JS8Call and it seems like it might scratch that itch a bit more since you can actually have like a real conversation instead of the 73 and done thing. but i'm also wondering if there's enough activity on it to make it worth reconfiguring everything. i run a KX3 into a dipole and WSJT-X is already dialed in pretty well, decode rates are decent, so there's something to be said for not messing with what works the other thing is i tried PSK31 a few years back before i got into the WSJT stuff and remember liking the feel of it but the activity on 20m seemed thin even then. is that just a propagation thing or did FT8 basically kill PSK31 entirely at this point anyone actually use JS8Call regularly, like do you have people you schedule skeds with or is it just kind of random hunting around the dial hoping someone shows up

so i finally worked up the nerve to check into the local 2m net last night, been holding off for like 3 months since i got my ticket because honestly the whole thing made me nervous. and yeah i froze up a bit when the net control called me. i said my callsign wrong the first time — well not wrong exactly, just stumbled over it — and then i wasnt sure if i was supposed to say "no traffic, no announcements" or just "no traffic" or what. the net control was super nice about it and moved on but i felt pretty embarrassed. anyway i want to do better next time. is there like a standard format most nets use for a basic check-in? i looked online and got like five different answers. also is it rude to just check in and not have anything to say, or do people do that all the time? i feel like im just taking up airtime for nothing if i dont have actual traffic or announcements.

Welcome to HF! The key thing about SFI is that it needs to be maintained for some days to build up ionization in the F2 layer. A single day of SFI 140 after several days of low numbers won't give you great conditions. Also remember that geomagnetic activity (high K-index) can depress the MUF even with decent solar flux.

ok so i just got my tech license a few months ago and ive been listening a lot on local repeaters before jumping on myself. i notice some people spell things out with like alpha bravo charlie and some people just say the letters normally. is there like a rule for when you use the nato phonetics vs just saying letters? or is it just personal preference also i was on a net last week and the net control asked me to give my callsign phonetically and i kind of froze because i dont have them all memorized yet. like i know the common ones but some letters i just blank on. is that something that comes with time or do people write them down somewhere near the radio

so we have a county-level ARES exercise coming up in about 5 weeks and im trying to nail down the power side of things before i start stressing about the antenna situation. our served agency wants us to run for a minimum of 12 hours without resupply which is totally doable but the question is whether we go with a generator setup or just stack up enough battery capacity and call it good. for context we're running an IC-7300 as the primary HF station, probably pulling somewhere around 20-22 amps at full power but we rarely actually transmit at 100 watts during net operations so average current draw is probably more like 8-10 amps if i had to guess. also have a VHF/UHF station for local coordination thats a lot less of a concern power wise. the generator option is a 2000 watt honda eu2200i that one of our members has, quiet enough that it wont drive everyone crazy, but fuel logistics over 12 hours is a thing and honestly i hate dealing with generators at exercises because something always goes wrong. the battery side im thinking two 100ah lithium (lifepo4) batteries giving us around 200ah usable which at 10 amp average draw should be more than enough with headroom. but then i also want to run laptops and logging software and maybe a small fan if its hot out which eats into that. antenna wise we're planning a simple linked dipole for 40/80 and maybe 20, hung between two spiderpoles. has anyone done the math on running an extended field op like this purely on lifepo4? curious if there are thermal issues with the batteries in direct sun that i should be worried about

so ive been trying to get more into DX chasing and somebody at my club mentioned using cluster spotting networks but honestly the whole thing is still kind of confusing to me. i've been poking around on DXwatch and the QRZ logbook has that little spot feed thing on the side but i dont really understand how they relate to each other or if theyre pulling from the same data. like right now i have DXwatch open in one tab filtered to 20m and 17m and im seeing spots come through every few minutes, but sometimes i'll see the same callsign spotted like 4 or 5 times in a row within a couple minutes and i dont know if thats just different nodes reporting the same signal or if people are actually manually spotting it that many times. also not sure if i should be using a dedicated cluster client instead — someone mentioned AR-Cluster and DX Spider but i havent gone down that rabbit hole yet. also is there a good phone app that ties into this stuff? i've been looking at stuff like DX Toolbox and Ham Radio Deluxe has some integration i think but im on Android so some of that is out. just trying to figure out what setup most people actually use day to day when theyre hunting DX

The mag mount is probably fine for now honestly, the noise you're hearing might not even be antenna related. On my old Tacoma I chased a similar thing for weeks and it turned out to be the power leads running too close to the ignition wires. Try running the coax and power cables on opposite sides of the vehicle if you havent already. The antenna position on a truck roof does matter but usually the bigger issue with noise is the electrical side of things. Ground the radio chassis to a solid chassis ground too, not just the negative on the battery, made a big difference for me. As for drilling - I did it on my current truck and used a good sealant, been two years no leaks. But I get the hesitation on a newer vehicle. If you do go that route just take your time and use a proper grommet and sealant and youll be fine.

the SSID thing shouldn't matter for getting digipeated, that's more just for identification purposes. -9 is technically for mobile but it wont stop a digi from repeating you. what i'd check first is your actual packet content — hook up a terminal or use a monitor mode on the TNC and look at exactly what youre putting out. sometimes the TM-D710 gets into a weird state where its transmitting but the packet data is garbage or malformed and the digis just drop it. i had this exact thing happen after a firmware glitch and spent like two days chasing my tail before i finally decoded what was actually coming out of the radio. pulled up APRSIS32 with a cheap RTL-SDR to monitor my own packets and immediately saw the issue — the path encoding was totally scrambled. also double check your baud rate is 1200 not 9600, ive seen that catch people out more than once

i had almost this exact same setup on my old Tacoma with a leer cap. ended up doing a lip mount on the cab itself right at the rear edge of the cab roof and running the coax through the back window weatherstripping — not the prettiest but it worked great for years and SWR was solid. the FTM-400 is a great radio btw, the APRS built in is really handy once you get it dialed in on the road

so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and honestly its great for racking up contacts but i keep hearing about JS8Call and how its more like actual conversation mode. the thing is every time i try to get on JS8Call the band seems pretty empty, at least on 40m here in the midwest. i get maybe one or two replies if im lucky. my setup is nothing fancy, IC-7300 into a G5RV up about 30 feet, running WSJT-X obviously for the FT8 stuff. for JS8Call i downloaded the software and got it configured but my signal reports seem all over the place and i cant tell if thats normal or if my audio levels are off again. i went through the whole ALC thing and i think im ok but who knows. anyway the question is basically — is JS8Call actually active enough to be worth learning the quirks of the software, or should i just stick with FT8 for weak signal work and accept that its not really a conversation mode. i do miss actually talking to people, even if its just typed text back and forth. PSK31 used to scratch that itch but nobody seems to be on that anymore either.

honestly the nervousness doesnt fully go away even after a bunch of activations, at least not for me. but it does get quieter. the main thing i'd say is just write stuff down — like physically on paper. dont rely on memory for message numbers or what time you checked in or who you passed traffic to. log everything even if it seems redundant, because at some point someone will ask and you'll be glad you have it. also dont be afraid to ask your net control to repeat something if you missed it. way better than guessing and passing bad info. good luck with it, sounds like your group has a real deployment coming and that kind of experience is worth more than a dozen tabletops

I took my general last spring after being a tech for like 4 years doing nothing but local repeaters lol. Honestly the theory wasnt as bad as I thought once I just accepted that I didnt need to fully understand everything, I just needed to know the answers. That sounds bad but for the exam that's kind of the reality. You can always dig deeper later once you're actually on the air and experimenting. One thing nobody told me was that the regulations section catches people off guard more than the theory does. Stuff about third party traffic, foreign communications, that kind of thing. Easy to overlook if youre focused on ohms law and tank circuits the whole time.

so ive been going back and forth on this for a while now and i cant really make up my mind. currently running a 40m dipole at about 25 feet which i know isnt ideal, its not a half wavelength up or anything close to it, but its what i can do with my yard situation. been getting okay results into europe from the midwest but low angle stuff is obviously suffering. a buddy of mine keeps telling me to just put up a vertical with a decent radial field and call it a day for dx. he's using a hustler 6BTV and swears by it. but ive also read a million times that a dipole even at low heights often outperforms a vertical because of ground losses with verticals unless you really go all out with the radials. like 60+ radials worth of copper. so what are you guys actually running on 40 and what do you find works better for working dx specifically, not ragchewing locally because i can do that on a wet string basically