Jessica Nakamura

Welcome to the hobby! It won't hurt to set your CTCSS tone now even on repeaters that don't require it - do it now and you won't be stuck programming in a panic later. Most modern radios handle this easily once you know the steps.

Field Day 2025 is June 28-29 with the "Radio Connects" theme, and 1067 sites are already listed on the station locator. Now's the time to check and double-check everything - gear, accessories, power chain from generator to all cables. What's that one thing everyone forgets until Saturday morning? I'm thinking coax adapters, spare fuses, and backup mic cables. Also planning our "Radio Connects" public outreach - we want to share the joy and community of amateur radio with people who may not get this chance often.

yeah the inverting transponder thing trips everyone up at first. so what you want to do is set up two separate doppler correction profiles in gpredict — one for the uplink and one for the downlink, and because the transponder inverts, as the satellite comes toward you the downlink frequency goes UP and your uplink needs to go DOWN to compensate. if you're chasing yourself around that's almost certainly a doppler correction issue on the uplink side. the hamlib integration with gpredict works pretty well once you get it configured but honestly for AO-73 a lot of guys just manually tune and once you get the feel for it you can keep yourself in the passband without too much trouble. the trick is to find yourself on the downlink first and then just leave the downlink alone and tune the uplink to keep yourself stationary. sounds backwards but it works. also make sure youre actually inverting — if youre going up SSB on both ends nothing is going to work right on a linear bird

10m opening? ugh i was at work all morning, always seems to happen when im not home. this is like the third time this month ive missed a good one. my neighbor texted me about it and i just had to sit there sad at my desk lol. dont know anything about the FT-710 but im still pretty new and just running a used 7300 myself so probably not the right person to ask about upgrades, seems like a lot of money for a small improvement from what i can tell reading around

welcome to the rabbit hole haha. yeah the ICS stuff is real, most ARES groups at minimum want IS-100 and IS-700 done before you show up to anything official, and if you want to work directly with served agencies a lot of them want IS-200 and IS-800 too. they're all free on the FEMA EMI website and honestly not that long, IS-100 took me maybe two hours on a slow afternoon. the certificates matter more than you'd think because some counties actually require them on file before they'll let you into an EOC. as for the net check-ins, it really depends on the group. some ECs are pretty relaxed about it and just want to know you're still alive and interested, others track it more seriously especially when they're trying to figure out who to call during an actual activation. i'd just be upfront with your EC about your work schedule, most people are understanding about that. the ones who arent probably arent running a great group anyway.

so ive been lurking on a few different sites this past week and theres actually quite a bit going on for once. first thing — if you havent seen it yet, Icom apparently confirmed they're working on a new HF rig in the IC-7000 replacement range, nothing official with specs yet but the rumors floating around the usual places are pointing toward something with built in bluetooth and maybe better DSP than the 7300. take that with a grain of salt obviously since its all still rumor territory but its been coming from enough places that i think theres something to it. the other thing thats actually confirmed is 10 meters has been absolutely wild lately. we're deep enough into the solar cycle now that propagation has been genuinely surprising people. i worked a station in Japan last tuesday afternoon on 10m running like 50 watts and a wire dipole — honestly wasnt even trying, just tuned around and there he was booming in. if you havent been on 10 in a while its worth checking in, especially late morning and early afternoon depending on your location. also for anyone in the midwest there's a hamfest coming up in the Dayton area next spring obviously but also a few regional ones this fall that might be worth the drive if you're looking to poke around for used gear. i picked up a barely used LDG tuner at one last year for like half what they go for new so its always worth showing up. anyway just thought id share since its been a while since theres been much to talk about on the news front. what are you guys hearing?

i dont know man, ive had the rig on maybe twice in the last month and just kind of sat there spinning the dial for a bit and then turned it off. not sure if its the weather or what but nothing is grabbing me. used to get home from work and go straight to the shack. maybe i need a new project or something to get the motivation back

yeah what he said. i checked into my first net and gave my callsign in the wrong part of the exchange and net control just politely corrected me and we moved on. wasnt a big deal at all. most hams remember what it was like to be new and cut you some slack. just keep checking in and youll figure out the rhythm pretty quick.

so ive been running a Diamond X50 on the roof for about two years now and it works fine for hitting the local 2m repeater, no complaints really. but theres a 70cm machine about 40 miles out that i can only barely reach on a good day, like when the atmosphere is doing something cooperative. been thinking about throwing up a small yagi pointed that direction just for that one repeater but im not sure if its actually worth the effort vs just sticking with the omni. the thing is i do use the X50 for scanning and hitting a couple other local machines too so if i swap it out i lose that flexibility. was thinking maybe a second feedline and a switch but my mast situation is kind of a mess already. anyone gone down this road? is a 5 or 7 element yagi on 70cm going to make a meaningful difference at that range or am i chasing something thats just marginal anyway due to terrain

yeah the Tokyo Ham Fair stuff had me going down a rabbit hole for like two hours last week. from what i pieced together it sounds like Icom was showing a prototype or pre-production unit rather than a full release, so i wouldnt get too excited just yet. could be months before it actually hits the US market and even then the first batch always goes fast. i remember when the 705 came out and dealers were backordered forever. the 10 meter thing is real though. i was just messing around Saturday morning with my old Yaesu and worked a station in Argentina on my first call, no pile up, nothing. just answered me right back like we were chatting next door. conditions like this dont last forever so yeah get on while the getting is good.

oh nice, which state forest if you dont mind me asking? i've been trying to find references near me that havent been activated in forever, some of them you can tell nobody's touched in years by the activity count on the database. the dual logging for POTA and WWFF is totally fine btw, lots of people do it, just double check the reference numbers are right for each program since they dont always match up even for the same physical location.

im kind of in the same boat as you actually, been using an app called Morse Mania on my phone and its pretty decent for drilling the letters. also theres a guy on youtube who does slow code videos which helped me early on. honestly the hardest part for me wasnt learning the letters it was copying in my head without writing everything down, i still struggle with that. no idea if i have the musical thing either and it doesnt seem to matter much so far

so ive been licensed about 3 years now and just kind of ragchewed and did some local stuff but lately ive been really getting into DX and honestly its kind of addictive. i hit 100 confirmed on LoTW last week which i know isnt the official submission yet but it felt like a milestone so i figured id start actually looking into submitting for the actual award. my question is mostly around the mixed vs phone vs CW credits thing. like i have a bunch of contacts that are on SSB and some on FT8 and a handful on CW. when i submit for DXCC Mixed does all of that just pool together, or do i need to hit 100 on each mode separately to claim them? i read the ARRL rules page but honestly it was a bit confusing the way its worded. also does LoTW credit count the same as a physical QSL card when you submit or do they have different weight somehow. also while im at it -- anyone working on WAS or WAZ at the same time as DXCC? im kind of wondering if its worth trying to do all three in parallel or just focus on one. zone 1 and zone 2 seem painful to fill on WAZ lol

so i finally got activated for a real ARES deployment last weekend, not just a drill. county EOC needed comms support during the flooding event we had come through friday night into saturday morning. ive been a member of our local ARES group for about 8 months but this was my first actual activation and i gotta say it was a completely different experience from any of the nets or tabletop exercises we've done. my EC had me stationed at one of the shelter sites with a go-kit running on a 2m simplex frequency coordinated through the EOC net. pretty basic stuff but man when you're actually doing it for real people and the served agency staff are counting on you for message traffic it hits different. i was passing health and welfare messages for maybe 4 hours straight and keeping the net log. nothing went wrong exactly but i felt underprepared in a few ways — like i kept second guessing my ICS message format on the ICS-213 forms and had to ask the net control to repeat a couple times. anyway just wanted to share because i dont think i really understood what ARES training was building toward until i was actually sitting there doing it. curious if anyone else remembers their first real activation and if you had that same kinda nervous energy the whole time

the collinear route is probably more practical for a mobile install honestly. a properly made 5/8 over 5/8 colinear will give you real measurable gain over a 1/4 wave and you dont have the directional problem. the cheap mag mounts usually have terrible ground planes and lossy coax too so theres a lot of low hanging fruit before you start bolting yagis to your roof rack. that said i ran a 2el tape measure yagi zip tied to a broom stick on my rear window once just to hit a distant repeater during a road trip and it actually worked great for that specific use case lol. but yeah for everyday mobile use get a decent antenna with a good mount, run LMR-400 or equivalent to the radio, and make sure your ground plane is solid. that alone might solve your 65 mile problem without doing anything exotic.

had both on my bench at the same time for a few months so can give you a pretty direct answer. the RSP1C is genuinely better on HF, not marginally better, noticeably better. the dynamic range improvement is real and you'll hear it pretty quickly if you tune around 40m or 80m in the evening when theirs a lot of signals crammed in there. the RTL in direct sampling mode is doing something heroic just to work at all down there and it shows. that said your antenna is probably your bigger bottleneck right now. 40 feet of random wire out a window with no real ground is going to limit both receivers. i ran a similar setup and upgrading to even a basic end-fed with a decent choke balun made more difference than swapping the SDR hardware did. if i had to choose one upgrade id probably do the antenna first and then save for the RSP1C. if you can do both obviously do both but the RSP1C on a mediocre antenna will still be better than the rtl dongle on the same antenna, just maybe not $100 better if the antenna is really limiting things also SDRuno which ships with the RSP1C is actually pretty solid now, i was skeptical but ive been using it more than SDR# lately for HF work

im kind of in the same situation as you actually, been putting off studying for weeks lol. took one practice test just to see where i was at and got like a 65% which i guess isnt terrible for zero prep but the pass is 74% so i have some work to do. the propagation questions are the ones killing me

so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, mostly because my neighbor has this huge antenna setup and it looks really cool, and also i work in IT so i figure the technical side wont be too hard for me. but i honestly dont even know where to begin with the whole licensing thing. i downloaded some practice test app but like half the questions are about things i dont recognize at all — stuff about ohms law and propagation and i dont even know what some of the bands mean in practical terms. is there like a specific study guide people recommend or do most folks just hammer the question pool until they memorize it? i dont really want to just memorize without understanding it but i also dont want to spend six months studying before i can even get on the air. also how hard is the actual test, is it multiple choice at least? and do i have to go somewhere specific to take it or can you do it online now

12 contacts is a solid first activation, you only need 10 to count so you had some breathing room. wait til you get into a park where youre the only activation in weeks and the pile starts building up, thats when it gets addictive. i use a painters pole zip tied to a fence post or a tree branch for my end fed most of the time, way less fiddly than a tripod in the wind

yeah i was in the same boat like 8 months ago. i used the Gordon West book which some people swear by but honestly i think i wouldve been fine just doing HamStudy. the book was fine for understanding the why behind some of the questions but if you're short on time just do the flash cards online and grind practice tests. one thing i'd say is dont overthink the electrical theory stuff, like the ohms law questions are straightforward once you just memorize the formula and same with the antenna stuff. i passed on my first try and i was genuinely shocked haha. also once you pass tech you might get the itch to just go straight for general too, i waited a month and went back and did both

I had similar issues with CI-V timing on smaller micros. Try adding pull-up resistors on the CI-V line and increase your parsing buffer size. The ATTiny runs at a different clock speed which can affect serial timing.

the spot on the split thing took me forever to figure out too. i always just tuned to whatever the cluster said and called with everyone else. complete waste of time on big ones. one thing i'd add is antenna polarization on ssb — i've had good luck when conditions were weird just rotating my yagi slightly off what i thought was optimal and suddenly the dx could hear me fine. not sure if that's real or just confirmation bias honestly but it happened enough times i keep doing it

had almost the exact same issue when i first set mine up. the pi 4 should handle it no problem, that wasnt my problem anyway. turned out my router at the shack was doing some kind of traffic shaping on UDP packets and it was causing jitter more than actual latency. the latency number looked okay in the logs but the variance was terrible. worth checking if you have QoS enabled on the router, try disabling it completely just to test. also what codec are you using, if its opus try switching to pcm just temporarily to rule out decode overhead on the client side.

i was in the same boat when i got my tech. honestly just grab the ARRL operating manual or even just google arrl band plan pdf and bookmark it. i printed mine out and taped it next to my radio for like the first month. the part 97 rules themselves are at ecfr.gov and they are kind of dense but once you find section 97.301 it lays out the frequency allocations by license class pretty clearly, or at least clearer than trying to piece it together from forum posts lol. also dont stress too much about memorizing every single thing, just look it up before you operate somewhere new

20 has definitely been hit or miss lately. I think we're starting to see the downward trend in the solar cycle. Been hearing more activity on 17 during the day though, might want to give that a try if your antenna works there. Also check the solar indices - I noticed the SFI has been dropping the past couple weeks