Jessica Nakamura

so ive been trying to get back into CW after about a 15 year break and honestly its humbling. i used to be decent, like 15-18 wpm no problem, but now my sending is a mess and im not even sure if its me or the keyer settings. im using an old Bencher paddle into a MFJ keyer and the dits are coming out way too short or something, contacts on the air keep asking me to repeat. i bumped the speed down to 12 wpm thinking that would help but it almost made it worse because my timing muscle memory is fighting the slower speed if that makes sense. the weight adjustment on the MFJ is maxed out i think, does that matter? anyway im not asking for a full tutorial just wondering if anyone else went through this coming back to CW after a long time and how long it took before your fist started feeling normal again. also any tips on keyer settings specifically the weight and ratio stuff because i honestly forgot what all that does

ok so ive been chasing dx for maybe 8 months now and i finally feel like im starting to get it but the whole DXCC credit system is still kinda confusing to me. like i understand that you need 100 confirmed entities for the basic award but what i dont understand is whether each band counts separately or if its all pooled together into one big pile. also i worked Heard Island last month during that expedition and the qsl came back confirmed through lotw which was awesome, but i dont know if that automatically gets added to my dxcc total or if i have to actually submit it somewhere. ive been logging everything in WSJT-X and then syncing to lotw but im not sure the arrl is actually seeing my credits pile up or if i have to do something on their end to make it official. sorry if this is a dumb question, i just dont want to lose credit for a contact i worked really hard to get

so ive been at this for a while now and i just cant seem to break through the 13wpm wall. started back in the spring at about 5wpm with the Koch method and honestly the first few months were great, was moving up pretty steady. but somewhere around 11-12wpm things slowed down a lot and now im just kind of spinning my wheels at 13. my practice routine is probably 20-30 minutes a day using the LCWO website, sometimes i throw on some of the W1AW practice sessions when i remember. i can copy most of what i hear but i still find myself spelling out letters in my head instead of just hearing the whole word as a sound if that makes sense. like i KNOW thats the problem but i dont know how to fix it. anyone been through this and found something that actually helped? feels like 20wpm is a million miles away right now

so ive been licensed about two years now and for most of that time i was just doing local stuff and some casual HF but lately ive gotten really into DX and someone at my club mentioned i should look into DXCC and now im kind of obsessed with the idea but also completely confused by the whole system like i understand the basic concept, work 100 entities and you get the award, but the credit submission part is where i get lost. do i need QSL cards for every single contact or can i use LoTW confirmations? and what about WAS and WAZ, are those totally separate programs you track independently or does some of the logging overlap? i have like 40-something entities confirmed on LoTW already from stuff i worked without even thinking about it and i didnt realize i could have been submitting credits this whole time also someone mentioned mixed mode vs phone only vs digital only awards and now my head is spinning. any of you guys who have been through this process willing to give a basic rundown? im not looking for a shortcut just trying to understand how the machinery works before i really commit to chasing this seriously

ugh this is driving me nuts. had everything working fine for the cq ww rtty contest last month but now n1mm wont pull the qsos from wsjt-x automatically. the udp settings look right, both programs are running, but nothing. anyone else seeing this or am i missing something obvious here? running latest versions of both

so ive been messing around with this idea for a few weeks now and finally started putting something together. basically i have 4 antennas and im tired of going out to the shack and manually flipping the coax switches every time i want to change bands. figured an arduino with a relay board could handle the switching and i could just control it over serial or maybe even a little web interface if i throw a pi in there too. right now ive got a nano running a basic sketch that listens on serial and triggers the corresponding relay. works fine on the bench, the relays click and everything seems solid. my question is about the RF side of things — the relays im using are just generic SRD-05VDC-SL-C from ebay, like the ones that come on those blue relay boards. at HF power levels are these going to be okay or am i asking for trouble. running about 100w most of the time, sometimes up to 500w on a linear. i know there are proper RF relays but they're not cheap and im wondering if anyone has just... used the cheap ones and survived. also if anyone has tied a pi into something like this for a web interface i'd love to see how you wired it up. i dont really want to reinvent the wheel if theres already a good approach floating around.

That nervousness means you care! Three things I always double-check: backup power source, logging software synced with contest exchange, and a printed band plan taped to the shack wall. This solar cycle has been fantastic for rates, but accuracy and discipline still win.