Nicole Jackson

yeah the doppler thing trips everybody up at first. so with a linear transponder the short answer is you really need to correct both sides, but in practice a lot of guys just correct the downlink and leave the uplink fixed or let the transponder passband do the work. the passband is wide enough on something like AO-73 that you can get away with a static uplink frequency for shorter passes if you're not too far off. what i'd actually recommend is set Gpredict to do the doppler tracking on both VFOs if your radio supports it and you have it CAT-connected. that changes everything. i was doing it manually on a 817 for months and it was a nightmare, soon as i got the CAT cable sorted and let Gpredict drive the radio it became way more manageable. you still have to tune yourself on the downlink to find your own signal but at least you're in the ballpark instead of chasing the whole passband around also 6-7 minute passes are rough for learning, try to target passes that are at least 10 degrees max elevation or higher, you get more time and the geometry is easier to work with. low horizon passes are good for experienced guys who already know what they're doing but for learning just skip anything under like 20-25 degrees max el if you can

yeah alternator whine is super common and going direct to battery doesnt always fix it by itself. the noise usually gets into the radio through the power leads not through the antenna side. first thing i'd try is a ferrite choke on the power cable right at the radio, just snap a couple of the big clamp-on ferrites on there and see if that changes anything. also check your ground — sometimes people run the negative lead back to the chassis instead of all the way to the battery negative and that can introduce noise into the path. the lip mount grounding is worth checking too honestly. i had a similar setup years ago and the lip mount was just barely making contact, cleaned it up with some sandpaper where it touched the metal and it made a big difference. doesnt hurt to run a short jumper from the mount to a good chassis ground point just to be sure.

honestly for casual browsing either one is fine but DXwatch does have a slightly better filtering setup in my opinion, you can narrow down by band and mode at the same time without it being clunky. the bigger thing though is they pull from different cluster nodes so sometimes one will show a spot a minute or two before the other depending on where the original spot came from. i've noticed DXwatch tends to be a bit faster for EU spots which makes sense given where most of their nodes are. the QRZ one is convenient if youre already on there looking up a callsign which i do a lot. so i kind of use both without really thinking about it. if you want serious DXing though youre probably better off with a proper telnet connection to something like the DX Spider network and just use the web tools as a backup or when youre away from the shack

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i finally worked up the nerve to check into a local net a few weeks ago, which went fine, but now im trying to branch out and find some nets on 40m that run on weekday evenings. a buddy at my club mentioned there's a pretty active one on Wednesday nights but i couldn't find much info about it online — or maybe i was looking in the wrong place. also just general question about check-in etiquette, like when the net control calls for check-ins do you just say your callsign once or do you give your name and location too? i gave way too much info the first time and felt kind of dumb after. some nets seem to want signal reports, some dont, its hard to know going in what the format is gonna be. any good resources for finding active nets? i found the WA7BNK net directory but half the links on there seem broken. theres gotta be something more current.

so ive been a general for about two years now and honestly i get along fine with the privileges i have, i work 40m and 20m mostly and rarely feel like im missing out on anything. but lately ive been kind of curious about the extra class just because some of the theory stuff actually sounds interesting when i hear people talking about it on the club nets. like the stuff about filter design and impedance matching and all that, i sort of halfway understand it but not really. my question i guess is, is the extra exam actually hard or is it more like the general where if you just grind the question pool you can pass it without really understanding any of it. and also is there actually a meaningful difference in what you can do on the bands once you upgrade or is it more just a prestige thing at that point. the privileges thing is kind of vague to me, i know there are extra-only segments but ive never really felt crowded out on general. not really in a rush just wondering if others thought it was worth it

yeah what he said about the food is no joke lol. my first real activation I forgot to eat and by hour five i was completely useless. also just make sure your HT is charged and bring extra batteries anyway just in case, even if they have a base station set up you want to have something on you if they send you somewhere else in the building or whatever. good luck with it, flood watches can get busy fast with a lot of welfare traffic and resource requests so just stay calm and write everything down

the D130 is a pretty decent antenna tbh, probably not the problem. mag mounts on steel roofs actually work pretty well from what ive seen, the ground plane is fine. id check your coax connection and make sure the mount contact points are clean before blaming the antenna or the mount style. that said i did a hood mount on mine which sounds weird but its actually not bad for a pickup, runs the cable way shorter and you dont have to deal with routing through the headliner. center of roof is still probably ideal on UHF but for most 2m repeater stuff the difference is pretty marginal unless youre really pushing the edge of coverage

Been tracking this closely with my logging software. Solar flux has dropped from the highs near 160 down to around 111, making 12m/10m less reliable but keeping 20m solid. I've started spending more time on 40m at night since the higher bands aren't as dependable. The transition is definitely noticeable if you've been active through the cycle peak.

so i finally did my first SOTA activation last weekend, summit was only a 2 mile hike which seemed easy enough but i completely underestimated how much my pack would weigh with the KX2, the buddistick, a 20ah lipo and all the other junk i threw in last minute. legs were dead by the time i got to the top and then i spent like 20 minutes fighting the wind trying to get my antenna up. ended up just doing a vertical because i couldnt deal with the EFHW in those gusts. still made 12 contacts on 20m which i guess counts but i expected way more. also i forgot my log book so i was typing calls into my phone notes app which was a mess. anyone else have a disaster first activation they want to share so i feel better about myself

so ive been trying to get into DX chasing a bit more seriously lately and someone at my club mentioned using cluster spots to find activity. i set up an account on QRZ a while back and i see theres a logbook and all that but i wasnt really using it much. then i found DXwatch and honestly its a bit overwhelming at first with all the spots flying by. my question is basically — is there a good way to use both of these together or do most people just pick one? i downloaded a couple apps too, Ham Radio Deluxe has some cluster integration i think, and ive seen people mention DX Toolkit but im not sure if thats still being updated. mostly i just want to be able to see when something rare pops up on 20 or 17 meters without having to stare at a screen all day. is there some kind of alert system or am i overthinking this

yeah what the previous guy said is pretty much spot on. i was in the same boat when i first got my ticket and honestly just listening for a few weeks before jumping in helped a ton. one thing i noticed is some repeaters have a bit of a "regular crew" vibe and they might not be super obvious about welcoming new folks in, but that doesnt mean they dont want you there. just keep trying. the wednesday night nets are usually the friendliest place to start imo because net control kind of manages everything so theres less guesswork about when to talk.

yeah i had the same confusion when i first started. i think i accidentally stepped on someone like my second week checking in and felt terrible about it lol. the net manager for our group actually sent out a little reminder email about it once which helped. basically what he said was if the net has a preamble that says "directed net" youre supposed to wait. if it doesnt say that youre probably ok to use your judgement. most local ragchew type nets are pretty casual about it honestly

this is really interesting to read, im still pretty new to all the ARES stuff and havent been through a full SET yet. our EC keeps saying theyll schedule one but it hasnt happened. the part about the ICS-213 over voice is something i hadnt even thought about — i assumed knowing how to fill out the form was the whole thing. is there a good resource for practicing that or do you just kind of work through it with people on the air?

yeah that handshake-then-disconnect thing happened to me too when i first set it up, took me forever to figure out. for me it was that my grid square wasnt filled in on the winlink.org account properly and the CMS was rejecting the session silently. like it connects, does the initial exchange, then the server just drops it because something in your account config doesnt match. log into winlink.org and double check everything there, especially that your callsign is verified and the grid square is entered. also are you running the latest version of pat? there was a weird bug a while back with how it handled the FBB protocol handshake on certain gateway versions and it would just bail out. the direwolf side is probably fine if you can hear the beacon, that part sounds like its working. its almost certainly something on the account or session config side rather than the RF part.

so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now mostly because my neighbor has a big antenna setup and he talks to people all over the world which i thought was pretty cool. he told me i need to get a license first which i knew but i dont really know what that means in terms of like how hard it is or how long it takes or what i need to study. i looked at the FCC website and it was kind of confusing. is there like a standard way people do this? im assuming i start with the technician class license but beyond that im lost. do you have to go somewhere to take the test or can you do it online or what

the arrl net directory is hit or miss honestly, youre right that some of the listings are stale. what i usually tell newer folks is to just ask around on whatever repeater you already have access to — someone local almost always knows whats active in your area and thats going to be way more useful than a national database. that said for HF i really like the 40 meter rag chew net, runs in the evenings and the guys on there are super welcoming especially to newer generals. also worth checking out the 75 meter phone nets if you want something a little more lively, though that band can get... colorful sometimes. for traffic handling the NTS nets are well organized and they run on a pretty reliable schedule if you want something more structured. stick with it, checking into a net the first time feels awkward but after a couple times you wont even think about it.

okay so ive been licensed for about three months now (tech class) and i finally got my baofeng programmed with help from a guy at the club meeting. the local 146.940 repeater is listed with a 100.0 hz tone but half the time when i key up i can hear myself going into the repeater but nobody ever responds, and sometimes i dont even hear the courtesy beep thing at all. i guess my question is do i need the tone set for both transmit AND receive or just transmit? i set the CTCSS on my radio but im not totally sure if its just for TX. also is there like an unwritten rule about how long you should wait before calling out again if nobody answers? i dont want to be that guy who just keeps kerchunking the machine every 5 minutes. also someone at the club said something about the repeater being linked to some kind of network on certain nights and i have no idea what that even means

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now, tech class, and i keep hearing people talk about cw and how great it is for weak signal stuff and dx and whatever else. i got curious and started messing around with it a little but honestly i have no idea how people actually learn this. like do you just memorize all the dots and dashes on a chart or is there a better way? i tried printing out one of those charts and just staring at it but that doesnt seem to be working at all. my brain just isnt retaining it. someone at my club said something about the koch method but i dont really know what that means. is there like an app or a website that actually works well for this? im not trying to get a license or anything (obviously) just want to be able to at least copy some simple qsos eventually

thats awesome man, congrats on your first real activation. the first one is always kinda surreal right? i remember mine was a flooding situation maybe three years after i got licensed and i was so worried about messing up procedure that i had my ICS forms basically taped to the table in front of me lol. you get over that quick when things start moving. the ID thing happens to everyone especially when youre concentrating on traffic. honestly your EC sounds like a good one if they waited till after to mention it rather than calling you out on the air. ive seen some groups where that kind of correction would have been way more awkward. sounds like you found a solid team.

oh man that feeling never really goes away, first QRP contact especially on something you built yourself is just something else. 400 miles on 500mw is a solid debut, 40m was probably in decent shape that day too which helps. for the next step honestly the MTR series from LNR or a used Elecraft KX1 kit are both really popular moves but if you want to keep building i'd look at the QRP Labs QCX. its a single band CW rig and the documentation hans writes is just really thorough, like unusually good for a kit. i built the QCX+ last year and it was a weekend project, came out great. 5 watts, pretty good receiver, and it holds its own way better than a pixie obviously. only catch is you need to be okay with CW or at least willing to learn because thats all it does. but for portable ops its incredible, the thing is tiny and sips current so battery life is excellent. welcome to the QRP rabbit hole, youre not getting out

Making these setting changes might require the use of headphones to monitor your audio or ask a friend nearby to give you some feedback on what sounds best. In my case I boost the bass 1 notch up and treble 2 notches up. Get someone to give you honest feedback while you adjust settings incrementally.

yeah i caught the tail end of that opening, must have been around 3pm local when i tuned in and there were still a few south american stations coming through pretty strong. i was kicking myself because i had a meeting i had to jump on and couldnt really work it properly. only managed to log like 4 contacts before i had to walk away. of course the band dies the moment im free again lol. on the firmware thing, i updated mine about a week ago i think and the receive audio does seem a bit cleaner but honestly im not sure if its placebo or real. the transmit reports havent changed much from what people are telling me. still a solid radio either way, no regrets on that purchase.

so we've got a served agency exercise coming up in about three weeks and i've been going back and forth on power for the whole weekend. its a 48 hour deployment and i'm running an IC-7300, a laptop for winlink, and probably a small fan because its going to be hot in that trailer. my usual go-to is a pair of 100ah LiFePO4 batteries with a 200w solar panel but honestly this time of year the cloud cover around here has been terrible and i cant count on solar to keep up. the other option is borrowing a honda eu2200i from one of the club guys. i've used it before and it's quiet enough, inverter type so the 7300 doesn't freak out on it, but then i'm dealing with fuel, exhaust routing out of the trailer, carbon monoxide concerns, the whole thing. last time we ran a generator at one of these i spent half the night worrying about CO instead of actually operating. anyone else dealt with this kind of setup for a multi-day emcomm event? thinking maybe a hybrid approach, run the genny a few hours to top off the batteries and then run off batteries the rest of the time. or is that overcomplicating it. the antenna situation is figured out, running a linked dipole off a 31ft spiderpole so thats not the issue here, just the power side is making me second guess everything two weeks out

SmartBeaconing is absolutely worth setting up, i was in the same boat a while back and once i got the corner pegging and speed thresholds dialed in it made a huge difference. basically it speeds up beaconing when youre turning or accelerating and slows way down when youre parked or on a straight highway. 30 seconds flat rate is definitely on the aggressive side for a congested area, youre essentially transmitting twice as often as most of the guidance recommends for mobile ops. the way i have mine set now, low speed threshold around 5 mph with a slow rate of like 1800 seconds, high speed threshold at 60 mph with a fast rate of 90 seconds, and corner pegging set to 28 degrees. works pretty well. you still get good tracks on aprs.fi without hammering the digis. took me an afternoon of tweaking to get it feeling right but it was worth it.

so ive been trying to get winlink going for a few weeks now and i think im close but something is off with the RMS gateway selection. im running pat on a raspberry pi connected to a signalink USB on my IC-7300, mostly trying to hit the VHF packet gateways around here before i mess with HF. the software connects fine and i can see a bunch of gateways in the list but half the time when i try to connect to one it just times out or gives me a weird error about the session not being acknowledged i checked the frequency and offset on the gateway listing and it matches what i have dialed in, and the signalink levels look okay to me. VARA FM is installed and pat sees it. my callsign and password are definitely right because i can log into winlink.org just fine. just not sure if this is an RF problem, a software config thing, or if those gateways are just down. is there a way to check which gateways are actually active before you try to connect? feels like im throwing darts blindfolded also should i be using VARA FM vs plain old packet (AX.25) for VHF? someone told me VARA is faster but im not sure if all the local gateways support it