Nicole Jackson

congrats on your first real activation, that's a big deal. flooding events are rough because the situation keeps changing and you never quite know what the served agency is actually going to need from you until you're in it. on the logging question -- i stopped trying to do both simultaneously a long time ago. during high traffic periods i just do paper and fill in the 214 during any lull, even a 5 minute break. nobody expects the 214 to be real-time, it's an after action document as much as anything. some of our guys use a simple notepad app on a tablet just for quick timestamps during the hectic parts and then reconcile it all later. whatever keeps you in the net and not buried in paperwork. the served agency education thing is genuinely one of the harder parts of emcomm and dont let anyone tell you otherwise. i usually try to have that conversation early before anything is happening, like when i first arrive and set up. just a quick friendly heads up about what kind of traffic works well over amateur radio and what doesnt. framing it as "here's how to get the most out of having me here" tends to land better than explaining rules to someone who's already stressed out managing a shelter. your EC should probably also be doing some of that pre-event coordination with the agency so you're not the one having to explain it on the fly

so ive been lurking on a few different sites this week and theres been a lot going on. figured id post something here since not everyone follows all the same feeds i do. first thing -- Icom apparently announced something at a trade show overseas, looks like a new HF portable rig in the IC-705 family but i havent seen full specs yet. might be rumors still, take it with a grain of salt. but the photos floating around look pretty legit and a few people on other forums who were there in person seem to confirm something is coming. probably wont be cheap but the 705 has been so popular i can see why theyd want to expand that line. also 10 meters has been absolutely wild the last few days if you havent been on. we're climbing toward solar max and propagation has been doing crazy things. heard stations from south america coming in at like S9 yesterday on 28.400 area just casually, wasnt even trying to work DX. if you have a decent antenna its worth just spinning around up there and seeing whats popping. and for anyone into POTA or SOTA -- theres apparently a special event coming up next month tied to national parks week, parks on the air usually does something for that. worth checking their website if you do that kind of operating. anyway just thought id share, post anything else youve seen or heard lately. feels like a good time to be in the hobby right now

hamstudy.org is honestly all you need to pass if passing is the goal. just run through the practice tests every day for like two weeks and youll start recognizing most of the questions. the pool repeats a lot and the actual exam pulls 35 questions from it so you'll see familiar stuff. the electrical theory parts tripped me up at first but once i got ohms law down the rest kind of clicked. i wouldnt stress buying the book unless you actually want to understand the background behind everything, which isnt a bad thing but its not required to pass

So I just passed my technician exam last week (finally) and now I'm trying to figure out what handheld to actually buy. I've been reading threads on here for like two months and honestly it's made things worse not better because everyone has a different opinion and half the posts are from 2016 so I dont know whats still relevant. My main use case is just local stuff, maybe hitting a few repeaters in my area, and my buddy mentioned something about APRS which sounds cool but I have no idea if I actually need that or if im getting ahead of myself. Budget is somewhere around $60-150 depending on how convincing you guys are. I keep seeing the Baofeng UV-5R come up everywhere and it seems like people either love it or think its basically a toy. Then theres the Yaesu FT-60 and the FT-65 and honestly I cant tell the difference between those two. Is the Kenwood TH-D74 something a brand new person should even be looking at or is that overkill for just starting out? Any thoughts appreciated, just trying to not make a dumb first purchase here.

okay so i passed my technician exam about three weeks ago and ive been lurking here reading threads but i still cant make up my mind on an HT. my plan is mostly local repeater stuff, maybe some simplex with a buddy who lives about 8 miles away, and eventually i want to get into APRS but thats not urgent right now. ive been looking at the Baofeng UV-5R because honestly the price is hard to argue with, but then everyone says get a Yaesu FT-65 or a Wouxun and i dont know if the extra money is actually worth it for a new person who might decide this hobby isnt for them. then i went down a rabbit hole about the Yaesu FT-70D for the fusion capability but i dont even know if there are any fusion repeaters near me. i guess my real question is — does the build quality difference actually matter that much day to day, or is this one of those things where the experienced guys are just being snobby about the cheap stuff. not trying to be rude i just want an honest take from people who have actually used both.

yeah what he said about the gate drive is probably it. i had the exact same IRF510 issue on a 20m rig i built a few years ago, spent forever chasing it. ended up being that the driver stage just wasnt cutting it and the FET was running warm as a result. you can sometimes feel the difference if the heatsink is getting hot fast even at low power levels. one other thing -- whats your supply voltage and how are you measuring the output? just want to make sure youre not losing power in the coax between the rig and the dummy load or something dumb like that. ive done it lol

yeah that first one is always the hardest just because of the mental block. once you do it you realize how forgiving pota hunters are, they WANT you to succeed so they keep calling. i remember my first activation i was so nervous i forgot to log half the contacts and had to reconstruct it from memory later lol. kx2 is a great little rig for this by the way, ive been eyeing one for a while but cant quite pull the trigger on the price

yeah the audio setup is huge and people underestimate it. i spent way too long with a cheap stereo mixer that introduced enough latency to throw off my timing. once i got proper split audio sorted out the cognitive load dropped a lot. its almost like your brain can partition the two radios once they have separate physical space in the headphones. my turning point was honestly just logging software. i was using an older version of N1MM that didnt have the band map integration set up right, so R2 was kind of useless for hunting mults efficiently. once i actually learned the software properly — not just the basics but the SO2R specific keying delays and the alt-D type workflows — everything snapped into place. the software is doing a lot of the heavy lifting and if you fight it you'll never get the rate. one thing i still struggle with is the interlock timing on transmit. i have a microham u2r and the defaults were a bit slow for my taste, tightened up the delays and it helped. but theres a fine line before you start getting RF into the wrong place.

so ive been trying to figure out the best spot to mount my FT-7900 in my 2018 F-150 and honestly its been kind of a nightmare. i originally had it under the seat with a remote head but the cable routing was a mess and i kept catching my foot on it. moved it to the center console area but now the display is hard to see when its sunny. currently thinking about one of those RAM mount solutions off the side of the center console but im worried about it being in the way during normal driving. anyone done something similar in a newer F-150 or really any truck with that big center console? also the mic cord always ends up dangling everywhere no matter what i do oh and the antenna situation is separate headache — got a mag mount NMO on the roof for now but eventually want to do a proper hole mount, just not ready to drill yet

yeah the antenna thing is just something you figure out over time honestly. what i do now is pack a small spool of paracord with a weight on the end, makes throwing over a branch way easier, and i also pre-cut my wire to the exact length i need so theres no messing around up there. for the end-fed you kind of just have to find a high point and improvise but once youve done a few activations you get a feel for it pretty fast. on the SOTAwatch thing — make sure youre posting your alert at least a day before if you can, and list which bands and modes you plan to use. a lot of chasers have the app and they filter by band so if you didnt specify 40m CW or 40m SSB whatever it is they might not even see you. also selfspot from the summit as soon as you start calling CQ, the spots are what really gets the pileup going. some folks use the SOTA Spotter app to self-spot which is handy if you have any cell signal up there.

honestly you did nothing wrong, that's exactly what nets are for, especially the ones that are specifically community or training oriented. most net controls are happy to have newer folks engaging rather than just sitting there silently. the person who keyed up probably just had a cat walk across their desk or something, dont read into it. the unwritten rule that actually matters is just listen before you transmit and dont talk over people. everything else is pretty forgiving especially on a local club net. i've been doing this for over 20 years and i still hear experienced ops ask basic questions on the air, nobody worth worrying about is going to judge you for it. keep checking in, it gets way more comfortable after a few times.