Sarah Williams

nice work getting it done. i did a POTA activation at a state park few weeks ago and even that with a flat open field took me forever to get sorted. kept forgetting where i put things in the bag lol. i think having a dedicated activations bag where everything has a spot helps, now i keep a little checklist taped inside the top lid of my pack so i dont forget the stupid little things like the adapter for my key or whatever

the hawk thing is exactly why i do these activations honestly, you get these little moments that just dont happen sitting in the shack. i had a deer walk through my dipole feedline last spring during a WWFF and just stood there looking at me. radio was still making contacts somehow lol im still figuring out the logging side of things myself so cant help much there but i will say if you havent joined the WWFF Facebook group its worth it, people post activation reports and there are usually folks there who can answer the technical logging stuff pretty fast

the ICS stuff is what trips up most new folks honestly. knowing the forms is one thing but actually fitting into the incident command structure and understanding who you report to and how information flows, that clicks more once youre actually in the room. just pay attention to who the IC is and follow your EC's lead and you'll be fine for a first drill. baofeng is fine, dont let anyone tell you otherwise for basic VHF/UHF ARES work. i used one for two years before upgrading.

honestly i just run three separate logs and gave up trying to make them talk to each other perfectly. WSJT-X for all my FT8 and FT4, N1MM when theres a contest, Log4OM for everything else. at the end of each month i do a manual merge and check for dupes in Log4OM using the ADIF import. its probably not the elegant solution you're looking for but after fighting with UDP ports and ADIF timestamp formats for way too long i just decided my sanity was worth more than a perfectly automated pipeline. the only real problem is when i work the same station on FT8 during a contest and it ends up in both the WSJT-X log and N1MM, those are the ones that sometimes cause issues on import but its maybe 5 or 10 QSOs a month so not really worth stressing over

did my first EME qso about two years ago with a 4x9el array and an old beko amp pushing around 600w. took me probably three months of failed attempts before i actually completed a contact and even then the other guy was running like 4x20el with a kw so he was doing most of the heavy lifting lol. the moon window thing catches people off guard too, you cant just point at the moon anytime, you need it above the horizon for both stations at the same time which depending on where you both are might only be a couple hours. i use WA4NJP's EME planner and the stuff built into WSJT to figure out windows. honestly the community is really friendly about it, there are skeds you can arrange through the moon-net reflector where big gun stations will specifically try to work smaller setups, thats probably how id suggest getting your first contact rather than just calling CQ into the void

honestly for most people it ends up being LoTW as the main one because of DXCC credit, and eQSL kind of as a secondary thing — some folks won't even bother with eQSL at all but I like it because it's more social, you can see the card designs people make and it feels a bit more like the old paper card experience just digital. The upload workflow doesnt have to be complicated, most logging software like Log4OM or WSJT-X will let you batch upload to both without too much fuss once you get it set up the first time. For physical cards the bureau is slower but way cheaper if you're doing a lot of DX — you basically send a batch of cards to your national QSL bureau and they sort and forward them, takes months sometimes but you arent paying individual postage. For stateside contacts a lot of people just mail directly. Printing your own is absolutely worth it, you can do a nice run for pretty cheap and having your own card to send out feels good. I'd say dont overthink it, upload to LoTW after every session, toss stuff into eQSL too, and send paper cards when someone specifically asks or when you work something special.

Looking to set up my first Winlink RMS gateway and I've been reading through the sysop guidelines. Before you inquire to run an RMS gateway station, you must first be an active user of radio email... All sysops must obtain an authorization for gateway connections to the network. I've been using Winlink Express for about 6 months now with both VHF packet and HF VARA, and I want to give back to the community by running a dual-mode gateway. My question is about the authorization process - To request one, contact by email the Winlink administrator. Provide in your request: Your name and call sign. The base call sign of the gateway station. Do I need to have my hardware completely configured before requesting authorization, or can I get approved first and then work on the technical setup? Also, any recommendations on minimum system specs for running both RMS Packet and RMS Trimode simultaneously?

you're definitely not overthinking it, the LoTW setup does look intimidating at first but once you get through the certificate request process it really just kind of runs in the background. the hardest part honestly is waiting for the postcard from ARRL to verify your address, took about a week for mine. after that TQSL (the software you use to upload logs) becomes pretty routine. as for whether you need all three — it depends on what you want. LoTW is the gold standard for DXCC and most major awards so if you ever go down that road you'll want it. eQSL is more casual and a lot of operators use it especially in Europe, the confirmations come fast and its free. physical cards are kind of their own thing, some people love em and collect them, others dont bother. i personally do LoTW for everything and send paper cards for any rare DX i work, just feels right to have something tangible from a tough contact. short answer: get on LoTW first, add eQSL if you want, and send paper cards when it feels special.

Getting consistent timeout errors when my RMS Relay tries connecting to CMS servers after our local internet went down yesterday. I have the "Radio only, local message hub" option checked and "Forward messages via HF to another RMS" enabled, but messages are backing up in the queue. Previously the "Test connection to CMS" under Settings worked fine with internet connection. Anyone dealt with HF forwarding setup without CMS connectivity? Running latest RMS Relay with VARA HF on 40m.