Lisa Anderson

SDRplay is worth it imo. i have the RSP2 and the difference on 40 and 80m compared to my old dongle was pretty significant, clearer audio, less birdies, the software (SDRuno) is a bit clunky but it works. though honestly i switched to SDR++ for everything now because SDRuno kept doing weird stuff on my laptop. one thing nobody mentioned - the RTL-SDR direct sampling mod is kind of a bandaid and you're running without any filtering up front which is part of why it sounds rough. the SDRplay has proper front end filtering built in. thats actually the bigger deal than the ADC bits or whatever.

so I've been a ham for about 3 years now and I keep telling myself I'm going to put together a real go-kit for emergencies and I never actually do it. my county ARES group keeps mentioning it at meetings and I just nod along like yeah yeah I got it handled but honestly I don't. right now my "go-kit" is basically just grabbing my HT off the charger and hoping for the best lol I was thinking I should probably have at least a mobile rig that can run off something other than the car battery, maybe a little yaesu or icom with a battery pack, and some kind of antenna situation that doesnt require me to find a tree. but beyond that I'm kind of lost on what people actually bring when they deploy for something like ARES activation or even just a bad storm situation. do I need a whole HF setup or is 2m/70cm usually enough for most local emcomm stuff? I dont want to overdo it and end up with a suitcase I can't actually carry anywhere any advice from people who have actually deployed for real events would be really appreciated, not just the theoretical stuff

so ive been playing around with cluster spotting for a few months now and i think im finally starting to get how it all fits together but wanted to check with you guys. basically i use DXwatch as my main browser window to see whats being spotted in realtime, and then i jump over to QRZ to look up the callsign if i dont recognize the entity or just want more info on whoever is being worked. is that basically how most people do it or am i making it more complicated than it needs to be i also downloaded DX Toolkit on my phone which pulls from a few different cluster networks and it seems pretty decent for when im not at the desk. wondering if anyone has a preferred app for android specifically, ive tried a couple and they all seem slightly different in how they filter spots. the one thing that bugs me about DXwatch is theres no easy way to filter by band AND mode at the same time without the display getting weird, or maybe im missing a setting somewhere anyway just curious what other peoples workflow looks like for this kind of thing, especially if youre chasing DX or working toward DXCC

So ive been on FT8 for a while now and yeah its great for working new entities and whatever but honestly it feels like a slot machine after a while. click click click, 73, done. no actual conversation happened. a buddy at the club mentioned JS8Call as a way to actually talk to people using weak signal stuff and im curious if anyone here actually uses it regularly or if its kind of a ghost town on the bands. my setup is pretty basic, IC-7300 into a end-fed halfwave up about 25 feet, running WSJT-X for the FT8 stuff. i know JS8Call is a separate program, looks like it runs on similar principles to FT8 but slower and you can actually type messages back and forth. tried tuning around 14.078 a couple times in the evenings and heard some activity but wasnt sure if i was decoding it right since the software looked different than what im used to. also curious how it compares to just using PSK31 for ragchewing, i know PSK31 has been around forever and theres still some activity on 14.070 area. seems like the older guys at the club swear by it but i dont know if the weak signal performance is anywhere close to what JS8Call can do. maybe im overthinking this and should just try both for a few weeks.

i went through the same thing when i started lol. ended up getting a baofeng and honestly it was fine for the first year but the receiver does get kind of overwhelmed when theres a lot going on nearby. upgraded to a VX-6R eventually and it felt like going from a flip phone to a real smartphone. but thats probably overkill for right now for 8 miles simplex on 2m with a decent HT you should be okay as long as theres not a ton of terrain in the way. maybe check if your buddy can hear you on 146.520 first before worrying too much about specs

yeah I was confused about the exact same thing when I upgraded. one thing that helped me was just downloading the ARRL band plan pdf and keeping it open on my second monitor when im operating. also honestly just listening before transmitting for a while helped me get a feel for where activity actually is versus where it technically can be. 40m is kind of a mess anyway especially at night when the skip changes and suddenly youve got stations from everywhere piling on the same frequencies lol

yeah the fan swap is pretty straightforward on the 857, the thermistor just controls voltage to the fan so as long as your replacement fan operates in the same voltage range you're fine. i used a Noctua 40mm on mine, had to do a connector swap but the thermal response was basically the same. just dont go with something that needs 12v minimum to start spinning or it'll sit there not moving at low temps and then kick on hard when it finally gets hot enough, which kind of defeats the purpose. also good call on the IF filter, i keep meaning to do that on mine. which filter did you end up going with, the Inrad or one of the murata options?

Yeah this sounds exactly like a PTT delay issue. In Winlink Express go into your WINMOR settings (or whatever mode you're using, sounds like WINMOR from your description) and look for the PTT lead-in time. Default is usually way too short for a lot of rigs especially with a SignaLink in the chain. I run mine at around 300ms and that fixed a very similar problem for me on a 7300 actually. The gateway starts sending before your radio is even keyed up and it misses the handshake. Also worth checking — what mode are you actually trying to connect with? Winmor 500 or 1600? Some of the smaller gateway stations only support one or the other and if the bandwidth doesnt match they just wont hear you properly. The 300 baud thing you mentioned is for Pactor on HF which is a different protocol entirely, you need either a TNC or an SCS controller for that. WINMOR is the software modem version that works with the SignaLink setup you have.

yeah this is kind of the eternal problem with logging software honestly. i gave up trying to keep one master log a while back. for contests i run N1MM standalone, export the Cabrillo when its done, submit, and then i take the ADIF export and import it into Log4OM after the fact. yeah you have to watch for dupes but if you sort by date and do a careful merge its usually fine. N1MM and Log4OM dont really play nice sharing a live database anyway so trying to run them simultaneously is just asking for pain. as for WSJT-X, you can only point the UDP logging at one port listener at a time without some middleware, so if N1MM is running and set up to receive from WSJT-X then Log4OM wont see those QSOs. some people use JTAlert as a middleman which can fanout to multiple loggers but ive never bothered for contest operating since i barely do FT8 in contests anyway. the post-contest ADIF import honestly takes like ten minutes once you get the hang of it, i wouldnt stress about it too much.

so i finally got around to doing my first activation last weekend on W4T/SU-068, been meaning to do it for like two years and just kept putting it off. i brought my FT-818 and a random wire antenna i threw together the night before, honestly wasnt even sure the antenna was resonant but whatever, needed to test it somehow right anyway i made it to the summit and set up near some rocks, got the antenna up in an inverted-V configuration strung between my trekking poles, and started calling on 14.285 which i had spotted myself on SOTAwatch before i left the car (had cell service most of the way up). ended up getting 4 contacts which i know is the minimum for the points but i was pretty nervous the whole time and almost missed logging one of them because i was trying to write and talk at the same time my question is — for the summit reference, does it matter exactly where on the summit you operate from as long as youre within the activation zone? i set up probably 150 feet below the true summit because the wind was brutal up top and there was a decent flat spot lower down. i checked the AZ before i went and thought i was fine but now im second-guessing myself. also is there a way to see if your activation got counted or do you just trust that uploading the log to the database takes care of it

so ive been licensed about 8 months now (general class) and i keep hearing people talk about CQ WW and field day and all these other events and honestly i have no idea where to begin. like i get the basic concept, you make contacts and log points, but theres so much i dont understand still. like what counts as a multiplier, do i need special software, can i just use my regular HF setup or do i need something fancier a buddy at the local club mentioned SOTA too but that seems like a whole different thing? he said people chase activators and you can get points or something. i tried reading the rules on the ARRL site and my eyes kind of glazed over after a few paragraphs honestly i think CQ WW SSB is coming up pretty soon and i kind of want to dip my toe in, even just for a few hours. my setup is a Yaesu FT-991A into a 40m dipole up about 25 feet. would that even be competitive or should i just watch this year and try next time

is it definitely on transmit only or does it also happen when youre just receiving? asking because i chased a crackling issue on a different radio for like two weeks thinking it was TX related and it turned out to be a partially failed electrolytic on the main audio board that only showed up under load. easy to get confused when youre monitoring your own signal.

yeah single yagi EME is absolutely real now, i did my first moonbounce contact back in 2019 with a single M2 9-element and 500 watts and honestly it was easier than i expected once i got the elevation rotor sorted out. the key really is the preamp — you want your system noise figure to be as low as possible, like 0.3-0.5 dB is what you're shooting for, so whatever you do dont skip on that. i use a Kuhne preamp right at the feedpoint and that made a huge difference over having it at the shack end. Q65 has made things even more forgiving than JT65 was, the submodes let you dial in based on how much time you have for the exchange and honestly with Q65-60A i worked a station in Japan off the moon with my setup which still kind of blows my mind. the IC-9700 is a solid choice, just make sure you have your sequencer timing right because you really dont want to key the amp before the preamp has switched out of the receive path, that'll kill your LNA real fast. also you need to figure out your EME window — the moon has to be above your horizon obviously, and you want a station on the other end where the moon is also up, which means a lot of the activity happens at specific times you have to plan around. the WSJT-X software handles the Doppler correction automatically so that parts not a problem. honestly just jump in, even if your first few sessions are just decoding other peoples signals without making contact thats still kind of amazing.

the TX side on RemoteHams is still a conventional transceiver at the remote end, youre just doing CAT over their server infrastructure plus the audio routing. so latency for TX is still there, its just the RX experience that feels snappier with the SDR IQ stream because like you said the DSP is local. i run an IC-7300 at my remote site and the control feels pretty responsive for SSB, CW is still a bit rough if your internet isnt solid on both ends. on the AllStar linking idea — thats actually an interesting thought but you'd need to think through the ID requirements carefully. if you're rebroadcasting HF audio through a repeater linked system that thing needs to ID properly as a repeater or auxiliary station and honestly the part 97 rules on that get a little murky when you're mixing HF receive with VHF retransmit. ive seen people do similar things at remote listening posts but usually just for club shack monitoring not linked into an actual node. might be worth asking on the RemoteHams forum specifically, there are some guys there who have done creative linking setups.

the third party thing trips everyone up at first. basically for domestic contacts it's pretty relaxed — your non-ham friend can talk through your station as long as you're there supervising and in control of the transmission. where it gets complicated is with international contacts, because the US only has third party agreements with certain countries, so if youre working DX you gotta check the list first. the ARRL website has it. for your tech privileges on HF yeah you do get a slice — 10 meters is the main one where you can do phone, there's a small segment around 28.3 to 28.5 i think, and you get some CW privileges on a few other bands. the band plan chart on the ARRL site is honestly the easiest way to see it visually rather than trying to parse the actual regulatory text which is written for lawyers not people lol digital modes as a tech on HF, you do have some access, like on 10m there are segments where technicians can run digital. just download a copy of the current band plan and highlight your privileges, takes like 10 minutes and then you always have it handy