Paul Wilson

okay so ive been licensed for about three months now (general) and i keep hearing people talk about nets but ive never actually done one. there's a local 2m net on tuesday evenings that a guy at my club mentioned and i figured id try it this week but honestly im not sure what the procedure is. like do i just say my callsign? do i wait for someone to call for check-ins? is there like a specific format or will i sound like an idiot if i just wing it? also i noticed on the ARRL site there's a list of HF nets too and some of them say things like "directed net" vs "round table" and i dont really know what that means either. any help appreciated, kind of nervous about it honestly

haha yeah the self-spotting thing gets everyone at least once. after my second activation i started texting my wife the summit reference and frequency before i even start hiking so she can spot me on SOTAwatch if i ask her to via text. works pretty well if you have any signal at the trailhead. also some guys use APRS to self spot which is pretty slick if your radio supports it. 4 contacts on your first one with no spot is honestly impressive, dont be too hard on yourself. some people do their first activation on a busy summit and still barely scrape 4. the W1 chasing you from Colorado on 20m, thats just SOTA magic right there, those guys are dedicated. whats the next summit youre eyeing?

so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (Tech) and ive just been borrowing my club's old radio at meetings but i want to finally get my own handheld. the problem is every time i start researching i end up in a rabbit hole for like two hours and close the browser more confused than when i started i mostly want to hit the local repeaters, maybe do some simplex stuff with a buddy of mine who just got his ticket too. nothing crazy. i looked at the baofeng uv-5r because everyone seems to have one but then people say the transmit audio is garbage and it'll interfere with everything and i should get something else. then someone else says its fine and just learn how to program it. honestly i dont know who to believe budget is maybe $60-80 but i could stretch a little if something is clearly worth it. any help appreciated, been lurking here for a while and you guys seem to know your stuff

so ive been running a mag mount dual band for about two years on my truck and honestly its been fine but ive noticed the signal isnt as clean as id like especially when im doing linked repeater stuff where the other end is pretty far out. a buddy of mine keeps telling me to just drill through and do a proper NMO mount and yeah i know hes probably right but i keep putting it off because its a leased vehicle and also im just not confident about doing the drilling without screwing up the roof panel or the headliner. anyway i finally started actually looking into it more seriously. the mag mount i have now is one of the comet ones, can't remember the exact model, sits on the roof centered pretty well. the antenna itself is a diamond NR770RNMO so technically its already NMO terminated but im just running it through one of those mag mount adapters. im losing some efficiency there i know. has anyone done a through-hole NMO on a leased truck and lived to tell about it? or is there a lip mount or gutter clip option that actually performs close to a true roof mount without the drill? i dont really want to hear about the hatch mount solutions because the truck is a crew cab and it just doesnt work geometrically for me

6 contacts is a win, full stop. honestly the first few activations everyone feels exactly like you described — the chaos is part of it and it does get better once you develop a rhythm for setup. the wind thing never fully goes away though haha, ive had poles go sideways on me more times than i can count. for getting more chasers, timing matters a lot more than people realize. weekday mornings before noon local are usually slower, weekends especially saturday mornings you'll find way more chasers actively watching SOTAwatch. also make sure your spot has the correct frequency and mode — i've seen people spot themselves on 14.285 and then actually be on 14.290 and wonder why nobody's coming back to them. and honestly just call CQ SOTA persistently, some chasers are just waiting to hear you actually on the air before they trust the spot. the 2m FM contacts absolutely count by the way, dont let anyone tell you otherwise. a QSO is a QSO and the rules dont care what band or mode.

Jump in, seriously. Your first CQ WW you're gonna make mistakes and that's completely fine, most people on the other end have been doing this for decades and they're patient when someone fumbles the exchange. Just speak clearly, confirm the zone number before you log and you'll be alright. 100w and a dipole can work suprisingly well if the bands cooperate, I worked something like 40 countries in a single afternoon with a similar setup back when I first started contesting. On the SOTA question — yeah people definitely do sota activations during contest weekends, some activators love it because there's more activity on the bands and its easier to get your required contacts. Just be aware that contested frequencies get pretty crowded so finding a clear spot on a summit can be more of a challenge. Worth it though if the weather holds, late fall activations have this whole vibe to them that's hard to describe. Field Day is genuinely one of the most welcoming operating events there is. Showed up solo my first time not knowing a single person and within an hour someone had handed me a headset and was walking me through how to run a pile-up. Go find your local club's setup if you can.

ok so i just upgraded from tech to general last month and im trying to figure out where i can actually transmit on 40 meters. i looked up the FCC allocations and also the ARRL band plan and theyre kind of different? like the FCC says one thing about where phone is allowed but then the band plan has all these other recommendations and i dont know which one i actually have to follow vs which ones are just suggestions. also somebody on a net told me to stay away from the band edges because of frequency drift or something but my radio has a pretty stable VFO so i dont really get why that matters anymore. is there a simple way to think about all this because right now i have two different charts printed out and theyre just confusing me more

oh also dont overlook the special event stations — those are really fun and a good low pressure way to make contacts. there are usually a few running any given weekend, sometimes for parks on the air, sometimes for historical events or whatever. you just call them like any other station and they often have a more relaxed pace than contest pile-ups. the arrl website usually lists upcoming ones and so does qrz if you poke around a bit. got a nice certificate from one last summer for a lighthouse event and it was genuinely one of the more enjoyable afternoons ive had on the radio.

so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and done a decent amount of HF work, some VHF contesting, but EME has always been this kind of mythical thing on the horizon that i figured was for people with huge yagi arrays in their backyards and unlimited budgets. lately ive been reading more about it and it seems like weak signal digital modes have kind of changed the equation a bit? like JT65 and stuff has made it more accessible than it used to be? anyway im trying to figure out what a realistic minimal station looks like for 2m EME. i know youre going to say i need more antenna than i have but right now ive got a 9el yagi that i use for terrestrial stuff, an IC-9700, and a decent preamp. i dont even know if thats in the ballpark or way off. also is there software coordination stuff i need to know about before i actually try to call anyone, like i dont want to just point at the moon and start hollering and annoy everyone who actually knows what theyre doing

Classic alternator whine, yeah. The first thing id check before buying anything is your grounding. A lot of the time that under-dash bolt isnt actually giving you a solid ground because of paint or corrosion between the bolt and the chassis. Try running a short heavy gauge wire directly to a bare metal spot and see if that clears it up. Saved me from buying a noise filter I didn't need on my old Icom. If you do that and still have the problem, then look at a bonding strap between the engine block and the chassis — sometimes thats where the noise is sneaking in. The ferrite chokes can help on the DC power leads but in my experience they dont fix the root cause, they just kind of band-aid it. Ground loop isolator is more for audio accessories not really your transmit audio situation.

i did this exact thing a few years ago visiting family in ontario. it worked fine, nobody gave me any trouble. just made sure i had a printed copy of my FCC license with me and knew my callsign suffix deal. the hardest part was honestly just getting the rig across the border without the customs guy getting weird about it lol. he asked what it was and i said a radio and he just waved me through.

im basically in the same boat as you, got my ticket in march and ended up going with the wouxun after reading a ton of reviews. its been pretty good so far, no complaints. the menu system is a little weird to learn but once you program it with chirp its fine. my only thing is i wish the battery life was a bit better but thats probably true of most HTs at this price point tbh. one thing nobody told me — get a better antenna before you do anything else. the rubber duck that comes in the box is pretty mediocre and a nagoya 771 is like $12 and makes a noticeable difference. somebody on a different forum told me that and it was the best advice i got starting out

so ive had my TS-590SG for going on 7 years now and its been rock solid, no complaints really. but i keep seeing people rave about the IC-7300 and more recently the IC-7610 and part of me just wants something with a waterfall display built in because im running an SDRplay as a panadapter right now and the whole setup is kind of a mess of cables on the desk. my main thing is HF, mostly 40 and 20m, some 15m when the band cooperates. i do a little contest work but nothing serious, maybe a handful of weekends a year. the 590 honestly outperforms what i need it to do but i keep thinking about how clean a single box solution would be. the 7300 seems like the obvious budget pick but ive read the roofing filter situation isnt ideal for crowded contest conditions and the 7610 jumps up quite a bit in price. anyone made a similar jump? did you actually notice a real difference in daily operation or is this just GAS getting the better of me

General is a step up but nothing crazy. the part that catches people is the operating privileges section, there's a lot of questions about which frequencies you can use as a General vs Extra and it gets a little tedious to memorize all the band edges. just drill those until they're automatic and the rest kind of falls into place. once you get it though, 40m is addicting. especially at night when the band opens up and you start hearing stations from europe or south america just casually sitting there. first time i worked a DX station on phone i think i sat there for a few minutes just kind of staring at the radio. anyway yeah just go take it, worst case you fail and you learn what you got wrong and take it again, no big deal

yeah what he said about the encode/decode thing is right. one thing i'd add — when you first start using a repeater it's honestly good just to listen for a few days before you jump on. get a feel for who uses it, what kind of conversations happen, whether there's a regular morning net or whatever. some repeaters are super active and welcoming, others are kind of a quiet club machine that the locals guard pretty closely lol. not saying yours is like that but just... listen first. also if theres a net on dont just start calling CQ in the middle of it, wait for a break and then ask to join or check in. most people are super friendly once you figure out the rhythm of it

this is making me want to try one, ive done a few POTA activations at state parks which felt low stakes but SOTA always seemed like more commitment. did you have to pre-register the summit or anything or just show up

yeah the multi-program thing is just kind of... how it is for a lot of us unfortunately. i run N1MM for any serious contesting and Log4OM for everything else and honestly the ADIF import into Log4OM after a contest works fine most of the time if you just make sure you export clean from N1MM. the one gotcha i kept hitting was the exchange fields not mapping right but once i figured out which Log4OM fields to map them to it stopped being a problem. the WSJT-X double logging thing is a known headache. you basically have to pick ONE program to receive the UDP broadcasts and make sure the other isnt also listening on the same port, thats usually what causes dupes showing up. i have WSJT-X talking to Log4OM and i just disabled the N1MM integration entirely on days im not contesting. not elegant but it works. i wouldnt try to use N1MM as your daily logger, its really not built for browsing old QSOs or award tracking or any of that. its a race car not a daily driver.

ok so i just got my technician license about three weeks ago and ive been trying to get on the local 2m repeater but nobody seems to hear me or if they do they dont respond. i programmed in the frequency and offset correctly i think but im not sure about the tone. the repeater directory listed it as 100.0 hz CTCSS and i put that in as the transmit tone on my baofeng but still nothing. or well sometimes the repeater opens up when i key it which i guess means it hears me but then silence. so my question is do i need to set the tone on receive too or just transmit? and also is there like an unwritten rule about how long you should wait before calling out on a repeater? i dont wanna step on anyone or come across as rude. i read somewhere you should just say your callsign and say listening or something but i wasnt sure if thats still a thing people actually do

I've been a happy Tech for two years, mostly using 2m and 70cm repeaters locally. I know upgrading gives additional bands plus increased power from 200 watts to 1,500 watts PEP on HF, but is it really worth the study time? What specific HF privileges make the biggest difference in practice? Looking for real-world experiences from those who made the jump.

honest answer — for what you're describing a baofeng UV-5R or one of the similar cheap dual band radios will absolutely work and theres nothing wrong with starting there. yeah the build quality isnt the same as a yaesu FT-60 or whatever but you're hitting repeaters and talking to your brother, not doing anything where that matters yet. i started on a cheap chinese HT and still have it as a backup 15 years later. the thing people dont tell you is the programming learning curve is kind of a pain with the baofengs. get CHIRP and a programming cable, saves a ton of headaches. the manual is basically useless. if you do want to spend a bit more right off the bat, the yaesu FT-65 is usually around $70-80 and its a noticeably nicer radio — better receiver, easier menu, feels solid in the hand. that would be my actual recommendation for a first HT in your situation. but seriously either way you'll be fine on local repeaters.

yeah that plateau around 8-10wpm is super common, almost everyone hits it. the thing that finally broke through it for me was forcing myself to copy by head instead of writing. like i literally put the pencil down and just sat there listening. at first it felt like i was retaining nothing but after a few weeks chunks of words started sticking. the brain kind of has to rewire how it processes the sounds and you cant rush it, it just takes repetition at slightly uncomfortable speeds. i used the Just Learn Morse Code software and set it so the character speed was 20wpm but with extra spacing between characters — thats the Farnsworth method if youre not familiar. keeps you from learning the rhythms at slow speed which is a trap a lot of people fall into. when i finally closed the gap and removed the extra spacing everything kind of snapped into place. took me maybe another 3 or 4 months to feel solid at 15wpm after that. 20 came not too long after once i started getting on the air and doing actual QSOs, real contacts are way better practice than any software honestly.

so im finally making the trip out to Xenia for Hamvention this may, first time going and honestly dont really know what to expect. heard the flea market is massive but also heard parking is a nightmare. anybody been recently that can tell me what to actually bring or what to watch out for? im mostly hoping to score some older HF gear and maybe find a decent antenna tuner that isnt overpriced. my local club is doing a carpool thing but id still love to hear from people who've done this more than once

im pretty much in the same boat as you actually so take this with a grain of salt but i found the morse toad app kind of decent for drilling individual letters. the koch thing confuses me too ngl, like why start with K and R specifically, seemed arbitrary. but ive heard enough people say it works that im trying to trust the process i guess

Field Day 2026 takes place June 27 – 28 and will bring together more than 30,000 amateur radio operators. This year's Field Day theme is "Amateur Radio: A National Resource." Our club is trying to decide between different station classes and I'm confused about the rules. If we set up three transmitter stations (20m, 40m, and VHF), would that make us 3A? We get 10 points for each formal message originated, relayed or received and delivered during the Field Day period, up to a maximum of 100 points - do we need someone specifically handling NTS traffic or can any operator do this? Also planning our first GOTA station this year to get some unlicensed visitors on the air!

i had the same issue with my BY-1 when i first got it! ended up watching a youtube video of someone adjusting their gap — apparently the gap between the paddle and the contact point matters a ton and mine was way too wide out of the box. took maybe 5 minutes to adjust and it honestly felt like a completely different paddle after that. also +1 on head copy, my elmer told me to stop writing stuff down pretty early and it felt impossible at first but after a few weeks something kind of clicked. pun intended i guess