Lisa Garcia

so i finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend at a local state forest reference here in ohio and honestly it went way better than i expected. got there early Saturday morning, set up my KX3 with a wire antenna slung between two trees and just started calling CQ WWFF on 40m. within maybe 10 minutes i had a small pileup going which i was NOT prepared for at all lol
ended up with 47 QSOs over about 3 hours which i know isnt a ton compared to what i see some folks log but for a first time out im pretty happy. got a few hunters calling in from europe too which was a nice surprise on 40m at that time of day.
my questions are mainly around the logging side of things. do i need to upload to both wwff.cc AND somewhere else or is that the main spot now? i was using HAMRS in the field and then converted to adif when i got home. also wondering if theres a minimum number of QSOs to count as a valid activation — i thought i heard 44 somewhere but want to make sure im not misremembering that. and one more thing, do phone and CW contacts count the same toward that total or is it separate?
anyway really enjoyed it, way more social than just sitting at the home station calling DX. the spot where i set up had a creek nearby and the whole thing just felt really good. definitely going to keep doing this.

so ive been sitting on this decision for like two months now and i keep going back and forth. currently running an old FT-450D that i picked up used a few years ago and it's been solid but i want to upgrade and get something with a proper panadapter and better DSP filtering cause i do a fair bit of RTTY and some SSB contesting on weekends.
the IC-7300 is obviously the crowd favorite and i get why, the real-time spectrum scope is genuinely useful and not just a gimmick. but the 991A does VHF/UHF all in one box which would clean up the shack considerably since i have a separate 2m rig sitting on the desk just eating space. price difference in my area is about $200-250 depending on where you look.
i know this gets asked constantly but most of the threads i found are from like 2018 and wondering if anything has changed with firmware updates or if peoples opinions have shifted. mostly HF with occasional satellite stuff if that changes anything.

i was in the exact same spot like 6 months ago lol. what helped me was finding a net that specifically says its a beginner or training net because net control on those is super patient and basically walks you through it. theres one on my local repeater every tuesday and the first time i checked in my heart was pounding for no reason, but the net control guy just said welcome and that was that. now i do it without even thinking about it.
special event stations are fun once you get a few contacts under your belt — theres usually a pile up and it moves fast so maybe not the first thing to try but definitely something to work toward

same thing happened to me a few weeks ago, totally stumbled onto an opening on 10 while i was just messing around. ended up working Brazil which was my first ever south american contact so that was pretty cool. i had no idea what i was doing honestly just started calling CQ and someone came back to me. i should probably learn more about the propagation stuff because i feel like im missing openings all the time just from not knowing when to check

so i've been wanting to get into ham radio for a while now and finally decided to actually go for the technician exam. i downloaded a couple things and bought a book i think its the ARRL one but honestly i dont even know if thats the right one or if there's something better out there. like do people still use books or is everything online now?
also i keep seeing people mention the question pool and i guess im confused because i thought the test was random questions but apparently you can actually study the exact questions that might show up? that seems almost too easy but i dont want to miss something. been doing some quizzes on ham study dot org i think it is and some of the questions about like frequency privileges and the electrical stuff is tripping me up pretty bad. any advice from people who actually went through this recently would be helpful

yeah the band plan stuff in part 97 can be a real headache to read through especially the first time. so for technicians on 10 meters — you do get SSB voice privileges in that 28.3 to 28.5 segment, so your club guy was maybe thinking of a different band or mixing something up. you can make phone contacts there no problem as long as you have your ticket. you also get CW basically across the whole HF range techs are allowed in, plus some RTTY and data on 10m below the phone segment i think around 28.0 to 28.3.
as for just listening on 40 or 80, part 97 doesnt regulate receiving at all, only transmitting. you can spin the dial and listen to whatever you want without any license. thats actually a great way to learn before you upgrade — just sit on 7.200 on a weekend and youll hear all kinds of operating styles good and bad.

yeah i was in the same boat when i started, ended up just doing eQSL first because it felt simpler and then did LoTW later once i figured out the certificate thing. both are worth having honestly, different stations use different ones. some guys on FT8 will upload to both automatically which is nice.
one thing nobody told me — make sure your callsign and grid info is right before you start uploading a bunch of logs because fixing it later is kind of a pain

so i passed my tech exam about three weeks ago and im trying to figure out which handheld to get as my first radio. ive been lurking and reading reviews for like two weeks straight and honestly i think it made things worse because now i have like six tabs open and no idea what to do
the main thing i want to do is hit local repeaters and maybe eventually do some APRS stuff once i figure that out. my budget is pretty flexible, i could go up to like $200 maybe a little more if it actually makes sense. i keep seeing people mention the Baofeng UV-5R which is like $25 and also the Yaesu FT-60 which is way more, and i genuinely cant tell if the cheaper one is fine for a beginner or if ill regret it later. also someone in another thread mentioned the Kenwood TH-D74 which seems amazing but also $600 so probably not right now
anyway any thoughts would be helpful, especially from people who have actually used these things day to day and not just read the specs

nice W4C is a good region to start in. i did my first POTA around the same time i started SOTA and honestly POTA is a little more chill since you dont have the time pressure from weather as much. but that feeling when the pile up starts is addictive lol. whats your next summit?

yeah the band data from icom radios has a small settling time before all 4 lines are stable — i ran into the exact same thing with a homebrew bandpass filter switcher i built a couple years ago. what worked for me was just adding about a 50ms delay in the arduino after detecting any change on the band data lines before i actually acted on the new value. not the most elegant solution but it works reliably and the switching is still way faster than anything that matters in practice.
on the pi zero idea — i actually do run a pi for my shack automation stuff but i keep the actual relay driving on a separate arduino nano just because the pi's GPIO isnt great for time-sensitive stuff and you dont want a kernel hiccup firing your relays at the wrong moment. the pi talks to the nano over serial and handles all the logging and web ui stuff. best of both worlds honestly and a pi zero is like five bucks so why not