Daniel Jackson

congrats on passing the exam, you'll have the callsign probably within a week or so. anyway for what you're describing honestly the Yaesu FT-65 is a solid pick in your price range, its simple enough to operate without software if you need to punch in a repeater manually but also plays nice with CHIRP when you're ready to do a big batch of programming. the Baofeng UV-5R will work and a lot of people start there because theyre like $25 but the receive audio isnt great and the stock antenna is pretty mediocre, and you'll spend time fighting the menu system. not saying avoid it forever but if you have $100+ to spend you can do better. to answer your other question - no you dont need it preprogrammed to use it, you can enter frequencies manually. most repeaters need you to set the correct offset (usually -600 kHz on 2m) and the CTCSS tone, which sounds complicated but once you do it once or twice it clicks. look up the repeaterbook.com for repeaters near you and it'll have all the info you need listed right there.

the switchover thing is a real pain, ive been there. what you want is basically an automatic transfer switch or at minimum a diode oring setup so both sources are kind of connected simultaneously and the higher voltage one just wins. some of the Bioenno or similar lifepo4 chargers have a pass-through mode that helps with this but it depends on the charger. i ended up using a West Mountain Radio RigRunner with a couple of Anderson powerpole inputs wired through some schottky diodes, not elegant but it works and there's no gap in power. the diode drop means you lose maybe half a volt but at 13.8v that's not really a problem. also yeah the EU2200i is just the answer for field HF work, full stop. the older non-inverter gennys are basically noise machines on anything below 30mhz. i tried filtering the heck out of one with ferrites and a line filter and still couldnt get it below S4 on 40m. some things you just cant fix after the fact.

so i finally did my first real POTA activation yesterday at a state park about 45 minutes from me. been planning this for like two months and of course everything that could go wrong kind of did. packed the KX2 and a 20m EFHW wire and my little folding table and drove out there, found a decent spot near a picnic area, got set up in maybe 20 minutes which im pretty proud of actually. anyway the problem was i forgot the counterpoise wire at home. just... left it on my desk. so i was running the EFHW with basically nothing on the other end and the SWR was all over the place, KX2 was tuning it but i could tell something was off. still managed to pull 12 contacts in about an hour and a half so it counts as an activation. most of the signals i was hearing were way stronger than what i was putting out i think. next time im making a checklist. also the folding table legs kept sinking into the soft ground which was annoying. anyone else have a disaster first activation that still worked out

so ive been running APRS for about 3 months now with a TM-D710G and Direwolf on a raspberry pi as a software TNC, and im seeing my beacon show up on RF locally but it never makes it to aprs.fi which is driving me nuts. the digipeater about 4 miles away is clearly hearing me because i can see it in the raw packets on my own receiver, it rebroadcasts my stuff with the WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 path like its supposed to, but nothing ever shows up on the APRS-IS side. ive been messing with the path settings and tried WIDE1-1 only, tried WIDE2-2, even tried just hitting the igate directly but i honestly dont know if there even is a local igate covering my area or if the digipeater is just a dumb repeater with no internet connection. is there a way to check which digis in my area are actually igates vs just RF digipeaters? i looked on aprs.fi but its hard to tell from the map view

so ive been checking into the local 2m net on tuesday nights for about three months now and honestly its become one of my favorite parts of the hobby. started doing it just to get comfortable with the radio and now i kind of look forward to it every week. the net control guys are super patient when i fumble my callsign at first i was so nervous i forgot to say my grid square anyway i was wondering if anyone here does the HF nets too. ive been eyeing the 40m traffic nets but im not sure which ones are actually active and worth checking into. also seen some stuff about special event stations on the ARRL site but never actually worked one. are those just for the log or is there usually some kind of certificate or QSL you can get? my elmers kind of old school and doesnt really do much nets so im flying blind here a little

i ran a lip mount on my jeep for a while and the RF got into everything, my radio would pick up noise whenever i ran the blower fan. might have been a grounding issue with my specific install but it was a pain to track down. eventually just went NMO through the roof and all that went away. cant say for sure the lip mount caused it but the timing was suspicious.

yeah im planning on it, my club is actually setting up a table there this year to recruit new members so ill be there pretty early. the swap meet last time was hit or miss but i did see some decent HF gear go for reasonable prices if you got there right when it opened. bring cash obviously and get there early if you want the good stuff, by noon its mostly picked over

yeah sweepstakes is a good shout. i did my first one two years ago and just sat on a frequency and called CQ for like 45 minutes before i figured out nobody was gonna answer a new callsign with no multiplier value lol. search and pounce is the way to go when you're starting out, you just tune around and call the stations who are already running. way less pressure and you still get the feel of doing exchanges under a little bit of time pressure. also just to add — if your club does a Field Day operation next june you should defintely actually get on the air this time. even logging for someone while they operate teaches you a ton about how the whole thing flows.

not dumb at all, everyone starts somewhere with this stuff. okay so the alert vs spot thing — alerts are just you telling chasers in advance "hey i plan to be on this summit around this time" and they're super helpful because dedicated chasers will literally schedule their morning around your alert. you post those on sotawatch3 or through the app. but the spot is what actually gets people running to the radio, thats the real-time "im on the air right now" notification. you can self spot through the sotawatch site, the SOTA Goat app if you have it, or if you have cell service just text the SOTA SMS spotter. no cell? you can ask someone on the frequency to spot you, most chasers are happy to do it. as for time minimum, theres none. just the 4 QSOs and you qualify the summit. could be done in 5 minutes on a good day. i'd still hang around a bit though because sometimes the pile slows down and then picks back up 20 minutes later when a new batch of chasers sees the spot. good luck saturday, 40m EFHW is a solid choice for that kind of activation

congrats on your first real activation, that's a big deal and it sounds like you handled it well. the food/comfort thing catches almost everyone the first time, no joke. i now keep a small backpack basically pre-packed with snacks, a couple water bottles, ibuprofen, a phone charger, and a notepad that never leaves my go-kit. after one activation where i was running on vending machine coffee for 8 hours i learned my lesson pretty quick. on the ICS question -- yeah absolutely do ICS-700 and 800 if you havent already. they're free on the FEMA independent study site and they fill in a lot of the gaps that 100 and 200 leave for people operating in an actual EOC environment rather than just the field. 700 especially helped me understand how ARES fits into the bigger picture when you're working alongside fire, public health, red cross people, all of that. some groups also do IS-200.c which is more hands on with the forms and paperwork side of things. none of it is super exciting to get through online but you'll feel a lot more comfortable next time when the IC starts rattling off ICS terminology

honestly the General isnt that much harder than Tech if you use the same study method. the question pool is a bit bigger and yeah there are some formulas involved like ohms law stuff and a little bit about feedline impedance matching but nothing that'll make your head explode. i just used HamStudy same as Tech and passed with like 2 weeks of studying maybe 20-30 mins a day. the electrical stuff you kind of pick up as you go through the questions, you dont really need to sit down and learn full theory, just understand why the answer is what it is as for going straight to Extra, i wouldnt bother unless you really want those last few kHz on each band or you just want the challenge. Extra is noticeably harder and theres a lot more RF propagation and circuit theory. get your General first, get on HF, have some fun, then maybe revisit it after a year or so when you actually understand what they're asking about

this is really interesting to read, im fairly new to ARES and havent done a full drill yet just some tabletops. the part about the first 20 minutes being chaotic is kind of reassuring in a weird way because i always assumed experienced groups just had it together immediately. makes me less worried about messing up when i eventually do my first real exercise i guess. do most groups do a debrief after or does everyone just kind of go home

so ive been trying to figure out if its worth making the drive out to the Tri-County hamfest, its about 2.5 hours from me and last time i went a few years back it was pretty decent but honestly i cant remember if i actually bought anything useful or just walked around and talked to people the whole time lol. anybody been recently and know if the swap meet tables are still good? i feel like a lot of these smaller regional fests have kinda dried up in terms of actual gear, everything ends up on qrz classifieds or ebay before it even makes it to a table anymore

so ive been a General for about three years now and i keep telling myself ill upgrade but never actually sit down and do it. last weekend i finally started going through the question pool and honestly some of this stuff is way over my head. like i understand the basic electronics from when i got my General but the Extra pool has all this stuff about filter design and Smith charts and impedance matching that i kind of glazed over the first time around. im not really a math guy so the formulas are a bit rough. im using HamStudy and just brute forcing the flashcards but i feel like im just memorizing answers without actually understanding whats going on, especially the stuff about transmission line theory and the more advanced propagation questions. does anyone have a resource they actually liked for the theory side of it, not just the question pool? or is everyone basically just memorizing it anyway

ive tried switching a few times and always end up back on just N1MM for everything because learning two programs is annoying. probably not the answer you're looking for lol. the ADIF situation with WSJT-X has always been kind of a mess in my experience regardless of what logging software youre feeding it into, theres always some field that doesnt map right or the band gets imported as frequency instead of band name or something dumb like that

yeah the 7300 has individual LPF relays for each band and those can get flaky, especially on a used radio that might have seen some abuse. before you crack it open id actually try running some diagnostics through the service menu — theres a way to force the PA to different bands and monitor the drain current. if the current looks normal but output is low on 40m specifically then you're probably looking at a relay contact issue rather than a blown transistor. the LPF board on that radio is not terrible to get to but its not exactly plug and play either. if you go in there, the relay for 40m is pretty easy to identify. some guys just reflow the solder joints on those relays and that fixes it, others have had to actually swap the relay. Takamisawa relays are what Icom used and you can get replacements no problem. id check eHam for the service manual if you dont already have it, the alignment procedure after is pretty straightforward.

congrats on your first one, 47 QSOs is a solid first activation. the log upload on the WWFF side can be a bit clunky compared to POTA yeah, what i usually do is export the ADIF from whatever logging app i used and then just make sure the KFF reference is in there correctly before uploading. the website will usually flag errors if something doesnt look right. one thing to double check is that your QSO date and times are in UTC and not local time, caught me out on my second activation and i had to resubmit. also if you're doing references that are also in POTA (a lot of KFF parks overlap with KFF POTA refs) you can often upload to both programs with the same log which is nice. keep at it, some of the nature reserves have really good propagation spots if you can find a clearing.

250ms is actually not that bad depending on how you look at it but yeah on SSB it adds up fast especially in a pile-up situation. ive done remote ops for a few years now and honestly the codec choice inside RCForb makes a huge difference. are you running opus or one of the older codecs? opus at even a fairly low bitrate tends to have less buffering artifacts than some of the others and you can tune the buffer size down pretty aggressively if your connection is stable. the other thing that helped me was just... accepting that remote SSB phone ops is kind of a different headspace. you learn to pause a little longer than you normally would before transmitting. sounds dumb but it actually works. the SDR-as-monitor idea is solid though, i do something similar with a KiwiSDR i have on the same antenna line so i can spot check the actual transmitted signal from the remote end too, which is handy.

so i finally did my first activation up on a local summit last weekend, been putting it off for months because i kept second guessing my kit. ended up throwing the kx2 in my pack with a 20m EFHW rolled up and my little 4ah lipo battery. hike up was fine, maybe 45 minutes, not too bad. got to the top and the wind was absolutely brutal, like i could barely hold the antenna wire while trying to tie it off to a branch. spent probably 20 minutes just getting the stupid thing in the air and by the time i was on frequency my hands were half frozen. managed to get 4 contacts before the battery connector wiggled loose and i lost power. spent another 10 minutes figuring out what happened. got it back up, worked a few more, made the 4 contact minimum so it counts but man it was way more stressful than i expected. nobody tells you about the wind thing when you're reading activation reports

so i finally did my first activation last weekend at a state park about 45 minutes from me, K-4882 if anyone knows it, pretty quiet place on a saturday morning which was nice. i was honestly pretty nervous setting up because ive never done any portable ops before and i was worried about the antenna situation. ended up using my old G5RV thrown up between two trees with some paracord, ran about 25 watts on 40m with my ft-891 off a 20ah lifepo4 battery. got my 10 contacts in about 40 minutes which felt like forever at the time but people on reddit said thats pretty normal for a first activation without being spotted. speaking of which i did eventually spot myself on the POTA app and after that it was basically a pile up, worked like 35 stations in the next 20 minutes which was wild. couple guys were hunters i guess trying to get the park confirmed. my questions are pretty basic i think -- do i need to log differently for POTA vs a regular log, like does the park reference go somewhere specific in the adif export? and also is there a rule about how long you have to actually be in the park, i had to leave kind of abruptly because of family stuff and im not sure if i needed to stay longer after getting the 10. also want to try 20m next time, any tips for park to park contacts?

been on RemoteHams for probably 3 years at this point. the short answer is it depends what you want. if you're running a single rig and you mostly want reliable access to it when you travel, the DIY route with something like flrig and a decent VPN is probably fine once you get it dialed in. but if you want other hams to be able to access your station, or you want to hop on someone elses rig without setting up your own infra, then RemoteHams starts making a lot more sense. the SDR remote piece is kind of separate from the transceiver remote in practice. like yes its the same platform and same account but the way they handle audio for an SDR-only node vs a full TX capable node is pretty different under the hood. the receive-only SDR stuff is way simpler to set up, no RF authorization needed obviously. the latency on HF remote through their system is usually fine for SSB, CW takes some getting used to if you're not running low latency audio codecs. i use opus and its pretty solid most of the time. the internet linking stuff is basically the VOIP side — connecting repeaters and stuff, yes more allstar/echolink territory. they all kind of live under the same umbrella but HF remote ops doesnt really depend on that piece at all so dont let it confuse you.

oh man i just went through this exact thing like 6 weeks ago. what helped me a lot was the Morse Code Ninja videos on youtube, he has these word lists sorted by frequency and i drilled the most common 100 words over and over until i could just recognize them as chunks instead of spelling them out. made a huge difference for actual QSO copy. also slightly unrelated but i found that practicing right before bed helped me retain stuff better, read something about how sleep consolidates that kind of motor/audio memory. could be placebo but who knows it seemed to work for me. im up to about 15wpm now and feeling way less stuck than i was at your stage so hang in there

the inverted V might actually solve your problem here — if your center support is high enough you can get both legs down at like 45 degrees and fit it in a tighter horizontal space. on 40m an inverted V at maybe 40 feet at the apex will give you pretty usable pattern, not as flat as a horizontal dipole up high but way more practical for a small lot. the feedpoint impedance drops a bit from 73 ohms as you bring the legs down but usually still close enough that a 1:1 balun and 50 ohm coax works fine or close to it without a tuner. i ran one for about 3 years before i got a bigger place and it was genuinely not bad. worked europe regularly during good prop on 40 ssb, nothing exotic but it did the job. the vertical elevated radial thing works but yeah getting 4 resonant radials sorted and up off the ground at the right height is more fiddly than people make it sound

yes pencil and paper is totally fine, thats what most people do especially starting out. just write down callsign, band, mode, time in UTC and youre good. the sota.org.uk log entry page is pretty straightforward once you get back home. a lot of activators use little waterproof notebooks or just index cards stuffed in a ziploc. the trekking pole dipole thing works great, ive done it tons of times. just make sure you have enough cord to guy the poles out a bit or they'll want to fall over in any kind of breeze. and dont stress too much about needing exactly 4 contacts, theyre usually not hard to get once you're spotted. chasers watch sotawatch pretty actively. good luck tomorrow, post back and let us know how it went

After reading an interesting article about equipment failures during deployments, I'm rethinking my go-kit philosophy. One flaky connector or blown fuse can shut down your entire station, and in a real disaster, this has serious consequences. Very few go bags include extra batteries, cables, connectors, and fuses based on what I've observed. I'm thinking of adding a 'repair kit' with common failure items. Has anyone implemented something similar? The balance between preparedness and carrying too much gear is tricky. "Two is one and one is none" - but there's also such a thing as being over-prepared.