Jennifer Rodriguez

i built something similar but went the pi route and kinda regret it in some ways. the latency on gpio from a pi running linux is not great if you need really deterministic timing, though for antenna switching it probably doesnt matter that much honestly. for pure relay control an arduino or even a bare attiny is way more predictable. that said if your problem is the CI-V parsing the pi does make that easier cause you can just write python and use pyserial and theres already libraries floating around for CI-V. there was a project called hamlib that has CI-V support built in and you could probably hook into that instead of rolling your own parser. might save you a lot of headache. either way good luck, this kind of shack automation stuff is super satisfying once it actually works

yeah the inverted-V thing will definitely shift your resonant point compared to a flat dipole. the closer those legs get to being vertical the more it shifts, and with your ends only at 8 feet and apex at 35 that's a pretty steep angle. generally you want to add a few percent to your wire length to compensate, some people say up to 5% depending on how severe the droop is. also the ground beneath and whatever the wire is near (fences, your mast material, anything conductive) all loads the antenna and moves things around. 2.8:1 at 7.2 is actually not terrible for a first build honestly, means you're probably resonant somewhere just not right where you want it. id try adding a foot or so to each leg before trimming more, easier to cut than to splice back in. and check your connector too, a bad solder joint on a chassis SO-239 will mess with your readings

been on the 7300 for about two years now and still think its probably the best value in HF right now at that price point. the direct sampling architecture is what makes the receive performance feel different from older superhet designs, its not placebo, theres actually something real going on there especially with strong signal handling. that said if you ever get into really serious contesting you might notice its limits but for general operating its hard to beat. one tip — play around with the roofing filter settings and the NR/NB settings if you havent already, the defaults are kind of conservative. i run mine with the preamp off most of the time on 40 and 80, too much noise floor otherwise at my location. also the USB audio interface built in is great if you ever want to do digital modes, basically plug and play with WSJT-X once you set the audio device.

congrats on passing the tech exam, welcome to the hobby. so the baofeng thing is kind of a whole debate that never really ends on these forums lol. short version: they work, the receive isnt great, the transmit can be a little spurious but for a first radio on local repeaters its honestly fine. plenty of people use them for years without issues. that said if you can swing $150-ish the Yaesu FT-65 is a much better radio than the UV-5R for not that much more money. cleaner audio, better build, actually has decent filtering so you wont hear as much garbage on busy frequencies. the FT-60 is a little older but still rock solid, you can find them used for reasonable money. Wouxuns are also good, the KG-UV9D Plus gets decent reviews if you want more bands to play with later. for just checking into local nets and learning the ropes any of those will do the job. i'd lean toward the FT-65 personally if its in your budget, you wont feel like you immediately need to upgrade it the way some people do with the baofengs after a few months.

i just want to throw in that paper QSL cards are honestly still worth doing even if they feel old fashioned. i got a card from a guy in the Azores last year and it's sitting on my shelf and it just feels different than a digital confirmation you know. that said i do use LoTW for anything award related because thats just easier to track. one thing nobody told me early on — if you join a local radio club a lot of them are affiliated with the ARRL bureau system so you can send and recieve paper QSLs really cheaply instead of paying international postage for every single one. worth looking into if your club does that

so ive been running a simple 40m dipole for about two years now, center fed, decent height maybe 30 feet at the apex, and it works fine. but i keep reading about end fed half waves and how some guys swear by them for convenience especially if you're limited on space or trees in the right spots. my property is kind of awkward, long and narrow, so a proper inverted V is about the best i can do with the dipole. my question is — has anyone actually done a real comparison like same band, same conditions, same time basically, and found a meaningful difference? i know on paper they should be roughly equivalent if the EFHW is set up right with a decent 49:1 or whatever transformer, but im wondering if the real world matchup is more complicated than that. also curious if the feedline common mode stuff is more of a headache with end feds because i've heard mixed things. not looking to spend a ton, just wondering if its worth experimenting or if i should just put effort into getting the dipole a little higher instead.

so i finally pulled the trigger and built one of those QRP labs kits, the QCX mini on 40m. took me about a weekend spread across a few evenings and honestly it wasnt as scary as i thought it would be. got it up and running and made my first contact with it running 5 watts into a random wire out the window, guy was about 400 miles away and gave me a 559 which i was pretty stoked about for such a tiny little thing. my question is kinda about efficiency and battery stuff. im running it off a 3s lipo i had from an old RC car hobby and it seems to work fine but i notice the battery gets warm after maybe an hour of use. not hot, just warm. is that normal or should i be worried? i dont have a fancy current meter or anything just a basic multimeter. also wondering if anyone has tips for getting more out of low power, like operating habits or antenna tricks because i feel like im leaving contacts on the table just not knowing what im doing on the air yet

yeah same boat here a few months ago, it felt like everyone knew this secret schedule and i was just missing it. what really helped me was just asking on my club's email list — someone replied within like an hour with a whole list of local nets, times, frequencies, everything. clubs are pretty good about that kind of thing if you just ask directly. also once you check into a few nets regularly the net control operators usually announce other upcoming events during the net itself so it sort of snowballs naturally

the ARRL handbook for the tech class is pretty good if you want an actual book to hold, my wife got it for me when i was studying and i liked having something physical. but honestly hamstudy and gordon west's book are both popular and people pass with either. gordon west goes through things in a way thats a little more conversational i guess. dont stress too much about deeply understanding every single thing for the exam itself. once you have the license and you're actually on the air the practical stuff clicks way faster than studying ever made it. i barely understood what SWR meant when i passed but after a few months messing with antennas it made total sense. just get through the test and then learn by doing, thats kind of the whole point of the tech license anyway

Yeah the raw cluster feed is pretty overwhelming at first, totally get it. What helped me a lot was filtering by band and then setting a geographic region. On DXwatch you can set your continent and it'll cut down a huge chunk of the irrelevant spots. Still not perfect but way more manageable. Also worth knowing that a lot of spots are automated from skimmers these days so the signal might already be fading or it was a weak decode to begin with — I usually only chase spots that have two or three confirmations in a short window, that tells me the signal is actually there. For phone apps I actually really like HamAlert combined with DX Toolkit. HamAlert lets you set up pretty specific alerts — like only ping me when a certain entity gets spotted on 17m CW — so you're not staring at the screen constantly. Just buzzes your phone when something you actually care about shows up. Game changer for me honestly, especially when im doing other stuff around the house.

4 contacts from vermont at 5w is solid for a first time out. dont stress the logistics stuff, that all gets better the more activations you do. i remember my first POTA activation i forgot my coax adapter and just sat there in the parking lot for an hour trying to figure something out. ended up making contacts by basically holding the feedline together with my hand which probably wasnt great but it worked lol

ok so i just upgraded to general last month and im trying to figure out where i can actually transmit on 40 meters. i know technicians are pretty limited but now that im general i thought i could just go anywhere on the band but apparently thats not how it works? like i was listening around 7.250 and heard a bunch of phone but then someone told me generals cant operate below 7.175 or something like that. is that right? and then theres the whole thing about the band edges which i dont really understand — someone at my club said to stay away from 7.000 and 7.300 but didnt really explain why. is it just that you might accidentally transmit outside the band or is there more to it than that

ok so i passed my technician exam like three weeks ago and ive been reading through part 97 trying to figure out what im actually allowed to do. the band plan stuff is confusing enough but then theres all this language about "phone" privileges and "image" and i dont really know what counts as what. like can i operate on 10 meters at all or is that only general and above? i thought i saw something about a small slice of 10m being allowed for techs but then someone at my club said thats only CW which i havent learned yet. also someone mentioned third party traffic rules and i have no idea where to start with that. sorry if this is a dumb question i just want to make sure im not doing anything i shouldnt be before i key up

the RSP1C is genuinely a step up for HF, not gonna sugarcoat it. the dynamic range difference is real and you'll notice it immediately if you're in any kind of RF-dense environment. 8-bit vs 12-bit sounds like marketing but when you're trying to pull a weak SSB signal out next to a strong broadcast station it actually matters. as for software, SDRuno is fine and has gotten a lot better over the last couple years but yeah it has a learning curve and the interface is a bit all over the place. the good news is there's an ExtIO plugin for SDR# that works with the RSP series, so you dont have to abandon what you're used to. GQRX support is a little hit or miss depending on your distro but the SoapySDR driver usually gets it working. took me an afternoon to sort it out on debian but its been solid since. that said — and i say this having gone through the same upgrade path — your antenna is going to matter way more than the SDR hardware once you get past a certain baseline. if you're on a random wire or a short vertical, the RSP1C will still show you a messy 40m band at night. fix the antenna first if you can, then decide on the SDR.

wish i could make it but its like 9 hours from me. our local club barely gets 15 people to the monthly meeting anymore so a swap meet feels like a long shot lol. maybe next year for dayton, ive been saying that for 3 years though