Jennifer Rodriguez

yeah 10m has definitely been showing signs of life, not just you. I logged a handful of JA stations last weekend almost completely by accident, was just tuning around and suddenly the band was wide open to the pacific. lasted maybe 90 minutes then gone. thats just how it goes at this part of the cycle though, the openings are real but they can be short and you have to be ready to jump on them when they happen. the geomagnetic stuff really does hammer things. even a moderate Kp of like 4 or 5 can wipe out what should otherwise be a decent day on 10 and 12. i always check space weather dot com and the NOAA forecasts before i even bother setting up for a serious session on the high bands. the solar flux index is a good starting point but the Ap and Kp indices are what really tell me whether its worth trying for DX or if i should just hang around 40m and work locals. your east/west path from the midwest is actually pretty solid for europe in my experience, especially around the grey line. if you havent tried getting on around sunrise or sunset you might be surprised what you can work even on mediocre flux days.

could have been maintenance equipment or something electrical in the park. ive had similar issues and its usually something local. try listening around on different frequencies next time to see if you can track down where its coming from

yeah the intermod thing is the tradeoff nobody talks about when they post these mods on youtube. you're basically moving the dynamic range problem around rather than solving it. if your noise floor is the limiting factor then yeah you gain something real, but if you're anywhere near a strong local signal or running a wideband antenna without filtering you'll start seeing spurs that weren't there before. i did something similar to an older 756 pro years back and ended up adding a little 2-pole bandpass switching setup in front of it which helped a lot. the 7300 has decent enough filtering built in but it's not a substitute for frontend selectivity when things get hairy on 80m contest weekends. the TX lowpass stuff is honestly less exciting than people make it out to be unless you're measuring your harmonics and actually seeing a problem. stock harmonics on the 7300 are already well within spec from what ive seen on a spectrum analyzer. unless youre doing something weird with the power output or running it into a bad match id probably leave that alone.

not a dumb question at all, this trips up a lot of new generals. so the short version is the FCC part 97 rules are what you're legally required to follow, and the ARRL band plan is kind of a gentlemens agreement on top of that to keep things organized. you're not breaking any laws by ignoring the ARRL plan but you might step on people. for 40m phone as a general you can operate 7.175 to 7.300 MHz. the reason people say stay away from the band edge is mostly practical — your radio's carrier or sidebands can drift a little especially if it's not warmed up, and if you're right at 7.300 you might accidentally splatter outside the band which is a violation. most people just leave a few kHz of margin. like dont set your dial to 7.299 and call CQ, just go to 7.285 or somewhere with room. the 7.125-7.175 thing is the extra class portion for phone, generals cant use that for voice. the whole lower chunk of 40m down to 7.000 is CW and digital for generals. you can do CW down to 7.025 as a general i believe, check the current chart to be sure though.

okay so i passed my tech exam like two months ago and ive been reading through part 97 trying to figure out what im actually allowed to do and honestly its kind of confusing. like i get that i have HF privileges on 10m and some other bands but what about the power limits and stuff. my buddy who got his general last year keeps telling me different things and i dont know who to believe at this point. also what does it mean when it says "phone" privileges specifically, does that just mean voice or does that include digital stuff like FT8? i tried looking it up on the fcc website and it just sent me in circles. is there like a plain english version of this somewhere that isnt just someone trying to sell me a study guide

Allstar for the backup path is a solid idea, i do something similar at my place — HF remote is the main thing but i have a node running so i can at least check into local nets when the HF link is acting up. one thing to keep in mind is if youre on a network that does any kind of traffic shaping, the UDP that Allstar uses sometimes gets deprioritized and you get that garbled audio that sounds like youre talking through a blender. switching the node to use a different port helped me somewhat but it depends on the ISP. havent used RemoteHams specifically so cant help you there but 90 miles is not a bad remote situation, some guys are running links much longer than that with decent results. whats your shack router situation, are you running any QoS on the upload side?

so i finally got off my butt and did a summit activation last weekend, been putting it off for like two years honestly. threw the KX2 in a pack with a random wire and a 9:1 unun, hiked up about 3 miles to the summit and just... it worked? made 12 contacts in maybe 40 minutes which i guess is enough to count. the hardest part was the wire kept sagging because i forgot to bring enough cord to get it high enough, ended up just draping it over some scrubby little pine trees and it still got out fine on 20m. fingers were freezing by the end but whatever, totally worth it. already looking at which summit to do next

so ive been running an old FT-450D for about four years and honestly it served me well but i kept reading about the 7300 and watching videos and eventually just bought one last month. figured id share some thoughts since there's always people asking about this radio. first thing i noticed was the waterfall. i mean obviously thats what everyone talks about but seeing it in person is different. i was on 40m last night and could actually watch a pileup forming in real time, spotted a station calling CQ before i even heard him come up on the audio. that alone kind of changed how i operate. the receiver is noticeably better than the 450D on crowded bands, i was skeptical about how much difference id actually hear but on a busy contest weekend its pretty obvious. roofing filter situation is different from older radios and took me a bit to wrap my head around the DSP controls. one gripe and its minor — the menu system takes some getting used to. not bad just different. spent probably an hour digging through settings the first night. also the mic that ships with it is fine but im already eyeing something better. anyway if anyones on the fence about this radio and has a mid-range rig already it probably is worth the jump. at least thats my take after a few weeks. ask me something if you want i dont mind.

i was in the same boat not that long ago honestly. one thing that helped me was the ARRL band plan chart, its a lot easier to look at than the actual CFR text. just google arrl band plan and itll show you a color coded chart of who gets what. not official FCC but it matches part 97 close enough for day to day use. just dont forget that the FCC document is always the actual authority if theres ever a discrepancy

Just got back from helping with comms during Helene recovery efforts in western NC. Some AuxComm folks were actually airlifted in by State Patrol helicopters since many roads were still blocked. What an experience that must have been! We're planning our post-exercise debrief next week, and I'm wondering what key lessons other groups captured from recent real-world deployments. The standard practice is conducting an After Action session and writing a report with findings, recommendations for enhancing emergency communication preparedness. What specific areas should we focus on for our critique? Looking to improve our section's disaster response capabilities based on what actually worked (and what didn't) during this unprecedented event.

okay so i just passed my technician exam last week (finally) and everyone keeps telling me to just get a cheap baofeng to start but then other people are saying those are junk and i should save up for something better. im not trying to spend a ton of money right out of the gate but i also dont want to buy something twice if you know what i mean. mostly ill be using it for local repeaters and maybe some simplex stuff when i go hiking with my brother who is also getting licensed. i looked at the yaesu ft-65 and the vx-3r and honestly have no idea what the differences even mean in practical terms. does the dual band thing actually matter for a new person or is that just a nice to have. and whats the deal with the chirp software everyone mentions, is that something i need right away sorry for all the questions just trying to figure out where to start

also worth trying aprsdroid or something on your phone just to verify the frequency and that your audio path is actually working end to end. had a similar thing happen to me and it turned out my SSID was set weird and i was just searching the wrong callsign on aprs.fi the whole time, felt pretty dumb about it honestly

yeah what he said basically. i was in the same boat when i upgraded and it took me a while to wrap my head around it. one thing that helped me was just downloading the ARRL band plan chart and keeping it next to my radio for the first few months. you start to memorize it pretty quick once you're actually using the bands regularly. the band edge thing is real though, i heard a guy get absolutely roasted on a net once because his signal was clearly splashing above 7.3 and the net control called him out on it. kind of embarassing. just stay a few kHz inside and youll be fine

so ive been running N1MM for contests for a few years now and it does what i need but honestly outside of contest weekends its kind of overkill and the interface feels like its from 2003 which i guess it kind of is. anyway a buddy at my local club swears by Log4OM for general logging and says he just switches over to N1MM when a big contest comes up. that got me thinking about whether thats actually worth the hassle of maintaining two separate logs or if theres a way to sync them or just pick one and deal with the limitations. the other thing is im running WSJT-X pretty heavily these days, like probably 60% of my operating time is FT8 at this point, and the WSJT-X to N1MM integration works fine but ive heard Log4OM has decent WSJT-X integration too. anyone actually compared them side by side for that workflow? im not chasing DX super seriously but i do work towards DXCC so accurate logging and duplicate checking matter to me. mostly curious if anyone has tried to consolidate everything into one app or if the two-program approach is just what people do now

so ive been trying to get Winlink going for a few weeks now and i think i understand the basic concept — email over radio, messages get routed through an RMS gateway and then delivered to a regular email address or another Winlink user. but the actual setup is where im getting lost. right now i have Winlink Express installed and i can see gateway stations in the list when i use the RMS Relay map, but when i actually try to connect via VHF (im running a TM-V71A into a Signalink) it either times out or i get a partial handshake and then it just drops. tried a couple different gateways in my area, one about 14 miles away which should be plenty strong enough. my VARA FM is configured and i can see audio levels moving when i key up so i dont think its a levels issue. the other thing im not clear on is message handling — like when i send a message through Winlink, does it sit in a queue at the RMS until the recipient connects, or does it actually forward to their email in real time? trying to understand this for potential ARES use and i want to make sure im not missing something fundamental about how the store-and-forward works.

so ive been running ft8 for about a year now and yeah its great for working new entities and whatever but it started feeling kind of hollow after a while, like youre not really talking to anyone just exchanging signal reports and grid squares. someone on the local repeater mentioned js8call and i set it up last weekend and honestly it feels more like actually operating, you can type actual sentences and have a back and forth with someone even when signals are terrible. my question is — is there an active community on js8call or am i going to fire it up and hear nothing? i was on 40m last night around 14074 (wrong band i know, habit) and didnt hear much. also what are the typical js8call freqs people use? i know theres some kind of net activity but cant find consistent info on where people actually hang out. running an ic-7300 into a dipole nothing fancy.

so i heard the Tri-County hamfest is back this year after they skipped it last year, thinking about making the drive out there. last time i went i picked up a decent MFJ tuner for like 20 bucks from some old timer who was cleaning out his shack and honestly that thing still works great. anyway curious if anyone else from this area is planning on going, might try to carpool if someone is heading that way from around the Westfield area. also heard the club is doing a VE session in the morning which is cool

I went through basically the same decision a while back. ended up with the RSPdx and dont regret it. one thing nobody mentioned to me when i was researching is that SDRuno, the software that comes with it, has kind of a steep learning curve compared to SDR# but theres also nothing stopping you from using it with SDR# via the ExtIO plugin or running it in HDSDR which is what i mostly do now. also works fine with CubicSDR if youre on linux. the other thing worth knowing is the RSPdx has those three antenna inputs — the high-Z port for longwire below 200 MHz is actually really useful if you dont have a 50 ohm antenna setup yet. makes it flexible for just tossing a random wire out the window and still getting decent results on the lower HF bands.

Honestly I put it off for years thinking the same thing and then one weekend I just sat down with the ARRL Extra Class manual and started reading it properly instead of just trying to memorize answers. Took me about 6 weeks studying maybe an hour a night and passed with a 46 out of 50. The theory stuff actually clicked once I stopped fighting it. The transmission line section was rough but once you get the basic concepts the questions make a lot more sense. Whether it makes you a better operator kind of depends on what you do. I build a lot of my own antennas and understanding impedance matching properly made a real difference for me. If you're just doing casual ragchewing maybe less so but I still think it's worth it just to have done it.

ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now and i finally got my general and im trying to figure out where i can actually transmit on 40 meters. ive looked at the arrl band plan and also the license chart on the fcc website and they dont really match up exactly and im not sure which one im supposed to follow. like the arrl thing shows certain segments for ssb and cw and digital but is that actually a legal thing or just like a suggestion? and also someone on another forum said you shouldnt operate too close to the band edge because of sideband splatter or something and i dont even fully understand what that means. i have a ft-891 and i was just tuning around and found a guy having a qso around 7.280 and jumped in but then someone told me afterward i shouldnt have been there. i wasnt sure if that was a band plan thing or a license class thing or what. just trying to not step on anyone or do something wrong

yeah same boat here, got into QRP last year and it kind of took over. one thing i found with the ubitx is the AGC can be a little rough on crowded bands, theres a few modifications floating around on the groups.io forum that help a lot if you find yourself getting stomped by strong nearby signals. for camping i've been using a 28 foot random wire with a small tuner and it works surprisingly well. not the most efficient setup probably but i can tune it on most of the hf bands which is nice when youre out somewhere and just want to spin the dial and see what happens

1.4:1 on your first homebrew dipole is honestly pretty good, dont sweat it too much. the resonant point being around 7.05 just means the antenna is cut a touch long which is totally normal — the formula gives you a starting point but wire type, height above ground, nearby objects all shift it around. trim maybe an inch or two off each leg at a time, remeasure, repeat. way easier to trim than to add back. RG-8X over 50 feet on 40m is fine, loss is negligible at that length on HF. where it starts mattering more is if youre running long runs on 2m or up. for your purposes youre good. the inverted-V config also tends to drop resonance a bit compared to a flat-top because the legs arent truly horizontal, so factor that in when youre trimming. overall sounds like you built it right, just needs a little tuning.

yeah the iambic thing trips up a lot of people who learned on a straight key or took a break. honestly if youre fighting the squeeze thing just switch to mode A for now, its a little more forgiving than mode B when you accidentally catch both paddles. some guys actually prefer to just disable iambic altogether and use it in single lever mode while they rebuild muscle memory, theres no shame in that at all. the other thing i'd really suggest is dropping your speed way down, like uncomfortably slow, maybe 10 or even 8 wpm for a few weeks of practice. i know it feels like going backwards but your hands have to relearn the motions almost from scratch after that long. i came back after about 8 years off and it took me a solid month of daily practice before 15 wpm felt natural again. G4FON's Koch trainer is free and it helped me a lot, you can set it to just drill specific characters you're weak on.

the eu2200i RFI situation really depends on how close you park it to the radio. ive run mine maybe 30-40 feet away with the cable routed away from the coax runs and its been pretty clean on HF, picked up a little hash on 40m once but nothing a notch filter couldnt handle. the inverter generators are way better than the old conventional stuff in that regard. put a line filter on the output anyway just as insurance. honestly for a 12 hour exercise id just bring the generator. the second battery option sounds nice until youre at hour 8 and everyone wants to run a net and suddenly youre watching the voltage drop. the eu2200i sips fuel at low load, you wont go through more than a gallon or so for the day. and if something goes sideways and the exercise runs long youre just fine. the linked dipole on the jackite is the right call for HF, ive used basically that same setup for years and it just works.

oh man i was exactly where you were like two years ago. the storm thing is what got me too, nothing motivates you like feeling useless when people actually need help lol. the way i approached it was power first honestly. if you dont have a reliable way to run your radio for 12+ hours you dont really have a kit, you just have a radio in a bag. i picked up a 20ah LiFePO4 battery from bioenno and a cheap solar panel for recharging and that became the backbone of everything else. the FT-891 is a solid choice by the way, runs well at lower power settings and wont kill your battery as fast if you dial it back to like 50 watts. after power i worried about antenna — i went with a simple end-fed for HF because it sets up fast and doesnt need a ground plane. then cables, adapters, a notebook and pens because seriously dont forget analog stuff, coax, a small tuner. i packed everything into a medium harbor freight case with foam and the whole thing was probably under 400 bucks spread over a few months so it doesnt have to happen all at once