Angela Davis

so i passed my technician exam about three weeks ago and ive been trying to figure out what handheld to get as my first radio. everyone i ask seems to have a different opinion and i've gone down like four different rabbit holes on youtube and now im more confused than when i started lol my main thing is i want to hit the local repeaters and maybe do some simplex with a guy from my club who lives about 8 miles away. budget is probably somewhere around 100-150 dollars but i could stretch it a bit if theres a really good reason to. ive seen the baofeng uv5r recommended constantly but also seen people say its garbage and i genuinely dont know what to believe anymore any advice appreciated, just want something that works and isnt going to frustrate me too much getting set up

honestly the fact that you're asking means youre already doing better than half the people who just key up without thinking. so the listening thing — the general idea is you want to make sure the frequency is actually clear before you start calling CQ. a good habit is to just listen for a minute or two, then say something like "is this frequency in use" and wait a few seconds. if nobody comes back, go ahead. on some bands especially 40m things can sound clear and then someone youre covering with skip will come back pretty annoyed so just be patient about it. for nets yeah its basically exactly what you described — net control will usually say something like "are there any stations with emergency or priority traffic" and then work through the check-ins. when they call for general check-ins you just give your callsign phonetically, short and clean, and wait. dont try to give your name or location yet until NCS asks, some nets have a specific format for that. every net is a little different so after you listen a few times youll get the rhythm of how that particular net runs.

i just upgraded like six weeks ago so this is fresh for me. the propagation section tripped me up at first but once it clicks it actually makes sense and helps you understand why the bands do what they do. i used the Gordon West book and also just hammered the practice tests on qrz. took me maybe a month of casual studying, wasnt grinding it every day or anything. the privileges are worth it though, 40m and 20m especially open up a whole different world. first time i made a contact on 20m i was kind of shocked how far it went

yeah honestly i wouldnt worry about it. ive been doing this for like 2 years and i still sometimes say november instead of... wait no november is right. anyway i sometimes mix up the ones that sound similar when im nervous on a new band. nobody has ever said anything to me. just practice saying them out loud when youre not on air, like just repeat your callsign phonetically to yourself a few times before you key up and eventually it becomes automatic

honestly the pool is memorizable, most people do it that way and theres no shame in it. hamstudy.org will get you there if you just grind the questions for a few weeks. the math ones look scarier than they are because the answer choices are usually distinct enough that you can recognize the right ballpark even without working through it fully. that said i will tell you that actually understanding the theory made me a way better operator after i passed. like the stuff about transmission lines and SWR finally clicked for me after i studied the Extra material even though ive been licensed for years. so if you have the time its worth slowing down and actually reading the ARRL Extra book instead of just flashcards. but if your goal is just the privileges, flashcards work fine too, no judgment

so i finally upgraded to General last month and ive been thinking about applying for a vanity callsign. my current sequential call is kind of long and hard to say phonetically which gets annoying especially when im trying to do any voice work on HF. anyway i went to the FCC ULS website and honestly its a little confusing to navigate if you havent done it before. from what i understand you submit an application and then there's like a 18 day window where other people can also apply for the same call, and then after that window closes they do some kind of lottery if multiple people applied? or does the first person to apply just get it? ive read conflicting things and the FCC docs are not exactly written for normal humans to understand. also wondering if there are any gotchas i should know about before i submit. i already looked up the call i want on the FCC database and it shows as available but i want to make sure im not missing something. do i need to have had my license for a certain amount of time before i can apply for vanity?

ok so ive been a general for about 3 months now and i keep second guessing myself on where i can actually operate on 40 meters. i know there are segments for different license classes but when i look at the band plan and then look at what the band edge actually is im getting confused. like is 7.125 actually safe or am i creeping into tech territory or something. also my radio sometimes drifts a little especially when its cold and im worried about accidentally going outside my privileges. does anyone have a good way to think about this or a resource that lays it out clearly without being 50 pages long

okay so i just got my technician license about three weeks ago and im still figuring out all this repeater stuff. i programmed in the local 2m repeater from the repeaterbook listing and i can hear people talking on it just fine but when i key up nobody responds and i dont think im actually getting into the repeater. looked at the listing again and it shows a 100.0 Hz tone for access. i have the CTCSS set on my radio (baofeng uv-5r, i know i know) but im not sure if i have it set to transmit the tone or just decode it or both? the menu system on this thing is honestly confusing as a first radio. also somebody mentioned something about a courtesy tone and i have no idea what that means or if im supposed to wait for it before i talk. any help appreciated, this stuff is way more complicated than i expected from studying the book

yeah your buddy is on the right track — on most Baofengs you need to make sure the CTCSS is set for transmit (T-CTCSS) not receive (R-CTCSS), or sometimes people accidentally set it to squelch on the tone coming in which means you'd only hear stations that are also sending 100.0 Hz. the repeater itself handles opening the squelch, you dont need to filter incoming audio by tone usually. so double check the channel settings and make sure 100.0 is set as your transmit tone only. also give it a second after you key up before you start talking — Baofengs especially have a slight delay before the signal actually reaches the repeater and trips the input. I've seen new folks key and talk instantly and the first syllable just gets eaten. try saying something like your callsign and "listening" and see if you get the courtesy beep back. if you do, you're in. as for jumping in on a QSO, yeah just wait for a pause between transmissions and say your callsign during the gap. most folks on repeaters are pretty welcoming to new hams checking in.

the transformer winding is almost certainly your culprit if you lost count lol. even being off by 2-3 turns on a small toroid can tank your efficiency pretty significantly. i'd rewind it before chasing the biasing rabbit hole, because if the impedance matching is off the FET is just gonna dump heat instead of RF. also check what your gate drive voltage looks like -- the IRF510 needs to be driven pretty hard to get into full enhancement mode and a lot of homebrew designs underestimate that. on your battery question, honest answer is it depends so much on the band conditions and how often you're actually keying down vs listening. when i was doing SOTA activations with my KD1JV Tribander i was getting maybe 3-4 hours of real operating time on a 3Ah LiPo at 5W, but i wasnt in constant TX obviously. 200mW is going to be very efficient on receive at least so that part works in your favor.

i just passed mine like six weeks ago and the thing that tripped me up the most was the op-amp and oscillator circuit questions, not because theyre super hard but i just hadnt really looked at them and a few of them are kind of worded weird. the regulatory stuff for Extra is actually pretty interesting once you realize youre mostly learning about the privileges youre about to get, like the CW and phone sub-bands open up and it makes more sense when you see it on a band plan. good luck with it, the test itself felt way less scary than i expected

yeah they are technically different things even though people lump them together. Q codes were originally made for maritime and commercial radio like way back in the early 1900s and then hams sort of adopted them and expanded on them over time. the official ones like QRM (interference from other stations), QRN (static/natural noise), QSB (fading signal), QTH (your location) those all have pretty specific meanings. then theres a whole other layer of ham-specific abbreviations that arent Q codes at all, like 73 means best regards, 88 is hugs and kisses usually sent to a YL, TNX or TU is thanks, OM is old man which is just how hams refer to each other, YL is young lady, XYL is wife basically. de means from, like if you hear W1AW de K5XYZ thats the calling station identifying itself. CQ is call to any station. honestly the fastest way to learn them is just to keep listening and look them up as you hear them, you'll have the common ones down within a month of actually being on the air. ARRL has a decent reference list if you want something official to bookmark.

i went through this whole thing last year. honestly it wasnt as complicated as i expected once i just did it. i used the AE7Q callsign lookup to find a call i liked that wasnt taken, made sure it was actually in the available pool, then just filed through the FCC site. got it in like 2 weeks with no competition. the tricky part is finding a call nobody else wants lol. the 1x2 and 2x1 calls get snatched up fast if they ever come available but if youre ok with a decent 1x3 or 2x2 you can usually find something clean without a fight. totally worth it imo if you find something that means something to you

yeah what he said, plus QRM for interference and QRN for static noise. QRP means low power which you'll hear a lot. i still have to look up the weird ones sometimes and ive been licensed for 8 years. just learn as you go, after a while it becomes second nature. 73 means best wishes btw, thats probably the most common one you'll hear at the end of contacts

so i finally worked up the nerve to check into the local 2m net last tuesday. ive been licensed for about 4 months and mostly just been listening, programming radios, reading stuff online but never actually keyed up on a real net before. anyway the net control called for check-ins and i waited for a gap and said my callsign but i guess i did it wrong or at the wrong time because there was this awkward silence and then net control kind of repeated what i said back to me like a question? i dont really know if i messed up the format or jumped in too early or what. nobody said anything rude but i felt pretty dumb after. is there like a standard way you're supposed to check in? do you just say your callsign or do you give your name and location too? i genuinely couldnt find a consistent answer looking around online, seems like every net does it different

so i got my technician license a few months ago and ive been reading that a lot of the old timers still use CW and honestly it seems really cool but i have no idea where to start. like do i just memorize the dots and dashes from a chart or is there a better way? i tried printing out one of those alphabet charts and staring at it but i dont think thats actually teaching me anything useful. someone at my club mentioned something called the Koch method but i dont really understand what that means. is there like a good app or website or something? i have a lot of free time in the mornings before work so i could probably practice for 20-30 minutes a day. just dont want to waste time doing it the wrong way if that makes sense

yeah what he said about TX delay is real. also just to mention — WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 is fine but if you're in a dense area with a lot of APRS traffic you might actually be getting digipeated and then gated but the IGate that covers that area could be down or firewalled or something. aprs.fi only shows what gets into the APRS-IS network so if the IGate has issues you wont see it even if your packets are going out perfectly. Try checking if you can decode your own packets on a second receiver, even just a baofeng scanning 144.390, just to confirm the radio is actually putting out something coherent.

so ive been chasing 3Y0 type rare ones for a while now and honestly pileups have been my nemesis since i got my ticket. not sure if its my antenna situation (dipole at about 30ft, nothing crazy) or just my technique but i kept getting buried every single time. anyway what finally clicked for me was listening way longer before transmitting. like embarrassingly longer than i was before. i used to jump in after maybe 30 seconds of listening to figure out the DX stations split but now i sit there for sometimes 5-10 minutes just mapping out where the operator is actually listening, not just where they say they're listening. because a lot of times they drift their listening frequency or work a certain part of the spread more than others and you can kinda figure out their pattern. the other thing that helped a lot was timing my calls. instead of calling the second the DX station finishes, i wait maybe a half beat and transmit a single call — just my suffix or sometimes full call depending on how crowded it is. not two, not three times. once. and then listen. i think i was massively overdriving before, calling like 3-4 times and just adding to the mud. last weekend i finally worked VP6R on 17m and it was genuinely one of the better moments ive had on the air. so just curious if anyone else has tricks that work consistently, especially for those situations where the pileup is absolutely massive and everyones just screaming over each other

Dave Casler's YouTube videos (KE0OG) are excellent for the theory topics. I also recommend the Fast Track series by Michael Burnette - great explanations without all the ARRL fluff. Understanding beats memorization every time.

Fox hunting is always a hit! You can even do it without specialized equipment - use conventional 2-meter gear or cell phones to find WiFi transmitters. It gets people out of the meeting room and working together. Plus newcomers love the hands-on aspect.

So i was just messing around on 10 meters yesterday afternoon, not really expecting much, and all of a sudden the band just lit up. Was hearing stations from South America coming in strong, worked a few JA's too which honestly surprised me. Felt like old solar cycle 24 vibes for a minute there. Ive been watching the solar flux numbers creep up over the last couple weeks and was wondering if anyone else has been taking advantage of this. My setup is nothing fancy, just a dipole at about 25 feet, and i was still pulling in stuff from pretty far out. Makes me wish i had a beam up already. Also saw some chatter about the new Icom IC-905 finally shipping to more dealers — anyone actually gotten their hands on one yet? Been curious whether its worth the price tag for the microwave bands or if its still kinda niche. Anyway mainly just wanted to say get on 10m if you havent lately, conditions have been surprisingly decent.

yeah the waiting is basically the job, at least in my experience. ive been doing ARES stuff for close to twelve years now and honestly most activations are 80% sitting around being ready and 20% actually doing anything. the frustrating part early on is feeling like you should be doing something but really your value is just being there and being reliable when the call comes. sounds like your group handled the flooding activation pretty well from what you're describing. net control during an actual event is a totally different animal than a weekly net or even a SET exercise — the SET exercises are useful but they cant really replicate the background noise and the stress of a real situation. the fact that NCS was working to manage it means they were on top of it, that overlap at check-in is super common when people are anxious to get on and report. one thing that helped me was bringing a small notepad and just keeping a log of everything even when i wasnt the one handling traffic. keeps your head in the game and you'd be surprised how useful your own notes can be later if there's any question about what got passed and when.

the antenna question is a real one and honestly both have their place but if i had to pick one for a general purpose go-kit id lean toward the EFHW just because it only needs one feedpoint and you can get it up in a lot of weird spaces with some paracord and a tree or a fence post. the random wire is great but then you need a tuner and a decent ground which gets complicated fast when youre stressed and trying to set up in a parking lot at 2am. for the non-radio stuff — waterproof notebook and a couple sharpies, this sounds dumb but trust me when the tablet dies youll be glad you have paper logs. also a headlamp with extra batteries, not just because power might be out but because you might be operating in a vehicle or a tent and overhead light is useless. some kind of surge protected power strip even if youre on battery, i fried a radio years ago from generator voltage spikes and i learned that lesson the hard way. extra coax with connectors already on it, like several short jumpers, because youll always need one more than you think. and honestly a laminated copy of your important frequencies and ARES nets because under pressure people forget things they know cold. sounds like youre on the right track with the 891, thats a solid kit radio. lot of people in our group run them.

the grommet method is pretty much what everyone does, youll be fine as long as you put a little silicone or dielectric grease around where you cut it. the factory grommets seal pretty well on their own but a dab of something helps keep water out especially if you live somewhere it rains a lot or gets road salt in winter. ive done four or five mobile installs that way over the years and never had a problem. one thing i would double check is that your coax isnt getting pinched anywhere under that sill trim, the F-150 door sill can be kind of tight depending on trim level. a pinched coax will work fine for a while then you start wondering why your SWR suddenly went up. ask me how i know lol. other than that sounds like a solid install, running power direct to the battery with a fuse close to the terminal is exactly right.

yeah the logging thing gets everyone. we had almost the exact same problem at a SET a few years back. the thing is everyone practices their radio skills but nobody practices the paperwork and message handling side of it, and that's what actually breaks down when it counts. ICS forms exist for a reason but if half your team has never actually filled one out under any kind of pressure they freeze up. we started doing mini tabletop exercises at our monthly meetings, nothing fancy just a scenario on paper and we talk through who does what. it sounds boring compared to actually getting on the air but it catches so many coordination gaps before they become real problems. the simplex frequency thing is huge too — we actually laminated cards with our backup frequencies and put them in every go bag. low tech solution but it works. the repeater-goes-down inject is classic and every group should experience it at least once. nothing humbles a team faster than losing their infrastructure and realizing half the members can barely hit each other on simplex from across town.