Angela Davis

ok so i passed my technician exam about three weeks ago and im finally ready to actually buy something. ive been going back and forth on this for way too long. everyone keeps telling me different things and now im more confused than when i started lol. basically i want something to hit the local repeaters and maybe take hiking. my budget is probably around $50-100 but i could stretch to like $150 if theres a really good reason. i looked at the baofeng UV-5R which everyone seems to have but then people say the chirp programming is annoying and the audio isnt great. then someone in my local club mentioned the Yaesu FT-65 and another guy said get the VX-6R if i want something waterproof for hiking but thats way more expensive. do i really need waterproofing if im just doing day hikes? and does dual band actually matter this early or should i just not worry about it? honestly i just want something that works and doesnt fall apart. any thoughts appreciated

so anyway i finally got around to doing a proper mobile install for my FT-7900 after running it off a mag mount for like two years and i gotta say the difference with a proper antenna mount is night and day. ran the coax through the trunk, got a nice lip mount on the rear hatch, the whole deal. but now im getting this kind of whine that goes up and down with the engine rpm. its not terrible but its annoying, especially when im trying to hit the local repeater on the way to work. did the power leads straight to the battery with a fuse close to the battery like everyone says to do, so i dont think its a power issue? the coax is the same RG-8X i had before so probably not that either. has anyone dealt with this before, im wondering if maybe its something with how i routed the power cable too close to something under the hood. or maybe i need a ferrite choke somewhere. its a 2015 honda crv if that helps

yeah what he said about the bass. also check if your mic is too close to your mouth — proximity effect on some mics really piles on the low end. i had a similar problem and just backing off like 4-6 inches helped more than i expected. and if you have the 7300 manual handy theres a section on the TX filter settings, you can narrow that bandpass so youre not sending audio outside what actually fits in a SSB passband anyway. wasted TX power otherwise

so ive been trying to work some DX on 17m and 15m for the past few weeks and the conditions have just been all over the place. like one afternoon ill have Europe coming in like theyre next door and then the next day at the same time its completely dead. checked the solar flux index and its been bouncing around between like 140 and 190 which i guess is decent but the K index has been spiking a lot and i think thats whats killing me. had a really promising opening to Japan last tuesday morning around 0100z, worked about 4 or 5 JA stations before it just kind of collapsed on me. tried again the next night and nothing. my buddy who runs way more power than me said he was hearing stuff but couldnt break through either so i dont think its just my antenna situation. anyone been tracking this more closely than me? is there a good resource you guys use beyond just checking DXwatch and pskreporter? feels like im missing openings because i dont know when to actually be at the radio

ok so i passed my general a few weeks ago and im still trying to wrap my head around where i can actually operate. i know there are privileges for each license class but the band plans and the actual allocations seem like two different things? like i looked up the FCC part 97 stuff and then looked at the ARRL band plan and theyre not quite the same and now im more confused than before. specifically on 40 meters i see people say dont operate too close to the band edge and ive heard stuff about the digital modes taking up certain parts and then phone is somewhere else. is there like a simple explanation for what the rules actually require vs what is just kind of an agreement among operators. and what happens if you transmit like right at 7.125 or whatever, is that actually illegal or just frowned upon

Log4OM for contests is rough, i tried it for a while. the rate display stuff never felt right to me either and honestly for anything fast paced id just default to N1MM. its ugly as sin but it works and the support from the N1MM users group is really good if you run into trouble with a specific contest's exchange or something. one thing to watch — when you import the adif back into Log4OM after the contest check for any weird character stuff in the comment fields, ive had it mangle some exchange data before. nothing that affected the actual log just looked messy. probably a Log4OM version thing more than an N1MM thing but worth knowing

the generator noise thing is super common and usually its a grounding issue more than the genny itself being garbage. even the honda eu2200i will hash up your bands if you dont bond the frame to a real earth ground. throw a ground rod in and run a wire to the frame before you start cursing the equipment. that said yeah the cheap open frame generators are way worse and i wouldnt bother trying to fix one of those for serious comms work. for your power setup honestly the lifepo4 plus solar is the right call for anything under maybe 48 hours. i run a 120ah battleborn with a 100w panel and a victron mppt controller and it handles my 7300 all day no problem even with moderate tx duty cycle. key thing is getting the mppt controller right, the cheap pwm ones waste a lot of potential in partial shade which is basically always the case in field conditions. on the antenna question have you looked at the packtenna random wire kits or the chameleon emcomm ii? the chameleon goes up fast once you know it and it actually works, i wouldnt trust a buddipole on 40 without extensions and then its not fast anymore either. nothing beats a simple 40m dipole at 25 feet for actual performance but for quick deployment the endfed through a decent 49:1 is pretty hard to beat if you trim it for the bands you care about.

so ive been working on a direct conversion receiver for 40m for the past couple months, mostly following the NorCal 40A schematic but modified a bit because i couldnt source a couple of the original parts. got it mostly working now — can hear stations, SSB sounds reasonable — but im getting this really annoying carrier null issue where i have to constantly retune even after it warms up. like i'll peak it on a signal and 10 minutes later its drifted enough to sound hollow. VFO is a Colpitts design i wound myself on a T68-2 toroid. im thinking its either thermal drift in the LC tank or maybe my supply isnt regulated enough, running off a wall wart right now. tried adding some thermal mass to the coil by potting it in hot glue which didnt really do anything useful. anyone dealt with this on homebrew DCRs, is it just a thing you live with or is there something im missing in the build

Our local Emergency Management office keeps pushing for RACES registration in addition to ARES membership. ARRL and FEMA both recommend dual membership, but I'm wondering if it's really necessary in practice. The easiest way is to make your RACES net an ARES net with EC approval so your group isn't bound by specific time constraints, and if participating amateurs are registered in both, they can switch hats as conditions dictate. But the RACES registration seems like extra bureaucracy. Anyone here dual registered? What are the practical benefits beyond the theoretical "continuation of operation during declared emergency when normal amateur operations might be prohibited"?

So we ran a simulated disaster exercise last Saturday, basically a scenario where a major storm had knocked out cell towers and the county EOC needed us to relay health and welfare traffic between two shelters and the hospital. Nothing we havent practiced on paper but actually doing it in real time was a totally different animal. The thing that really caught me off guard was how fast message traffic backed up. We had maybe four or five operators handling incoming welfare messages and within like 40 minutes we had a pile of unacknowledged traffic just sitting there because nobody had established a clear net control rotation. Everyone kind of assumed someone else was tracking it. Classic thing you hear about but man it hits different when you watch it happen in front of you. Also our backup frequency plan was basically nonexistent. We had the primary repeater and then... that was about it. When the drill organizers threw in a simulated repeater failure partway through, there was a solid five minutes of confusion before someone remembered we had a simplex fallback we'd agreed on like two years ago and nobody had written down anywhere useful. Anyway im curious if others have run into similar stuff in their exercises. Whats the one thing that always falls apart for your group no matter how many times you practice it

ok so ive been licensed for about 4 months now and i still get confused about this. like when someone asks for my callsign do i always have to spell it out phonetically or is just saying the letters fine sometimes? i was on a local 2m repeater last week and i just said my call normally and nobody seemed to care but then i tried to make a contact on 40m SSB and the other guy couldnt get my suffix at all and i had to repeat it like three times before i did the phonetic thing and it worked immediately so is there like a rule about when you have to use them or is it just kind of a feel thing depending on conditions? also i noticed some people use the NATO ones like Alpha Bravo Charlie and some people use totally different words, heard a guy say "Adam" instead of "Alpha" once which threw me off. is that allowed or is there an official standard you're supposed to follow

so ive been trying to learn CW for about 4 months now and i just cant seem to get past 5wpm without my brain completely locking up. i started with the Koch method and got through all the characters pretty quick actually, i thought i was making good progress but then when i try to bump the speed up even a little bit it all falls apart. like i can copy maybe 3 letters and then i miss one and then im chasing and suddenly ive lost the whole word. i practice every day, usually 20 minutes in the morning before work. been using LCWO and sometimes just tuning around 40m and trying to copy whatever i hear. my goal is to get to 20wpm eventually, i know thats a long way off but i want to actually be able to have a QSO without it being painful for the other guy. anyone been through this and come out the other side? what actually worked for you

Looking at upgrading my current RTL-SDR V3 setup for more serious satellite work, particularly LEO digital birds and maybe some EME experiments down the road. The RTL-SDRv3 clearly outperforms the HackRF One on receive, with significantly better audio quality even on broadcast FM stereo. However, I'm intrigued by the HackRF's TX capability for legal experimental work. The new HackRF Pro has achieved improved performance by eliminating the DC spike and reducing strong signal mirror images compared to the original. For those running the RTL-SDR Blog V4, remember you need to install the custom drivers to make it work properly. Has anyone done a side-by-side comparison for weak signal VHF/UHF satellite reception? I'm particularly interested in SSB/CW performance around 144 and 432 MHz.

ok so ive been running APRS for about 6 months now and i think i understand the basics but every time someone asks me to explain the difference between an igate and a digipeater i kind of fumble through it and im not totally sure i have it right like i get that a digipeater retransmits the RF packets and an igate connects RF to the internet (aprs-is) but in practice when i look at my map on aprs.fi i see stations that are labeled as both and i dont really understand how that works or if you need both running on the same hardware or what im running a TNC-Pi on a raspberry pi with direwolf and a spare 2m rig, currently set up as an igate only because thats what the direwolf docs made easier to configure first. should i bother enabling the digipeater function too or does it depend on how many other digis are in the area? theres maybe 2 or 3 within range of me based on what i can see on the map but i dont know if thats enough or too few

congrats on the first activation, that feeling when the pile starts calling you is pretty addictive honestly. to answer your questions - you have 7 days to upload the log i believe, no need to do it same day. HAMRS exports adif just fine so that part is easy, just go to your POTA profile and upload under the log submission section. and yes the P2P thing is exactly what you described. if someone gives you their callsign and then says K-1234 or whatever, they are activating a park at the same time and you both get credit for a park to park. its a nice bonus and a lot of hunters specifically chase those. worth logging the park reference they give you separately so you can note it in HAMRS before you upload, theres a field for it. for the QRP pileup issue, honestly the biggest thing is just slowing down your CQ a little and being really deliberate about who you come back to. send the partial call you heard clearly rather than trying to work someone you only caught half of. also spotting yourself on the POTA app or having someone spot you helps because it tells hunters what freq you're on and they can decide if the band is working for them before they call. some guys will just wait for a better opening rather than waste both your time.

im pretty much in the same boat as you actually, been stuck around 10wpm for a couple months. what i started doing recently is listening to real QSOs on the air even though i can only catch maybe half of it. something about hearing actual operators instead of computer generated tones feels different, like my brain pays more attention or something. theres a guy on 40m most evenings who sends really clean slow CW and ive just been tuning in and trying to copy whatever i can. probably only catching 30-40 percent of it but its way more fun than the practice software and i feel like its helping honestly.