Emily Zhang

been looking at the remotehams setup for accessing my station when im traveling for work. the monthly fee seems reasonable but wondering if anyone here has actually used it long term. how's the latency for things like ft8 and js8? i travel alot for my day job and hate missing good propagation when im stuck in hotel rooms. right now i just run a raspberry pi with wsjtx but obviously cant access my beam and amplifier remotely. thinking the sdr approach might be better but dont want to pay monthly if its not really usable for weak signal work.

Yeah i learned this the hard way when some guy kept copying my call wrong because i have both F and S in it and they sound similar with static. Now i always use foxtrot and sierra for those letters at least. Some of the old timers on 40m use different phonetics though like nancy instead of november which throws me off

this is really helpful actually, im fairly new to chasing DX seriously and pileups still kind of intimidate me. i never know when to transmit or if im even in the right part of the band. does the DX station usually announce the split range or do you just have to figure it out by listening around? i feel like half the time i cant even find where theyre listening

so ive been putting together a go-kit for ARES activations and i keep going back and forth on the power situation. right now i have a 100ah lifepo4 battery that does fine for my IC-7300 on receive and light tx duty, but when i start thinking about running sustained comms for like 6-8 hours with decent tx time it gets dicey especially if im also running a laptop and maybe a 2m radio alongside it. the question is whether to haul a small inverter generator to supplement or just get a second battery pack. ive looked at the honda eu2200i and a couple of the cheaper harbor freight predators but the noise and fuel logistics at a disaster site kind of bugs me. on the other hand two 100ah batteries is like 60lbs of lithium which isnt exactly grab and go either. also the antenna situation — right now im using a buddipole which works okay but setup time is annoying when youre trying to be operational fast. been eyeing the chameleon MPAS lite or maybe just going with a simple end fed for most HF work. anybody running a similar setup who has strong feelings either way on the power question specifically would love to hear what actually worked in the field not just on paper

yep you got it right, that 100.0 is the CTCSS tone you need. on a baofeng its buried in the menu, i think its menu item 13 or somewhere around there depending on which model you have — its labeled T-CTCS or something like that. set that to 100.0 and youll open the repeater right up. the receive tone (R-CTCS) you can usually leave off unless the repeater is in a noisy area and you want to squelch out other stuff, but most people dont bother with that part. as for breaking in, the polite way is to just wait for a pause between transmissions and say your callsign. dont say break break unless its an emergency, that freaks people out. just your call is totally fine. most folks on a repeater are pretty welcoming to new hams, dont stress about it too much.

not weird at all. i do it on 80m too sometimes. the old timers down there have some genuinely funny conversations if you catch the right net. beat anything on tv honestly

yeah i had the exact same problem last year. for me it turned out i was holding the paddle handle way too tight, like death-gripping it, which made everything stiff and sloppy at the same time if that makes sense. once i consciously relaxed my whole hand and let the fingers do the work it got a lot better pretty fast. might be worth just watching your hand while you send and see if you're tensing up.

so i was just messing around last weekend and 10 meters was absolutely packed with FT8, like i havent seen it this busy in probably 15 years. worked a bunch of south american stations and even a couple contacts into europe which i wasnt expecting at all given it was like 2pm local time here in the midwest. solar flux was sitting up around 190-something which is pretty wild compared to where we were a couple years ago. feels like we're really hitting the stride of solar cycle 25 now and honestly it's gotten me back into HF in a big way after spending most of last year just doing local VHF stuff. also saw some chatter that Icom might be announcing something at the tokyo hamfair this year, anybody hear anything concrete about that? im not usually one to chase rumors but there's been enough smoke that im starting to wonder. my IC-7300 is fine but you know how it is, always curious what's coming next.

yeah what he said about the equalizer, i did the same thing when i first got my 7300 and spent like a week confused why people kept asking me to repeat myself. turned out i had boosted some low frequencies thinking it would make me sound more authoritative or whatever and instead it just made everything muddy. flat or a very gentle presence boost around 2-3kHz is usually the move for voice intelligibility on SSB, you want to cut through not sound like a radio announcer. also just as a sanity check — are you monitoring yourself through the radio? the 7300 has a monitor function where you can hear your own transmitted audio through the headphones and that'll tell you a lot more than trying to interpret what other ops describe. some of the descriptions you get on-air are not exactly... technically precise lol

the random wire with 9:1 unun thing is interesting - whats your counterpoise situation look like? i ask because ive seen a lot of guys get mediocre results and blame the antenna when really its the ground system thats the weak link especially on 80. even just 3 or 4 radials laid on the ground makes a noticeable difference. anyway not trying to derail your power question just something to think about if youre optimizing the whole package

congrats on the ticket, that first QSO feeling is something you dont forget. and hey nothing wrong with the baofeng to start, most of us had one at some point. go to that club meeting, seriously, those guys will point you toward HF before you know it and thats where things get really fun

honestly the general exam is pretty manageable, i was worried about the same stuff, all the math and electrical theory. but heres the thing, the actual calculations on the exam are not that bad once you see the patterns. like the ohms law stuff and the resonant frequency formulas show up a handful of times and if you just practice those specific question types youll be fine. its not like youre doing calculus or anything i used ham study dot org to prep and just ran through the question pool over and over until i was consistently passing the practice tests, took me maybe 3 weeks of like 20-30 minutes a night. gordon west also has a book that a lot of people like if you prefer something physical to flip through as for going straight to extra, i mean you can if you want but the extra exam is noticeably harder and the additional band privileges you get over general are kind of slim for most operating. general opens up a huge chunk of 40, 20, 15, 10 meters which is where most of the action is anyway. id say get your general, actually spend some time on HF, then decide if extra is worth chasing. thats what i did and i dont regret it at all

so ive been at this for about three months now, got my general last spring and really wanted to learn CW properly. im using a cheap set of iambic paddles i picked up used and running them through the keyer built into my IC-7300. the problem is my sending just sounds... mushy? like the dits and dahs arent clean and when i listen back to recordings of myself it sounds nothing like the nice crisp code i hear from the guys on 40m at night. ive messed with the weight setting a little bit and tried different speeds but im not sure if its a paddle adjustment thing or if im just not squeezing right. my elmer back when i was studying told me iambic mode B was what most people use but honestly i still dont fully understand the difference between mode A and B. been practicing with just my straight key too which feels more natural but i want to get comfortable with the paddles eventually. anyone deal with this early on?

Having trouble getting N1MM+ and WSJT-X to communicate properly via UDP for digital contest operation. Running N1MM+ 1.0.9876 with WSJT-X 2.6.1 on Windows 11. Setup details: N1MM+ Configurer > WSJT/JTDX Setup has UDP port 2237 enabled, IP 127.0.0.1. WSJT-X Settings > Reporting tab shows "Accept UDP requests" checked. Radio mode in WSJT-X set to "DX Lab Suite Commander" as per manual instructions. The issue: QSOs log in WSJT-X but don't automatically appear in N1MM+ contest database. No error messages, just no data transfer. Band/frequency changes in N1MM+ don't update WSJT-X either. Anyone experienced similar UDP handshaking problems between these programs?

so i passed my technician exam about three weeks ago and my callsign finally showed up in the ULS database, which is exciting. but now im reading about vanity callsigns and im honestly more confused than before i started reading lol from what i understand the FCC just assigns you whatever sequential callsign is next in line for your district, which is what happened to me, i got a 2x3 format with my region number. but people keep mentioning applying for a vanity call and im not totally sure when you can do that or if theres a waiting period or what. like can i just apply right now for a different callsign i like better, or do i have to wait some amount of time first? also is there any cost involved, i saw something about $35 but wasnt sure if thats for vanity specifically or just the license renewal thing they started charging for. anyway any help appreciated, still figuring all this out

the preamp placement thing the other guy mentioned is huge and i dont think enough people talk about it. i had my preamp at the shack end for an embarrasingly long time before someone set me straight and it made a noticeable difference moving it to the mast. also if youre on a budget the difference between a mediocre commercial preamp and something like a well-built homebrew unit with a good HEMT transistor is real. some guys in europe are building their own and getting noise figures under 0.3 dB which is better than most of the off-shelf stuff you'd buy anyway. honestly the biggest thing i'd say is just dont wait until everything is perfect before trying. get on during a contest weekend with whatever you have pointed at the moon and just listen first. you'll learn more in one session than reading about it for months.

so ive been licensed about 8 months now, got my general back in March and have mostly been doing casual ragchews on 40m and some local repeater stuff. a buddy at my club keeps telling me i need to try a contest and honestly i keep putting it off because it sounds kind of overwhelming. he mentioned CQ WW is coming up and apparently its one of the big ones? like international contacts and multipliers and zones and stuff. i looked it up and my head kind of spun a little. theres also Field Day which i did with the club earlier this year but that felt more relaxed and social, not sure if that counts as a real contest or more of an event. either way i enjoyed it. i run a Yaesu FT-891 into a wire antenna in my attic which i know isnt ideal but its what i have. is that going to be completely hopeless for something like CQ WW or should i just go for it anyway and see what happens. also someone mentioned SOTA activations are a good way to get contest-like experience without the pressure, is that true? ive been curious about SOTA for a while but never tried it. anyway just looking for any advice from people whove done this stuff before. dont want to make a fool of myself on the air

ok so ive been licensed for about 4 months now (general) and i keep hearing people talk about checking into nets but honestly i still dont fully understand how it works. like i joined my local club and they mentioned the tuesday night 2m net but i wasnt sure what i was supposed to do. do you just key up and say your callsign when the net control asks? or is there more to it than that? also i saw something about a special event station on the ARRL site for some historical anniversary thing and it said you could work them for a certificate. how does that work, is it just like a normal QSO but you log it and they send you something? i emailed the contact address but havent heard back yet. anyway just trying to figure out this whole net and special event thing before i make a fool of myself on the air haha

the linked dipole vs EFHW thing really depends on what bands you care about. i used an EFHW for years and finally switched to a home brew linked dipole for sota and honestly the deployement time isnt that much worse once you practice it a few times. the efficiency difference is real though, especially on 40m where the EFHW is already kind of compromised depending on your counterpoise situation. one thing i'll throw out there - have you looked at the elecraft AX1 or the various hamstick dipole type setups? for true strap-on-your-back portability those are hard to beat even if theyre not as efficient. depends what youre optimizing for i guess. if its emcomm and you need reliable contacts over efficiency, antenna height and location matters way more than a few db of antenna gain anyway

yeah the JD-VCC thing is the classic gotcha with those cheap relay boards. basically if you leave the jumper on it ties the relay coil power to the same 5v as the logic side, which means your relays are pulling current through the pi's gpio which really cant handle that. what you want to do is remove that jumper and feed JD-VCC from a separate 5v supply — even a cheap phone charger brick works fine. the logic inputs on the board have optoisolators so they'll still talk to your pi gpio just fine but the coil current comes from the external supply instead. the half-triggering is almost certainly the pi's 3.3v gpio not having enough oomph to properly pull those inputs low, combined with not enough current available. separate the power rails and i bet it just works. i did something pretty similar with a mega 2560 actually instead of a pi, used arduino because i didnt need the overhead of linux for something that simple. but the pi zero approach is fine especially if you want to run a web interface to override it manually which is honestly really handy.

Great reminder! I made that exact mistake on my first WAS application years ago. Also remember to check for duplicates first since there's a $0.15 fee per QSO after 101, so removing dupes saves money and processing time.

so ive been at this for about three weeks now and i finally got a cheap set of paddles off ebay and a MFJ keyer to go with my old 706. the problem is no matter what i do the dits and dahs just kind of run together and it sounds terrible on playback when i record myself on audacity. ive messed with the weight setting a bunch and tried different speeds from like 12 wpm all the way down to 8 wpm but it still just sounds off to me. i watched a bunch of videos on paddle technique and i think my squeezing might be the issue? like im not sure if im supposed to use squeeze keying from the start or just stick to single paddle mode until i get the feel for it. also the paddles i got have a really stiff spring tension and i cant figure out if i should loosen it way up or leave it kind of firm. any of you guys remember going through this phase and what actually helped you get past it

so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now mostly because my neighbor has a big antenna setup and it looks really cool but i dont even know where to begin with the whole license thing. i know theres different levels or something? like technician and then others above that but i dont really understand what the difference is or which one i should go for first. i looked at the FCC website and it was pretty confusing honestly. and i found some study apps but i dont know if theyre actually good or just garbage. has anyone gone through this recently and can tell me like what actually helped them pass? im not great at memorizing stuff and some of the electrical theory questions look really intimidating even though i was never good at that in school also how long does it usually take to study before you feel ready to take the test? i dont want to show up and totally bomb it

EME on 2m is definitely doable these days without the massive arrays the old timers needed, mainly because of JT65 and WSJT-X doing a lot of the heavy lifting on signal decoding. realistically though you still need some antenna, the digital modes dont perform miracles. a single long yagi like a 9 or 10 element might get you a handful of contacts with the big guns but you'll spend a lot of time waiting for the right conditions. most people i know running single yagis eventually go to at least a 2-yagi setup and that opens things up considerably. the minimum practical setup ive seen people succeed with regularly is something like a 12-15 dBd yagi, a good preamp with maybe 0.3-0.5 dB NF mounted at the antenna, and 400-500 watts out. you lose a lot in feedline so getting that preamp up there matters a lot. on the radio side yeah you'll want a dedicated 2m radio or a transverter off your IF rig, the 590 can drive a transverter fine. IC-910H is a popular choice but second hand FT-847s work too. the window thing varies by your latitude and the moon's declination. in the midwest youll generally have windows that overlap with europe which is great because thats where a lot of the activity is. wsjt-x has a built in tracker so you can see exactly when you and a given station both have the moon above horizon. typically its a few hours per day, moves around with the lunar cycle. peak activity tends to be around the EME contest weekends in october and the ARRL EME contest, lot of stations get on for those.

yeah the doppler thing clicks eventually but it takes a few passes to get the feel for it. the key thing people dont tell you upfront is that on a linear transponder bird like AO-73 you actually adjust the downlink to find yourself, not the uplink. so you park your uplink frequency somewhere reasonable and then tune the downlink until you hear your own signal, then you lock onto that and just keep tweaking as the pass goes on. the doppler shift is roughly 3.4 kHz total swing on 2m over a full pass so its not instant death, you have a little time. gpredict can do CAT control if your FT-847 is hooked up via serial or USB adapter and then it handles the correction automatically, which is honestly the way to go once you get the cables sorted. but even without that, just knowing to chase the downlink and leave the uplink mostly alone makes a huge difference. the 47 degree pass should have been plenty workable so sounds like you were close.