Jennifer Martinez

the warbling could also be multipath if your yagis are close together or if theres something reflective nearby - i had that problem for months before i figured out my downlink yagi was basically pointing at a metal shed at certain elevations. drove me crazy. not saying thats definitely it but worth ruling out before going deep on the doppler config rabbit hole

yeah i basically run exactly this setup. Log4OM for everything day to day including FT8 via WSJT-X UDP port, and then N1MM comes out of hibernation for contest weekends. the trick is i export from Log4OM to ADIF before a contest, import into N1MM so it knows what i already have confirmed, run the contest, then export N1MM's log after and merge it back into Log4OM. sounds like a pain but honestly takes maybe 10 minutes and ive only had duplicate issues like twice in two years. the WSJT-X to Log4OM integration is solid, dupe checking works across modes in my experience, caught a few CW dupes when i was also doing FT8 on the same band during a DX weekend. one thing to watch is making sure the UDP ports arent conflicting if you ever have both programs open at the same time, learned that the hard way during a contest warmup where i had both running and wsjt-x was only talking to one of them

your buddy is sorta right but its more nuanced than that. under part 97.105 the control operator determines the operating privileges, so if a general or extra is the control operator at a station, yeah the higher privileges apply. but thats the thing — they have to actually BE the control operator, meaning they need to be present and responsible for what goes on. you cant just have a general class guy in the same building doing something else and then claim his privs. the way the rules are written, whoever is designated the control operator is accountable for the transmission, so if something goes wrong its on them. as far as your tech HF privileges go you basically get some CW access on 80, 40, 15, and i think 10 meters, and then on 10m you get a small phone segment around 28.3 to 28.5 MHz. theres also some digital and RTTY allocations. the ARRL website has a band plan chart thats way easier to read than the actual CFR text, id just bookmark that honestly.

so the short version is the FCC frequency allocations are actual law, the band plan is more of a gentlemans agreement. for 40m as a general you can do phone from 7.175 up to 7.300 MHz so 7.195 is totally fine. the band edge thing is real though -- your radio's displayed frequency is the suppressed carrier frequency for SSB so your actual signal can be a few kHz wide. if you're at 7.300 and transmitting USB your sidebands can spill over the edge into frequencies you're not supposed to be on. most people say stay at least 3 kHz inside the edge to be safe, so like 7.297 or lower in practice. the guy in the net was probably just being overly cautious or maybe had a reason specific to that net's frequency, hard to say without more context.

i went through almost the exact same thing last year lol. the bencher paddles are nice but I remember reading somewhere that they ship with the tension springs pretty stiff and some people loosen them off a bit. I messed with mine for weeks before it felt right. one thing that actually helped me a ton was just listening to slow code nets while doing something else, like washing dishes or whatever. not even trying to copy it, just letting it wash over you. i think it helps your brain start to recognize the rhythm of actual QSOs instead of just isolated characters from practice software. after a while the common words like CQ and 73 and DE just pop out automatically without thinking. still working on it myself tbh, copying full callsigns in a pileup is still rough for me

so ive been a tech for about a year and a half and i keep reading about CW and people saying its worth learning but i genuinely have no idea where to start. like do you just memorize the dots and dashes on paper or is there some other way people do it? i tried that once and got maybe 5 letters in before giving up because it felt completely useless without being able to actually hear it ive seen some apps mentioned here and there, lcwo.net gets brought up a lot i think, but i dont really know if thats the right approach or if theres something better now. also i have no idea what speed to even try to learn at. someone told me to start at like 5 wpm but someone else said thats actually bad and teaches you bad habits? im confused honestly any advice welcome, even just what worked for you personally would help

that sounds pretty typical honestly, at least from what ive seen in our group. the waiting followed by chaos thing is just how emergency comms goes, no exercise really replicates that because in training everyone is sort of half paying attention and not actually stressed. real activations have a different energy to them. the ICS training payoff is real and a lot of newer folks underestimate it until they're actually in it. knowing your traffic format cold so you dont have to think about it frees up your brain for everything else thats going on around you. sounds like you handled it well. how was the HT holding up range wise at the shelter, was it near any metal framing or anything that might have caused you grief?

so i just passed my technician exam about three weeks ago and got my callsign last week, been doing a lot of listening but havent actually checked into anything yet. i know theres nets out there but im not really sure how to find them or what the procedure is when you actually do check in. like do you just say your callsign or is there more to it than that? i have a baofeng hooked up to a small yagi i built for 2m and can hit a couple repeaters in my area pretty well. any advice would be great, feeling a bit nervous about keying up for the first time honestly

so anyway i had the same confusion when i first started and what helped me was just listening to how the experienced guys on our net handled it. after like a week of paying attention i just kind of absorbed the rhythm of it. the 10 minute ID thing is honestly rarely an issue on a normal net because the exchanges are short enough that you're naturally identifying all the time anyway. one thing i would add is dont stress too much about being perfect right away. net controls on club nets have heard every possible variation and theyre not sitting there ready to correct you for every little thing. the main stuff is just dont key up over someone, give your call, and listen before transmitting. you're clearly thinking about it more than most new hams do so youre already ahead.

oh man i was in the same boat not too long ago. someone in my club told me about netword dot org and that helped a lot, also just listening around on 40 and 80 in the mornings you start to recognize the rhythm of different nets after a while. the 7.290 traffic net is one i check into semi regularly now and i only found it by accident too so youre not alone lol

yeah same boat here, i got into JS8 thinking id find all these people to chat with and it was pretty quiet at first. found a small group that does a sunday morning net on 40m and that kind of kickstarted it for me. once you have like 3 or 4 regulars it gets fun pretty quick. the heartbeat feature is kinda cool too where it just periodically announces your presence and you can see whos around without actively calling anyone. feels more like a real band than FT8 which is just... i dunno, a contact assembly line lol PSK31 is still my go-to for actual keyboard to keyboard chatting though, theres still decent activity on 14.070 most days and the waterfall is satisfying in a way that newer modes arent

so ive been at this CW thing for about 4 months now and im stuck. not like completely stuck but it feels like ive been sitting at around 12-13wpm for the past 6 weeks and i just cant seem to break through. when i first started i was using the ARRL code course tapes (yeah i still have those lol) and got up to 5wpm pretty fast, then switched over to just.learn.morse on my phone and that helped a lot getting up to about 10-11. but now its like hitting a wall. i practice maybe 20-30 minutes a day, sometimes more on weekends. im doing the koch method but i honestly dont know if im doing it right because i never really understood the exact way you're supposed to progress. like do you move to the next character only when you hit 90% on the current set? because sometimes i feel like im close but not quite and i just move on anyway. for guys who actually went through this, how long did it take to get from that beginner 5wpm range up to a solid 20wpm copy? and did you ever plateau like this? im not in a huge rush but i do want to be able to do some actual QSOs on 40m without totally embarrassing myself

ran a diamond x700 for years on a similar site and yeah its great for what it is but the day i put up a 9 element yagi for 2m the difference was pretty dramatic for ssb. like contacts that were basically noise before became workable, not easy but workable. the issue is you obviously give up the omni coverage which matters if youre doing anything other than pointing at something specific. for wind loading on a yagi just make sure you're looking at the boom diameter and element count seriously, a well built M2 or similar isnt as bad as people think if its mounted right. some of the cheap import yagis though, ive seen those turn into a pretzel after a good storm. if weak signal is actually your goal id go yagi but maybe keep a small vertical around for the everyday stuff, doesnt have to be fancy.

yeah N1MM is pretty much a contest-only tool for most people, i mean you CAN use it everyday but the UI really is designed around running rates and dupe checking not just casual rag chewing or DX logging. i tried using it full time for about a month a few years back and gave up, too much clicking around for simple stuff what i do now is keep Log4OM as my main shack log and just export an ADIF after each contest from N1MM then import it. takes maybe five minutes and i havent had a duplicate problem if you just check the date range before importing. WSJT-X i have pointed at a separate log file and i do the same thing, just pull the ADIF every week or so. its not perfect but its worked for me for a couple years now without losing anything the N1MM learning curve is real but once you get the bandmap and entry window set up the way you want it its actually pretty fast during a contest, just dont expect it to feel natural the first time you open it

oh man I remember my first net check-in, I literally wrote out a little cheat sheet and taped it next to my radio. totally normal to feel lost the first couple times. most directed nets follow a pretty similar pattern — net control opens it up, calls for check-ins, and you just wait for a pause and give your callsign once, clearly. you dont need to say a whole lot unless they ask for traffic or something specific. phonetics really do help especially on a busy or noisy net so good instinct trying to use them even if you stumbled. as for checking in late, yeah you can usually still check in after the initial roll call, most net controls will open it up again or you can just kerchunk the repeater to let them know someone is there. just listen for a bit first to get the rhythm of that particular net before jumping in. every net has its own little quirks honestly. stick with it, after two or three times it becomes second nature.

so i finally did my first SOTA attempt last weekend, summit was only like a 2 mile hike which i figured would be easy but man i underestimated how much the radio gear adds. had my kx2 and a roll of wire for an endfed and a little 4ah lifepo4 and by the time i got to the top my shoulders were done. anyway got set up and realized i forgot the freaking counterpoise wire at home so i was trying to work with just the endfed thrown over a branch and it was rough. managed 4 contacts before a storm rolled in and i had to pack up fast. still counts as an activation? i think you need 4 for it to count which i barely scraped. felt like a victory honestly even though it was kind of a mess

im basically in the same boat as you, got my ticket in the spring and ended up going with the yaesu FT-70DR after asking around on here. its a little more than the FT-60 but it does C4FM digital which is nice if theres any fusion repeaters near you. i didnt even know what C4FM was when i bought it but turns out there's two fusion repeaters in my county and its kind of cool when it works lol. analog still works fine on it too obviously. CHIRP works with it and that made programming way less painful. took me maybe an hour to get all my local repeaters loaded in and now i just spin the dial. only thing i'd say is the battery life isnt amazing if you're transmitting a lot but for just listening and occasional check-ins its fine.

had almost the exact same thing happen when i first set mine up. turned out one of the RMS gateways in my area is just flaky — some of them are run by guys who dont always have their node up consistently and the gateway list doesnt always reflect real-time status. try connecting to a few different ones and see if any of them are rock solid. the ones run by larger ARES groups or clubs tend to be more reliable in my experience just because someone is actually maintaining them. also this is probably not your issue but worth mentioning — make sure your system clock is accurate, like within a few seconds. Winlink does a timestamp check and if your PC clock is way off it can cause weird session failures. sync it to NTP if you havent already.

so ive been at this for about three months now and im stuck. like really stuck. i got my general back in the spring and decided i actually wanted to learn cw properly instead of just doing the minimum for a vanity call or whatever. started with the Koch method on lcwo.net and got through all the characters pretty fast, maybe six weeks. but now im at like 7-8wpm and every time i try to push up to 10 the whole thing just falls apart. i miss characters, i panic, then i miss more because im still thinking about the one i missed, you know how it goes. i do about 20-30 minutes a day which is what everyone seems to recommend. using the G4FON trainer mostly. my question is more like -- how long did it realistically take people to get from that beginner plateau to actually being comfortable at 15 or 20wpm. i keep reading stuff that says 'just copy in your head dont write it down' but honestly at 10wpm i still need to write or i lose the word halfway through. is that normal at this stage or am i doing something fundamentally wrong

so we ran a simulated disaster drill on saturday with our county ARES group and honestly i wasnt expecting much, figured it would be the usual guys standing around with their HTs pretending to relay messages but it actually got pretty intense at a few points and i learned more in 4 hours than i have in like a year of just ragchewing on the repeater the scenario was a major flood event cutting off the EOC from three shelter locations and we had to pass ICS 213 traffic back and forth using only simplex since the repeater was 'down' for the exercise. and man, simplex is a whole different animal when you actually need it. i've been licensed for 6 years and i think i'd maybe used simplex twice. my signal to one of the shelter sites was basically unusable from my usual operating position and i had to go mobile and find a better spot which took way longer than it should have anyone else done these kinds of drills recently? curious what scenarios your groups are running and what caught you off guard. also wondering if there's a good way to practice message handling on your own without waiting for the next official exercise

oh man i remember my first activation, i was so nervous i forgot to log two of my contacts properly and had to reconstruct it from memory lol. one thing i wish someone had told me -- bring more battery than you think you need, the KX2 is efficient but if you end up spending an extra hour up there because the view is too good to leave youll thank yourself also dont stress too much about the frequency thing, just pick somewhere clear on 40 and start calling CQ SOTA, the chasers find you pretty quick especially if youre spotted. 7.195 or so is popular but just check for activity first obviously

yeah 10m has been something else this fall, i worked like 23 countries in one afternoon just doing casual s&p in a contest, wasnt even trying to run a frequency or anything serious. my antenna up there is just a dipole i threw up a few years ago when the band was dead and i figured why bother with anything fancy — kind of regretting that now haha. been meaning to put up a yagi for a while and this is basically the universe telling me to stop procrastinating. the solar flux has been hovering up pretty high and the K index has been behaving itself more than usual so conditions lined up nicely. enjoy it while it lasts, these openings wont stick around forever and we're probably somewhere near the peak or just past it depending on whos forecast you believe.

so ive been working on this 40m direct conversion receiver for about two months now, based loosely on the NorCal 40A design but with a few changes i made to the BFO section because i wanted to try using a JFET mixer instead of the diode ring. overall it actually works, which honestly surprised me a little because my PCB layout was kind of a mess — i just went point to point on a piece of copper clad and it looks like something exploded in there. anyway the issue im having is this weird audio artifact that sounds almost like a low hum mixed with a kind of scratchy distortion when i tune across strong signals. weak signals are actually pretty clean, which is the part thats confusing me. i thought at first it was a grounding issue so i redid all my ground connections and it helped a little but didnt go away. power supply is a 12v regulated bench supply so thats probably not the problem. anyone dealt with this before with a JFET mixer stage? wondering if its an overload thing or maybe something wrong with my audio amp section.

so i finally got my technician license about three weeks ago and ive been listening to the local 2m repeater a lot just to get a feel for things. there's a weekly net on tuesday nights and i really want to check in but honestly i'm kind of terrified of saying something wrong or getting in the way or whatever. i dont really know the proper way to do it. like when they call for check-ins do i just say my callsign? do i need to say anything else? and what happens if i key up at the same time as someone else, is that a big deal? i know about doubling but i dont know the etiquette around it. also i noticed the net control guy sometimes asks for traffic or comments after people check in, do i need to have something prepared or can i just say no traffic and move on i guess im just worried about embarrassing myself on my first time. any advice from people who remember what it was like starting out would be great

Koch method is solid, thats what i used and what most people recommend these days. The idea is you start with just 2 characters but you learn them at full speed like 20wpm right away, which feels weird at first because youre only doing 2 letters but it means your brain learns the sound patterns instead of counting dots and dashes. thats the trap a lot of beginners fall into, counting, and then you hit a wall around 10-12wpm that you cant get past. For software just use lcwo.net on your computer, its free and its basically the standard Koch trainer online. There's also the Morse Toad app if you want something on your phone, and honestly just_learn_morse_code app on android is fine too. You dont need any hardware at all to get started, just speakers or headphones. I'd say give it like 15 min a day consistently and after maybe 2-3 months you might be copying simple QSOs depending on how your brain takes to it. some people faster some slower, dont stress the timeline.