Jennifer Martinez

the generator vs battery thing really comes down to how much you want to babysit it honestly. i've run bioenno 30ah and 50ah cells and they're solid but you're going to go through them faster than you think if you're running 100w output any significant percentage of the time. a 100w rig on SSB with maybe 40% duty cycle is still pulling close to 15-18A average from a 13.8v source, so your math gets uncomfortable pretty quick over 12 hours even with a big pack. my honest take for a planned exercise with a known site — just bring the honda and deal with the exhaust positioning. point it away from people, use a longer exhaust extension if you have one, and put a sign on it. the eu2200i is quiet enough that most people forget its even running after a few minutes. you can also use it to keep a battery float charged so if you need to shut the genny down for any reason you've got reserve. on the antenna side the trapped vertical is fine for what you're doing but if you have time to put up an NVIS configuration on 40/80 you'll get better regional coverage depending on how far out your nets are. just something to think about if you have the wire and a second support.

That's fantastic news! I've been waiting for a comprehensive digital mode directory. Been trying to program my D-878 with local DMR repeaters and it's been a real pain finding accurate info online.

so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, my neighbor has a big antenna setup and it got me curious. he mentioned i need a license before i can transmit and pointed me toward the FCC but honestly the whole thing is a bit overwhelming. like i dont even know if i should start with Technician or if theres something else, and i have no idea how hard the test actually is or how long people usually study for it. is there like a standard way people go about this or does everyone just kind of figure it out on their own? ive seen some websites but i cant tell whichs ones are actually good vs just trying to sell me something. any advice appreciated, just trying to not walk into the testing session completely clueless

i had almost the exact same problem last year when i finally started taking CW seriously. what helped me weirdly was just listening to a lot of code, not even trying to copy it perfectly, just putting on W1AW code practice or one of those apps while i was doing something else around the shack. after a few weeks my ear got calibrated again and then when i sat down to send i could kind of hear when my own spacing was wrong. the Bencher BY-1 is a solid paddle btw, definitely not the problem. those things last forever.

As someone who operates a lot of DX and contest stations, efficiency trumps rigid correctness on the air. It helped cut down on the amount of code that needed to be sent, and later it found it's way into voice communications especially for DXers or contesters who may have a limited time to work a particular station. These codes help us communicate and to pass information as quickly and effectively as possible.

i dont know man lately ive just been turning the radio on and spinning the dial and not really feeling the urge to actually key up. been doing this hobby for like 12 years and sometimes it just feels good to just... listen. caught some really interesting 40m traffic last night, couple guys doing a slow CW QSO that just sounded really clean and i sat there for maybe 20 minutes just vibing. didnt log anything, didnt jump in. just listened. is that weird or do other people do this too

Check if your local digipeater network properly handles message traffic. Some digipeater owners may still be using UIFloodOptions=2 which falls short in placing the digipeat flag on the SSn-0 entry - this can break message routing downstream.

Have you tried adjusting the WSJT-X audio levels? I found that keeping the input around -20dB prevents overload during strong signal periods. Also enable the "Deep" decoding option - it really helps with marginal signals even though it uses more CPU.

this is making me want to actually push my club to do something like this, we keep talking about it but its usually just a once a year SET and honestly those feel pretty scripted to me. like everyone kind of knows whats coming and it doesnt really stress test anything. question — how did you handle people who couldnt make it in person, did you do any of it over the air or was it all around a table? we have a few members who are pretty far out and getting everyone in one room is tough.

so ive been chasing WWFF references for a while now and finally decided to do my first activation last weekend. went out to a state forest about 45 minutes from me, set up my KX3 with a linked dipole in the trees, and honestly had a blast. got my 44 QSOs which i know is the minimum for a valid activation but i feel like i kind of fumbled through the whole logging and spotting thing. I used WWFF logger on my tablet but the GPS kept dropping and i wasnt sure if i needed to log the reference name every single QSO or if it just applies to the whole log when you upload. also forgot to self-spot when i started which i think cost me like the first 20 minutes of potential contacts. does the park reference number always have to be in your spot comment or will hunters find you anyway if youre in the right frequency range. anyway the park itself was gorgeous, had the whole place to myself which made the radio stuff way less stressful. definitely doing another one soon.

hey all, so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and mostly just used handhelds but i finally picked up a used Yaesu FT-7900R and want to get it properly installed in my F-150. the radio itself seems to be in good shape, previous owner kept it clean. anyway before i start drilling and running cables i wanted to ask a few things because i really dont want to do this twice. first question is about the antenna mount. i was thinking of doing a lip mount on the truck bed just to avoid drilling, but a guy at the local club meeting said NMO mounts are the way to go and i should just bite the bullet and drill. is that really such a big difference for local repeater work and maybe some simplex? i feel like for 2m and 70cm it cant matter that much but i honestly dont know. second thing is the power cable routing. im planning to run it direct to the battery with the fused cable that came with the radio. the run from the battery to where the radio will sit on the console is probably like 10 or 11 feet. do i need heavier gauge wire than what yaesu included or should that be fine? the radio is rated 50 watts on VHF. sorry for the long post, just want to get this right before i tear anything apart

i had almost the exact same situation a couple years back with a civic sedan, close enough. ended up going with a trunk lip mount and honestly it works really well. the key is getting one with a good solid clamp and not one of those flimsy cheap ones that wobbles. the Diamond brand ones have been solid for me. you lose a tiny bit of signal compared to a true ground plane in the center of a roof but for 2m and 70cm you really wont notice it in daily use. as for the feedline, for VHF/UHF you dont need to stress about it as much as HF but still try to route it away from the ECU and the dash wiring if you can, just good practice. run it through the door seal or down through the trunk interior rather than bundling it near anything that might cause RFI. the FT-7900 is a solid radio btw, good choice

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and im still sitting on my sequential call which is fine but its kind of long and i was curious about applying for a vanity call. i looked at the FCC ULS stuff and honestly it was a little overwhelming. i understand you submit an application and there's like a window period where other people can also apply for the same call, and then it's not exactly first come first served? i thought you just picked one and paid the fee and got it but apparently its more complicated than that. anyway my question is mostly around the timing. if i apply for a callsign and somebody else applies for the same one during that window, how does the FCC actually decide who gets it? is it random or do they prioritize certain license classes or something. i vaguely remember reading something about extra class getting preference but i'm only general so i'm wondering if i should even bother trying for a 1x2 or 2x1 call or if those will always go to extras. also does anyone know how long the whole process takes these days? i've heard anywhere from a couple weeks to like 2 months and i dont really know what to expect.

One thing that tripped me up when I first got Winlink going on my 7300 -- the CI-V address and the CAT control settings. If Winlink Express is trying to do PTT via CAT and the CI-V address doesnt match what the radio expects, it can look like its trying to connect but nothing actually transmits. Worth checking the radio control settings in Vara and making sure youre actually keying up. You can tell by watching the TX light on the 7300 or just monitoring the ALC meter. Also the channel selection tool built into Winlink Express is actually pretty useful, it uses propagation prediction to suggest which gateway and frequency to try based on your location and time of day. Might be worth running that instead of just picking manually from the list.

check the mic connector wiring before you go too deep into the board. sounds stupid but ive seen people rewire a mic plug wrong and the PTT line never actually closes properly — radio thinks it's transmitting internally but the whole chain never kicks off. you said you swapped mics, did you verify both mics actually work on another radio? also is the fan spinning up at all when you key it? on mine the fan kicks on pretty much immediately when TX is active, if thats not happening either something upstream of the PA is just completely not initiating the TX sequence.

so ive had this thing for about three weeks now and figured id share some impressions since i spent forever reading threads like this before buying. came from an old TS-590SG which honestly i still miss a little, the 590 just had this feel to it that was hard to explain, really solid rx on crowded bands. anyway the 7300 is impressive in ways i didnt fully expect. the waterfall is obviously the big thing everyone talks about and yeah it changes how you operate, i find myself just watching it and spotting stuff i wouldve totally scrolled past on the 590. but the thing nobody really warned me about is how addictive the touch screen gets and then how annoying it is when your fingers are cold or you're wearing gloves out in the field. one thing thats been bugging me a bit is the noise floor seems a touch higher than the 590 on 40m in the evenings, could be my setup, i ran a new piece of coax last weekend thinking maybe the old RG-8X had a bad connector somewhere but didnt really change much. running an 80m OCF dipole about 35 feet up, feed point kind of off center toward the garage. not really a complaint just an observation. overall im happy with it. anyone else notice 40m being a bit noisy with this rig specifically or am i chasing a ghost here

so i decided i want to finally get my technician license and ive been looking around online for study materials and honestly its kind of overwhelming. theres like 5 different websites and apps and books and i dont know which ones are actually worth using vs which ones are just noise. a friend at work said he just memorized the question pool which seems kind of lazy but also maybe thats how you do it? i dunno. im mostly interested in eventually doing stuff on 2 meters and maybe getting into some satellite stuff down the road but right now i just need to pass the test. does anyone have a specific thing they used that actually worked?

yeah what he said. i was terrified my first net check-in too lol. one thing i'll add is some nets have a specific format they announce at the start so if you can catch the first minute or two before check-ins open it usually tells you exactly what they want. i checked into a traffic net once not realizing it was a formal NTS-style net and completely botched it but the net control was super nice and just walked me through it. most hams are pretty patient with newer operators as long as you're making an honest effort

oh man SU-001 is a great first one, not too brutal of a hike if I remember right. I did my first activation last spring and was absolutely terrified I wouldnt make 4 contacts but ended up with like 22 on 20m SSB. The chasers are super active and friendly, way more forgiving than a contest pileup haha. One thing I'd add -- bring more battery than you think you need. I always convince myself the KX2 will be fine on one pack and then I end up sitting at the top longer than planned because the bands are good and I dont want to leave.

so i finally did my first solo activation last weekend at a state park about 45 minutes from home, K-4857 if anyone knows the area. ive been hunting parks for a few months now and figured it was time to just go do one myself. brought my KX2 and a linked dipole i threw together a few weeks ago, nothing fancy. setup went fine, got the antenna up in a tree pretty quick, made my first contact around 10am local. but then the band just kind of died on me, 40 meters went totally flat and i hadnt thought to bring anything cut for 20. spent like 45 minutes calling CQ with basically nothing coming back. i was starting to panic a little honestly. eventually i switched to 20 and just used the internal tuner even though the SWR was probably not great, and i started getting spots on the POTA app which helped a lot. ended up with 11 QSOs which i know is just barely over the minimum but it counts as a valid activation right? the whole thing felt kind of chaotic but also really fun in a weird way. already planning the next one.

went through this exact same thing about 8 months ago so i feel you on the refreshing the ULS thing, i did the same lol. my license showed up after about 4 days i think. the callsign they gave me is fine but honestly i kind of wish id looked into vanity calls sooner because theres some decent ones still available if you know where to look. there are sites that track calls coming available soon which is pretty handy once you decide you want something specific. one thing i'll add — once you upgrade to general or extra more options open up format-wise so if you're serious about getting a nice short call it might be worth just hitting the books sooner rather than later

the band edge thing is something i didnt really get until i saw it explained with a diagram. basically when you say youre on 7.299 USB, the carrier is at 7.299 but your voice is spreading upward from there, could be 2.5 or 3 kHz wide depending on your radio's filtering. so you're actually occupying spectrum up to like 7.302 which is outside the band. the FCC cares about where your signal actually is, not just where your dial says. just stay at 7.295 or below if you want to be safe and not have to think about it too hard

i had the exact same problem when i upgraded lol. what finally made it stick for me was just going on 40m and watching where the activity actually was and cross checking with the chart. after a few times it became second nature. one thing that tripped me up was thinking the band edges on the chart were hard stops in terms of interference but they're actually license class boundaries which is a different thing. dont transmit outside your priveleges obv but also remember the mode-specific segments like you dont want to be doing phone down in the cw/digital portion regardless of license class

so ive been chasing this one for about three weeks now and im starting to lose my mind a little. my 7300 started dropping output maybe a month ago, used to put out a solid 100w on all bands, now im seeing maybe 30-35w on 20m and it gets worse as i go higher, like on 10m im barely getting 15w out. SSB and CW both affected. before anyone says ALC — yes i checked. ALC is not pegging, its behaving normally. drive level looks fine on the screen. ive reseated all the internal connectors i can get to without going too deep, checked the fan is spinning, radio doesnt feel like its overheating. SWR is fine, antenna hasnt changed. tried two different dummy loads. did the usual reset to factory defaults, no change. firmware is current. the weird thing is if i drop power to like 25w it seems... almost more stable? like the ratio of actual output to what im asking for gets a little closer but still not right. it just feels like somethings degrading in the PA stage but i dont want to assume that and go chasing ghosts. anyone dealt with this on a 7300 specifically?

WWFF is great and honestly kind of underrated compared to POTA at least in North America. the process is pretty similar yeah - you go, you operate, you need 44 QSOs to get a full activation counted (vs 10 for POTA which is a big difference honestly). some references overlap with POTA references and some dont so worth checking the wwff.cc site to see what your specific reference is listed as for spotting you can use the POTA spotting network but there's also a WWFF specific cluster. i'd post to both if you can. and yes a LOT of operators dual log, especially the more experienced chasers. you'll find some hunters who specifically chase WWFF and get pretty excited when someone activates a less common reference. i activated a state forest up here in Minnesota last fall and had a pile up i wasnt expecting at all, couple of European stations found me which was cool just register your callsign on wwff.cc before you go, upload your log after and you should be good. dont overthink it