Sarah Garcia

nice work getting out there, honestly the first one is the hardest part. i remember spending way too long fussing with my setup on my first activation when i shouldve just been calling CQ. once you do a few you get a feel for what actually matters and what doesnt. for 20m def worth it especially if you want to rack up distance, i had a contact in europe on my third or fourth activation just running like 5 watts SSB which still kinda blows my mind. the EFHW is a solid choice for portable, i use one too. only thing id say is bring a second feedline connector just in case, learned that the hard way on a rainy summit in tennessee lol

im kind of in the same boat honestly, sitting right around 14wpm and feeling stuck so watching this thread. one thing i tried recently was the W1AW code practice transmissions, just having it on in the background while im doing other stuff around the shack. not sure if its actually helping yet but it feels less like homework than sitting at the computer doing drills lol

So i finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend, been wanting to try it for a while after seeing people post their logs on the WWFF database. Picked a local nature reserve about 45 minutes from home, ONFF-0234 i think it was, checked it was listed and valid beforehand which took me longer than it should have honestly. Setup was pretty simple, just my KX3 and a linked dipole thrown up between two trees. Getting the antenna up was actually the hardest part because the trees werent cooperating and my throwbag kept getting stuck. Anyway once i was on the air i called CQ WWFF on 14.244 for maybe 20 minutes and got almost nothing, a few locals who werent even doing WWFF contacts, they just heard me calling. Switched to 7MHz and suddenly started getting pileups which i was not ready for at all, had maybe 40 contacts in about an hour and a half which for me is pretty exciting. The 44 contact minimum for an activation took me a bit to understand at first, i kept seeing conflicting info about whether it was 44 unique callsigns or just 44 QSOs total. Pretty sure its unique callsigns but someone correct me if im wrong. Submitted my log to the WWFF logger the next day and it went through fine. Already looking at my next reference, theres a state forest nearby that im pretty sure qualifies. Does anyone have tips for publicizing activations ahead of time so you actually get people looking for you?

so ive been on HF for a few years now and i keep getting mixed reports on my audio. some guys say i sound great, others say im a bit muffled or that theres some kind of low frequency rumble. im running an IC-7300 into a Heil PR-40 with the heil adapter and i thought that combo was supposed to be pretty foolproof but apparently not. ive been reading about things like the bass rolloff in the radio's TX equalizer and whether you should be boosting mids or cutting lows but honestly the menu system on the 7300 is kind of a rabbit hole. i set the TX bandwidth to around 2.4 kHz which i thought was standard but maybe thats part of the problem. also wondering about mic gain vs compression. right now i have the compression on fairly light, like 2-3 on the meter, because i heard over-compressed audio sounds terrible on SSB. is that actually the right approach or am i overthinking this. any tips from people who have actually dialed this in would be great, especially if youre using similar gear

same honestly. been meaning to finish setting up my end-fed but its just sitting in a box. life gets busy i guess

so ive been meaning to do this for like two years and after the storms we had last month I finally got off my butt and started pulling stuff together. right now i have my FT-891 and a little 40ah lifepo4 battery, a cheap solar panel, and my antenna stuff (mostly a end-fed halfwave i can throw up pretty quick). threw it all in a pelican knockoff case from amazon. the thing is im not really sure what else should be in there. like obviously the radio basics are covered but what about the non-radio stuff? i keep seeing people mention logbooks and frequency reference cards and stuff like that. and what do you do about power for your laptop if you need to run winlink or whatever. feels like every time i think im done i realize i missed something obvious also do most people keep their go-kit 100% ready to grab at all times or do you kind of assemble it when you need it? mine is sort of half and half right now which defeats the purpose i guess

oh wow i had no idea thats why conditions have been better lately, ive only been licensed since last spring and 10m always seemed kind of hit or miss when i tried it. maybe i should actually give it a real shot. what time of day tends to be best for those europe openings? i mostly operate in the evenings after work but im wondering if im missing the good stuff.

Just finished the MARS mod on my IC-705 and noticed the TX audio seems a bit compressed compared to my other rigs. Has anyone experimented with the internal audio processing settings? Also considering a simple low-pass filter mod on the 10W output to clean up harmonics. The stock filter seems adequate but I've seen some spurious content above 30MHz on my spectrum analyzer during FT8 operations. Anyone done similar work on the 705's final stage? Running mostly digital modes (FT8/FT4) and would appreciate any insights on improving the overall signal quality while maintaining the factory power output specs.

so ive been running a ground mounted vertical for 40m for about two years now and its been okay, works decent for DX surprisingly but local stuff kind of sucks which i guess is expected. anyway my neighbor is letting me use one of his big trees to put up a dipole and the tree is probably... 45 feet? maybe a bit more. ive read a million times that a dipole at a half wavelength is the gold standard or whatever but 45 feet on 40m isnt even close to that. so im wondering if its even worth the effort of putting up the dipole or if i should just leave the vertical alone. the vertical has 32 radials which took me forever to lay down so its not like its a bad antenna, im just curious if the dipole would actually give me something different or better. mostly do ragchews and occasionally try to work some DX when condx are good.

oh man don't sweat it, everyone has that moment. i remember my first net check-in i accidentally said my call sign wrong and then tried to correct it and made it worse somehow. net control just moved on like it didnt happen and afterwards a guy came back to me on the repeater and we talked for like 20 minutes, ended up being a really good contact. the general thing with most traffic nets or formal nets is they have a pretty specific agenda and the net control is trying to keep things moving, so off-topic stuff is better saved for after the net closes or just on the repeater during normal times. but a lot of the more casual club nets are pretty relaxed and people do go off on tangents all the time. you kind of just have to read the room, or i guess read the air. after a few more check-ins you'll get a feel for how formal that particular net is. some nets the NCS runs a tight ship, others it's basically just organized chatting. the nervousness does go away, mostly, i still get a little flutter when i call cq on HF which i've been doing for years so maybe not completely lol

yeah the 7300 has a known thing where the finals can start going soft on individual bands, usually shows up on the lower HF bands first. the PA board has per-band switching and sometimes one of the switching transistors gets flaky before the actual finals fail completely. before you pull the board i'd check if there's any corrosion around the band switch area on the PA, ive seen a few of these where moisture got in through the back panel and did some quiet damage. also worth checking the RF output on the test points while you drive it to see if the drive signal to the final stage looks right on 40 versus a working band. if drive looks good and output is still low youre probably looking at one of the finals starting to degrade. Icom service manuals are actually pretty decent and freely available, worth downloading the full thing before you start. the PA board isnt the worst thing to get to but its not exactly simple either.

AO-73 can be picky depending on the time of day because of the solar panel situation — it goes into transponder mode when the battery is charged enough which isnt always predictable. sometimes i'll have a great 8 minute pass and it's dead, then the next one it's wall to wall signals. worth checking amsat's status page before you go out. also dont stress too much about 2w, i've had solid QSOs on that bird with similar power and a 3 element handheld yag. pointing accuracy probably matters more than a watt or two honestly, especially near the horizon at the start and end of the pass where a lot of people give up too early.

ok so ive been licensed about 4 months now and i notice some people on 2m repeaters just say their callsign normally like "W4XYZ" without spelling it out phonetically, but then other times people go full NATO the whole way through. Is there like a rule for when you're supposed to use it or is it just preference? I always try to use phonetics because thats what i learned in the books but sometimes it feels weird when nobody else is doing it on a busy net and i feel like im slowing things down. Also someone told me you dont HAVE to use NATO specifically you can use any phonetics you want? like you could say "whiskey four xylophone yellow zebra" or something?? that seems weird to me but idk

The plateau around 12-15 wpm is genuinely one of the most common things I see with newer CW operators and there's actually a decent explanation for it. Below that speed your brain has enough time to consciously think through each character. Above it you have to start recognizing whole patterns without thinking, and the transition between those two modes is where people get stuck. It's not a skill problem, it's more like your brain needs to rewire a bit. What worked for me decades ago and what I still recommend is short high-intensity sessions rather than long frustrated ones. Ten minutes at a speed that's just barely uncomfortable, then stop. Come back later. Don't grind through an hour of being miserable because that just builds negative associations with copying. Also honestly just get on the air and make some contacts even if its sloppy, real QSOs teach you things that no practice software can replicate. The guy on the other end has heard worse, I promise.

morse toad is actually decent for getting started, i used it on my commute for a while. but what really worked for me was just tuning to a CW frequency and trying to copy even one or two letters out of whatever i heard. felt completely hopeless at first lol but after a while your brain just sort of starts grabbing things. also there are some youtube channels that do slow code practice sessions which helped me more than i expected

the hum responding to touch is almost always a ground loop or a floating ground somewhere, i'd start by checking every ground connection with an ohmmeter and make sure your audio commons are all tied to the same point. star grounding matters a lot on these DC receivers because you dont have IF transformers doing the isolation work for you. the squealing near the bottom of the band sounds like LO feedthrough or maybe the VFO is getting into the audio input — 3 inches on ugly construction with no shielding between the oscillator and a high gain audio stage is honestly asking for trouble. TL072s arent the worst choice but they can be a bit noisy, though i wouldnt blame them for what youre describing. try running a piece of copper clad or even just aluminum foil taped to cardboard as a divider between the VFO and audio boards and see if the squealing changes. also make sure your audio gain isnt cranked way up before you need it, those DC designs can have massive gain and even a little RF gets amplified into something horrible.

im still pretty new to chasing DX seriously but the split thing confused me for a long time. like i understood the concept but i kept just guessing where to transmit and never getting anywhere. someone at my club finally explained to me that you really have to listen for maybe 10-15 minutes before you even think about calling, just to understand what the op is doing. seems obvious in retrospect but i was just jumping in and calling like an idiot for my first few pileups lol. havent worked anything super rare yet, VK9 would be amazing. whats a realistic setup for getting into pileups like that, is a tribander at 40 feet going to do it or do i really need more antenna

had something similar on an older 746 pro years ago, turned out to be a bad solder joint on the driver stage that would open up when the board expanded from heat. the symptom that gave it away for me was i could reproduce it faster by gently warming the board with a heat gun from a distance — not enough to damage anything, just enough to get it to the threshold temperature quicker. took me a while to find it visually but eventually spotted a cold joint near one of the bias transistors that looked totally fine under normal light but showed up under magnification. with the 7300 id maybe start by checking if icom put out any service bulletins for this, they occasionally do for the more common failure modes. also worth pulling the bottom cover and just doing a slow visual with good lighting and a loupe. thermal intermittents are a pain because they don't show up when you most want them to.

same situation here when i first started lol. the no traffic thing felt super awkward to me too but after a few weeks i just stopped thinking about it. some nets are really chatty and people share updates or just say hi, other nets are strictly by the book and quick. you kind of get a feel for the culture of each net after a few check-ins. one thing i started doing is just listening to the net a couple times before actually checking in so i could get the rhythm of it. helped a lot with the timing anxiety

so ive been licensed about three years now and mostly just ragchewed on 40m and did a bit of FT8 but lately ive been getting really into working DX and someone at our club meeting mentioned DXCC and now im kind of obsessed with it. i went and looked at the ARRL page and honestly its a lot to take in all at once — like theres DXCC itself but then theres also WAS and WAZ and all these different bands and modes and i dont even know which one to focus on first or if i should just try to work everything and sort it out later. right now im running a IC-7300 into a G5RV up about 30 feet so nothing special but ive worked maybe 60 or 70 entities already just messing around without really trying. someone told me those contacts might count if i can confirm them, is that true? i have all my logs in WSJT-X and also some in the ARRL logbook thing. does LoTW automatically apply for credits or do i have to do something manually to claim them toward DXCC? sorry if this is a dumb question, just trying to figure out the whole system before i get too far down the rabbit hole

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and finally decided to take the plunge into CW. passed my 5 wpm for the old extra ticket requirement... wait no that was before my time lol. anyway i just wanted to learn it for real, not just because i had to. been using an old straight key that came with a box of stuff i got at a hamfest, works fine i think, but my sending is all over the place. some days it sounds okay and other days i listen back on a recording and it sounds like a drunk chicken walking across the key. the dits and dahs are inconsistent, spacing is off, and i rush when i get nervous especially if someone actually comes back to me. im practicing with the Koch method app on my phone for receiving and that seems to be going okay, up to about 12 characters now. but the sending side is killing me. do i need to just get a paddle and keyer at this point or can i get the straight key thing sorted out? i dont want to spend money if im just doing something fundamentally wrong with technique

your 120 degree included angle is actually pretty good for an inverted V, you dont want it much less than 90 degrees or the feedpoint impedance starts dropping quite a bit below 50 ohms and matching gets annoying. at 120 you're probably looking at something in the 60-70 ohm range at resonance which isnt too bad at all for direct coax feed, your SWR will likely be under 2:1 at resonance even without a tuner. as for tuning, yeah shortening and lengthening the legs is the right move. if you're high in frequency you trim, if you're low you add. do it in small increments, like half an inch at a time near resonance because it moves faster than you think. the 468 formula gets you in the ballpark but wire type, height above ground and nearby objects all shift things around a bit. 33.5 feet is a reasonable starting point but dont be surprised if it wants to be a foot shorter or something. good first build though, inverted V on 40 is a solid workhorse antenna.

yeah they're definitely pulling from different sources, or at least different subsets of the overall DX cluster network. DXwatch aggregates from a bunch of cluster nodes around the world, and QRZ has their own system that i think leans more on their own user base reporting spots through the website and logbook integrations. there's overlap for sure but they're not identical feeds. for android i've been using DX Toolkit for a while and it does a decent job showing spots, you can filter by band and mode which helps a lot when you dont want to scroll through a wall of FT8 spots trying to find SSB activity. there's also Ham Radio Deluxe if you want something that ties into logging but that might be overkill depending on what you're after. honestly for just casual spot checking while in the shack i usually just keep a browser tab open to DXwatch with my preferred filters saved — once you dial in the filters it remembers them at least for the session.

I had almost the exact same buzz issue in my jeep when i first put in my 7300 — wait no that's HF. anyway similar deal with noise on VHF. turned out for me it was the dc power cable running too close to the ignition wiring. i rerouted it and most of the noise went away. might be worth trying a ferrite choke on the power leads too, i put one like right at the radio and it cleaned things up a lot. cheap fix to at least rule it out before you start pulling the coax back out

okay so i just got my technician a few months back and ive been listening and sometimes calling on the local repeater. i notice some people spell out their callsign with the nato phonetic alphabet every single time and others just say it normally. is there a rule about this or is it just preference? like do i always have to say november kilo four tango romeo alfa or whatever, or can i just say my call normally. i feel kind of dumb asking but i dont want to come across as rude or breaking some rule i dont know about