Emily White

The 10 minute rule is a legal minimum, not a target — in practice on a net most people ID every transmission just because it keeps things clean and net control can track who said what. Short replies are a bit of a gray area honestly but the habit of always giving your call is a good one to build even if strictly speaking a two second acknowledgment might not technically require it. On the breaking in thing — yeah 'break' can come across a bit abrupt depending on the net. A lot of local nets prefer you just wait for a pause and say something like '[your call] with traffic' or '[your call] please' so net control knows you want in without sounding like an emergency. Some nets have their own procedures for this so worth asking your net control directly after the net closes, most of them are happy to walk newer folks through it. The fact that you're even thinking about this stuff puts you ahead of a lot of people who just wing it.

yeah the frequency protection thing is the hardest habit to build honestly. the general rule most serious SO2R guys use is you never abandon a hot run for anything less than a new mult, and even then you have to be fast about it. if your rate on radio 1 is above like 80-90 per hour you're better off just letting that mult go and picking it up later in the contest when things slow down. the thing that helped me most was setting up a separate mult list view in N1MM that shows me what i still need per band, so when im doing S&P on radio 2 im not just randomly tuning around, im specifically targeting the bands where i have the most unworked mults. changes the whole mindset from reactive to actually having a plan. also worth noting that in sweepstakes specifically the mult structure rewards you for working everything at least once so the calculus is a bit different than say CQ WW where mults stack per band the RFI stuff you mentioned — did you end up using bandpass filters on both radios? that was the thing that finally made my setup liveable, 4O3A filters on both radios with proper sequencing through the microHAM. before that it was just chaos

yeah you basically got it right. the fcc part is the actual legal limit, so as a general on 40m ssb you can operate from 7.175 up to 7.300 mhz. below 7.175 is extra class territory for phone. the band plan stuff like where the dx window is or where nets hang out, thats all voluntary but people will definitely get on you if you set up in the middle of the dx calling frequency not knowing what it is. on the band edge thing -- even with a modern radio like the 7300 you want to leave some margin. the rule of thumb a lot of guys use is stay at least 3 khz inside the edge on ssb because your signal has bandwidth, its not just a single point. if you're showing 7.300 on the dial your upper sideband signal is actually going several khz above that depending on your filter settings. so 7.297 or so is a safer upper limit. for digital modes like ft8 theres pretty established spots, 40m ft8 is 7.074 and the whole community basically self-organizes around that so you'll figure it out fast.

yeah what he said. i started doing the same thing, just logging everything casually and then one day opened up my log and realized i was like 60-something entities in without really trying. that was kind of the moment i got hooked on actually chasing stuff intentionally. get LoTW set up sooner rather than later honestly, some of those early contacts you might be able to match up if the other station uploaded their log too

RTTY is another one people forget about — still pretty active during contests and the exchanges are at least a little more interesting than FT8. plus theres something satisfying about watching the tones come in on a waterfall and having fldigi or MMTTY decode it in real time. old school but it works and the contesting side of it is still pretty healthy, CQWW RTTY gets a ton of participants every year. FT4 i think is kind of the middle ground speed wise but i never see much outside of contests honestly. might be worth trying during FT4 activity days if those still happen.

yeah what he said about S&P. i did my first contest that way too and just kind of absorbed how it all worked by listening a lot before transmitting. one thing i'll add -- if you get really into contesting you might want to check out ARRL Field Day next summer too, its a totally different vibe, more of a group thing, clubs set up in parks and parking lots and its way more relaxed than CQ WW. i actually think Field Day is better for newer folks because someones usually around to answer questions in real time. also there's a SOTA activation happening near me this weekend if anyone's local to the PNW and wants to tag along, totally unrelated but figured id mention it

Getting into POTA activations and trying to figure out the best mobile spotting solution. I've narrowed it down to two options: SOTAMĀT and Ham2K Portable Logger (PoLo). SOTAMĀT is for licensed amateur radio operators who want to self-spot SOTA or POTA with or without internet! It supports spotting 7 different ways, including over HF. The ability to spot via FT8 when there's no cell service is incredible. On the other hand, PoLo posts spots not only to the POTA spotting network, but also to the WWFF spotting page which is perfect for dual activators. PoLo is an extremely versatile logging application designed for portable amateur radio operations. It is currently available for Android and Apple devices. Which one are you using and why?

yeah just use hamStudy and grind it out, i passed with a few days of studying. the band stuff you mostly just memorize tbh. once you get on HF you'll figure out the rest pretty quick

yeah what the other guy said about smartbeaconing is spot on. also just double check your SSID — if youre mobile you should really be on -9, some igates and aggregators do filter or display differently depending on SSID. probably not your main issue but worth verifying. the symbol thing doesnt really affect gating, thats more just cosmetic on the map.

did this same mod last year, ALC thing is totally normal dont worry about it. also while you have the thing apart did you do the fan mod? theres a resistor swap that makes the fan kick on earlier and run more agressively, makes a big difference if you run the radio hard for any length of time. mine used to get pretty warm during long digital sessions and after the fan mod its noticeably cooler. worth doing next time you crack the case open

QSL can actually mean a few things depending on context — it means I confirm, or I acknowledge, not just like a thumbs up. so when someone says QSL? with a rising tone they're asking did you copy that, and when you say QSL back you're saying yes i got it. the cards people mail each other are called QSL cards for that reason, its basically a written confirmation of the contact. theres also QRP which means low power, youll see that a lot if you get into that corner of the hobby. and QSB is fading, like the signal is going up and down. once you start operating you'll probably be surprised how fast these stick. i was totally lost my first couple months and then one day it just kinda made sense without me realizing it happened.

im kind of in the same boat lol, sitting around 11wpm right now so ill be watching this thread. one thing i did recently was start using LCWO.net instead of just G4FON and the word training mode helped a lot more than random characters for me personally. something about recognizing common words made it feel less like decoding and more like actual reading if that makes sense

yeah what he said about the credits, one entity one credit thats it. i went through this same confusion when i started. the arrl documentation reads like legal documents sometimes lol. one thing i'd add — dont sleep on WAZ while you're at it. chasing all three kind of happens naturally once you get going because a lot of the dx you work for DXCC also fills in zones for WAZ. i noticed i was like halfway to WAZ without even trying just from normal dx chasing. 87 confirmed is actually pretty solid for a wire dipole, some of those harder entities are gonna take a while but youre doing fine

I was in the exact same spot about a year ago so I totally get the confusion. One thing that helped me was just thinking of LoTW as the official one for awards that really matter to me, and eQSL as kind of a fun bonus. I do both now, takes maybe an extra two minutes after a session to upload to eQSL after I've already done LoTW. The paper card thing is genuinely one of my favorite parts of the hobby though. I designed mine on Canva and got a batch of 500 printed, way cheaper than I expected. I don't send one for every contact but for anything interesting or a new country I'll drop one in the mail. Had a station in Japan actually write a little note back on his card which was really cool, felt more real than a database entry somehow. Anyway don't stress too much about getting it all perfect right away, you'll figure out your own system as you go

so i just passed my general last month and got my sequential call which is fine, nothing wrong with it, but ive been looking into applying for a vanity call and honestly the whole thing is kind of confusing me. like i understand you go through the FCC ULS and fill out the application but what i dont get is whether theres any priority system or if everyone who applies in the same window just gets thrown into some kind of lottery. i read somewhere that certain groups get priority — like if you held a call previously or if youre a close relative of a silent key — but for a regular person like me who just wants a shorter or more memorable call, is it basically just whoever gets lucky when the window opens? also does it matter what call district you apply for or can you pick any 1x2 or 2x1 or whatever regardless of where you live? i thought i read that you can now but i wasnt 100% sure. just trying to understand the process before i go through all the trouble of applying and end up disappointed. any help appreciated, still pretty new to all this.

so ive been running an end-fed random wire since i got licensed about eight months ago and it works okay but the noise floor on receive is pretty rough and i keep reading that a dipole would be a lot better especially for 40m which is where i spend most of my time. decided im just gonna build one myself instead of buying something because honestly how hard can it be and also im cheap. so the basic math isnt the problem, 468 divided by freq in MHz gives feet, i get that. my question is more about the practical stuff. im planning to hang it as an inverted V from a tree that probably gets me about 30 feet at the apex. feedline is gonna be RG-8X i have a bunch of it leftover. do i center feed it with a 1:1 balun or can i just solder the coax directly to the wire and forget about it for now. ive seen people say both and im not sure what actually matters in practice vs theory. also the ground here is kind of a mess, clay soil mostly, does that affect anything for a dipole? thought that was more of a vertical thing but not 100% sure.

so my club is doing a carpool up to the fairgrounds for the regional hamfest, think its the third weekend of the month. last year i picked up a barely used FT-857 for like 180 bucks from some old timer who was clearing out his shack so im definitely going back. anyone else from this area planning on making the trip? also heard there might be a fox hunt in the afternoon but not 100% sure if thats still happening

the Koch method is basically where you learn at a speed that forces you to hear the rhythm rather than count dits and dahs, usually something like 15 to 20 wpm character speed even if the overall text is slow, which is called Farnsworth spacing. the idea is you dont want your brain to get used to slow sloppy characters because then you have to relearn them later when you want to speed up. LCWO.net is probably the most popular free site for this and it walks you through the Koch sequence automatically, you just set your character speed higher than your word speed and work through the letters one or two at a time until you hit like 90% accuracy before adding the next one. honestly the biggest thing people dont tell you is just be consistent, even 10 minutes a day every day beats an hour session once a week. it took me probably 4 months of daily practice to get comfortable copying at 10 wpm in real QSOs but everyone is different. just dont try to do it by counting the dots and dashes, you'll plateau really fast that way.

yeah the band voltage on the icoms can be a little weird, especially if you're reading it on a long wire run or without any filtering. what i did on a similar project was just put a small RC filter on the analog input — like a 10k resistor and a 0.1uf cap to ground — and that cleaned up most of the noise. also worth double checking if there's a pull-down on the accessory jack because sometimes the voltage floats between bands for a second while the rig is switching and you get these garbage readings that confuse the arduino into thinking youre on the wrong band. i added a small debounce in the sketch, just a 200ms delay before acting on a new band value, and that fixed it for me. the relay module approach is totally fine btw, ive been running something similar for about two years with no issues. i did eventually add a pi zero W to the setup but only because i wanted to log contacts automatically, not because the arduino couldnt handle the switching. for just automating the antenna change the arduino is plenty and honestly more reliable in my experience since theres no OS to hang or update itself at the wrong moment.

yeah what the other guy said about two-way igates is spot on. i ran into this exact thing last year trying to message someone across town. we could both see each other on the map all day but messages just vanished. turned out neither of us had a two way igate close enough so the messages were making it to APRS-IS fine but never getting injected back to RF on the other end. kind of a fundemental limitation of how the whole system works that doesnt get explained well when youre first getting into it. once we both happened to be close to a known two-way igate it worked immediately. theres a filter on aprs.fi somewhere that lets you see igate capability i think, been a while since i looked.

so this has been bugging me for a couple weeks now. my 7300 was running fine and then one day i noticed the output was way down, like im getting maybe 20-25w max on HF where i should be seeing close to 100. the ALC looks normal on the display and the radio doesnt throw any error codes or anything. SWR on the dummy load is flat so its not an antenna issue. i already checked the obvious stuff, power supply voltage is solid at 13.8v under load, no weird smells from the radio, fans seem fine. TX audio sounds normal on a monitor receiver, no distortion or anything. its just the power thats wrong. i was wondering if anyone has seen this before — bad finals maybe? or could it be something in the driver stage? i dont want to just throw parts at it without at least having some idea where to look first. the radio is about 4 years old, not under warranty anymore obviously. i do have a service manual so i can poke around if someone can point me in the right direction

welcome to the rabbit hole, you wont regret it probably. so the single yagi guys on JT65 are real, ive worked a few of them myself but they're mostly working big stations with serious arrays on the other end, like a 10+ yagi setup or a dish. a 4x yagi array on 2m with a good preamp and 500-600w is actually pretty solid for JT65 EME, you'd be surprised what you can work. the key thing people underestimate is the LNA - you want something with under 0.3dB noise figure right at the feedpoint, like a SSB Electronic or similar, dont put it in the shack or you've thrown away half your system. coax loss on 2m at any real length is brutal. for tracking most people use either a Yaesu G-5500 combo for smaller arrays or go custom. theres guys running arduino based systems tied into the WSJT suite for automatic tracking which works pretty well from what ive seen. and yeah WSJT-X with JT65 is still the main mode, Q65 is starting to catch on too for some stuff. moon net mailing list is where alot of the scheduling happens, get on there and lurk for a while before you try to make contacts, youll learn a ton just from watching the scheduling posts.

the ARRL band plan has zero regulatory teeth, its purely voluntary and based on tradition and trying to keep things organized. the actual legal limits come from part 97.301 and 97.305 which define privileges by license class. for general on 40m phone youre looking at 7.175 to 7.300 MHz, extra class has the whole chunk down to 7.125. so there is a real restriction there, that facebook person wasnt totally wrong just maybe not explaining it well. the FCC rules themselves are the only thing that matters legally speaking. i'd bookmark the actual ecfr.gov page for part 97 and just ctrl+f whatever youre looking for, takes some getting used to but its not that bad once you read it a few times