Thomas Wilson

rs-44 is great for learning linear because the passband is pretty forgiving and it tends to have lighter traffic than AO-73 during peak hours so you have a bit more time to fumble around without someone walking over you lol. i actually started on that one before moving to AO-73 and it helped a lot one thing that helped me was marking the expected doppler shift at AOS, mid-pass, and LOS on a sticky note for each satellite before the pass, kind of a rough cheat sheet. gpredict shows you the instantaneous doppler but when youre also trying to point an antenna and work a contact its easy to lose track. eventually you just internalize it but in the beginning having that reference was clutch

so ive been licensed about 8 months now and just starting to get into chasing DX a little more seriously. a buddy at the club mentioned i should be using the cluster spotting networks and pointed me at DXwatch and the QRZ logbook spot feed thing. been messing with it for a couple weeks and i think i mostly get it but im not totally sure im using them the most efficient way. like right now i have DXwatch open in one tab and the QRZ DX spots page in another and im just kind of watching both refresh. is there some way to filter this stuff better because honestly when 20m is open its just a wall of spots and half of them are dupes or like 10 seconds old by the time i see them. feels like im always late to the party. also somebody mentioned GridTracker pulls from the cluster too? and there are phone apps that do this? would love to know what people are actually using day to day because the options are kind of overwhelming when you start googling around

okay so honestly the technician exam is not that bad, dont psych yourself out about it. the question pool is public, thats the big thing people dont realize at first, like the actual questions that will be on your test are all available ahead of time so there are no surprises if you study the pool. HamStudy.org is probably where id send anyone starting out, its free and it tracks which questions you keep getting wrong and drills you on those more. some people also use the Gordon West book or the ARRL technician manual but honestly for most people just grinding through the question pool on hamstudy for a week or two is enough to pass. for finding a test session you can search on the ARRL website or on HamStudy actually, they have a session finder too. a lot of clubs also do remote testing now which is super convenient if theres nothing local coming up soon. the fee is usually like 15 bucks. your neighbor being a ham is a huge resource by the way, he can probably point you to the local club and they almost certainly run VE sessions periodically.

oh man i was so confused by this exact thing when i started. someone finally explained to me that solar flux is like a rough indicator of HF conditions in general but each band has its own personality if that makes sense. 10m needs pretty high flux to reliably open for DX, like consistently above 150 is when it gets really fun, but even at 120 or so you can get surprise openings especially around the equinoxes. a vertical will work fine honestly, 10m doesnt require a fancy antenna to have fun. i work a lot of DX on a simple ground plane. just takes patience and being there at the right time

yeah technician is definitely the right starting point, dont try to jump to general right away unless you really want to grind through two separate exams back to back which some people do but honestly its a lot. the question pool does get updated every few years so just make sure whatever you're using is current — i think the technician pool got refreshed not too long ago so double check that. HamStudy.org is what most people use now and its free, it basically just drills you on the actual questions that will be on the test. some people also like the ARRL study guides but the website is probably fine for most folks. once you get like 85% or above consistently on the practice tests youre probably ready to just go take it. the test itself is 35 questions and you need 26 right to pass so theres a little wiggle room. find a local club that does VE sessions, most of them do walkins and its usually like 15 bucks.

I had almost the exact same thing happen when i first set up VARA FM, drove me crazy for like two weeks. Turned out my USB soundcard was throttling on long transfers — some of the cheap ones have buffer issues that only show up when you're pushing data for more than 30 seconds or so. Swapped to a SignaLink and the problem went away completely. Not saying thats definitely your issue but worth keeping in mind if the audio settings dont fix it.

yeah totally normal for this part of the cycle honestly. we're climbing toward solar max and the flux has been trending up but geomagnetic activity has been really unsettled too, those two things kind of fight each other. high flux is great for propagation but then a CME comes through and the K index spikes and it wipes out everything especially on the higher bands. 15m to japan from midwest is very doable right now when conditions cooperate, that path is usually best in your early morning hours like around 1200-1400 UTC depending on time of year. the inconsistency you're describing sounds completely normal to me, i've been logging similar stuff from here in ohio. just keep an eye on the geomagnetic forecasts, spaceweather.com updates pretty regularly and DXmaps is good for seeing where openings are actually happening in real time.

yeah made that exact jump about 18 months ago and the difference on HF is not subtle at all. the dynamic range improvement is immediately obvious, like within the first hour of using it i could actually copy signals that were just getting buried before. 40m and 80m especially felt totally different. the RSP1B front end handles nearby strong signals way better than the rtl dongle with direct sampling, which always felt like a bit of a kludge anyway even though it works surprisingly well for what it is. SDRuno takes some getting used to, the UI is honestly a bit of a mess at first and i spent more time than i want to admit just figuring out where everything was. but once you get the hang of it the feature set is solid and the IF gain staging actually makes sense once you understand whats happening. also worth knowing SDRplay devices work fine in SDR# and HDSDR too so you're not locked into SDRuno if you hate it. HackRF for pure receive only is kind of overkill and the 8-bit dynamic range is actually worse than the RSP1B in a lot of situations, so if you're not doing transmit or wideband stuff like signals intelligence type work the RSP1B is the smarter buy for what you're describing.

had almost identical symptoms on mine a couple years back, turned out to be a cold solder joint on one of the driver board connectors. the internal ribbon connectors on those rigs can work loose over time especially if the radio's been moved around a lot. i reseated everything i could get to without major disassembly and it came back to life. probably took 20 minutes total. obviously not saying thats definitely your problem but worth trying before digging into the PA section.

so i finally did my first activation last weekend at a state park about 40 minutes from my house. been putting it off for months because i kept telling myself i needed better gear or more practice or whatever, just excuses honestly. anyway i threw the KX2 in a backpack with my EFHW and a little collapsible fishing pole for the mast and just went for it. made 12 contacts in about an hour which i know is not a huge pile but the park was qualified so im pretty happy with it. mostly 40m SSB, tried 20m for a bit but was having a hard time hearing responses to my CQ. i think my antenna placement was kind of off because i was near a lot of trees and it was a weird sloped setup. couple of things im not sure about though - when i log it on the POTA website do i need to upload an ADIF or can i just enter contacts manually? i used a paper log in the field and havent set up any logging software yet. also is there a way to let hunters know youre activating in advance, like do people actually use the spots page or is that more for when youre already out there? also someone on the air told me i should try to do a selfspot but i was fumbling with the radio and didnt really have a way to do it easily. is there an app for that or do people use a second phone or something

so i finally got activated for a real event last weekend, our county ARES group got called in to support a marathon and then partway through the day a pretty serious weather situation developed nearby so it turned into more than just a fun community service thing real fast i've been doing training nets for about eight months and passed the ICS courses (100, 200, 700, 800) back in the spring like the EC told us we needed before we could deploy, and i gotta say nothing really prepares you for when the NCS is juggling like four different things at once and you're trying to remember proper net procedure while also watching the sky turn green the thing that surprised me most was how much of it is just waiting and listening and then suddenly you have to relay a message and you better have been paying attention. i fumbled one message relay because i wrote down the wrong street name and had to ask for a repeat which felt embarrassing but the net control was totally calm about it, just had me say it back again anyone else remember their first real activation? did you feel like you were gonna mess everything up the whole time or was that just me

so ive been messing with APRS for a few months now and the tracking side works fine, my beacon shows up on aprs.fi no problem, but when i try to send messages through the network they just seem to vanish. i can see my own beacon getting picked up by a couple of digipeaters about 8 miles out and then hitting the IGate at W4xxx but the messages never seem to reach anyone. tried sending to a buddy across town who was showing green on the map and nothing got through either way. running a Kenwood TM-D710G into a mag mount on the car, path is set to WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 which i thought was pretty standard. the TNC is internal so i dont think thats the issue. ive checked the audio levels about a dozen times and everything looks okay. is there something specific about message routing that im missing compared to just beacon packets, or is this more of a coverage problem than i think it is

I tried SO2R for about two contests and gave it up, went back to focused single radio and actually did better. maybe im just not wired for it. the guys who really make it work seem to have been doing it for years and have their shack dialed in perfectly for it, like dedicated SO2R keyers and proper station automation. trying to bolt it onto an existing setup always felt kludgy to me. one thing that did help my rate more than anything else was just being more aggressive about when to switch from running to S&P and back. a lot of people stay on a dead run frequency way too long out of habit.

I missed it unfortunately, was stuck at work. This is literally the story of my ham life lol. Every time someone reports a good 10m opening I'm either at the office or mowing the lawn or something. I did catch a brief one about two weeks ago where I heard a beacon from Argentina pretty clearly on my dipole which was cool but by the time I got set up to actually call anyone it had faded out. I need to just set up some kind of alert system I guess.

honestly same boat as you when i started lol. one thing that helped me was just watching how people handle it when conditions get rough — like if theres QRM or the signal is weak everyone suddenly goes back to full phonetics real fast. thats when you realize why they exist in the first place. also random tip — some people use non-NATO phonetics like "sugar" for S or whatever and it kind of drives me crazy because now i have to think about it for a second instead of just knowing. stick to the standard ones and people will appreciate you for it even if they dont say so

i just zip tied mine to the passenger seat rail lol. not the prettiest but it works and i can yank it out easily if i need to. probably not helpful for what you're going for but just saying there are options between full trunk install and under-dash if you want something temporary while you figure it out

the echolink and allstar coexistence question is something i looked at a while back. short answer is you really dont want both running simultaneously on the same node, they kind of fight over audio resources unless you get creative with virtual audio cables and some scripting. most people just pick one. allstar is more flexible if you want to do actual linking and have control over it, echolink is easier to set up if you just want occasional use. for what its worth the remote HF piece and the internet linking piece dont really need to be on the same machine at all, you could run allstar on a cheap little orange pi or even an older pi 3 and leave the pi 4 dedicated to the 7300 remote stuff. splitting it up like that actually made my setup way more reliable because when one thing crashes it doesnt take everything else with it.

DXWatch has been solid for me during the recent DXpeditions. It provides modern web-based service with real-time spot filtering and customizable views. The watchlist feature is great once you create an account. I think the occasional glitches are worth it for the better interface.

yeah the diode matrix stuff on those older Yaesu portables always has like three different versions floating around the internet and half of them are wrong or for a different production run. glad you found the right one without letting the magic smoke out. on the IF filter question — i did the collins filter swap on mine probably four or five years ago and honestly it does make a noticeable difference on a really busy band, especially 40m ssb when everybodys piled up. but its not a night and day thing. if youre already using the DNR and the width/shift controls effectively you might not feel like its worth the $60-80 for the filter depending where you source it. the bigger improvement i noticed was actually when i started using an outboard audio filter, i had an old MFJ-784B sitting around and running that off the speaker output cleaned things up quite a bit for ragchewing. probably a cheaper experiment to try first before you go digging back into the chassis. also one thing — after you did the rx mod did you notice any change in sensitivity on the standard ham bands? i always wondered if bridging those pads messes with anything on the normal receive path or if its purely additive.

I switched from Gpredict to HRD specifically for linear transponders and haven't looked back. The automatic frequency relationship handling between uplink/downlink is spot-on, especially for Mode B operations on AO-7.

yeah im in basically the same boat as you, started trying to learn a few months ago. the LCWO site the other guy mentioned is what im using and it does seem to be working slowly. what helped me was also just listening to actual CW on the bands even when i cant copy most of it, like just having it on in the background while im doing other stuff. not sure if thats actually a real technique or if im just convincing myself lol but it feels like my ear is getting used to the rhythm of it at least. theres also a youtube channel i found that does slow practice QSOs which was helpful for understanding how an actual contact flows, cant remember the name right now but if you search slow speed CW practice you'll find it

so ive been licensed about 8 months now (general) and ive been lurking on the local 2m repeater net on Sunday nights but never actually checked in. i guess i was nervous about messing up the format or saying something wrong. last week i finally did it and the net control was super patient with me and honestly it was not a big deal at all. now im wondering if i should branch out and try some of the HF nets too. i've heard about things like the 75 meter morning nets and some of the ARRL nets but i dont really know where to find schedules or how different they are from a basic repeater net. is there like one place where all the net schedules are listed? also what about special event stations, ive seen people talking about working them but i have no idea how you even find out when they're happening or what frequency they'll be on

so i've been running a Diamond X50 on my garage roof for a couple years now and it does fine for hitting the local repeaters and just general 2m simplex chatting around the county. works great, no complaints. but a buddy of mine keeps telling me i should throw up a yagi if i want to do any serious weak signal work and honestly i'm starting to wonder if he's right. the thing is i dont really do EME or meteor scatter or anything like that, mostly just some casual SSB on 144.200 and occasionally trying to work stations during contests when i have time. right now i feel like i'm missing a lot of the action because guys with beams are just walking all over me even at 100 watts. what i'm trying to understand is whether the gain difference between like a 9 element yagi vs the collinear is as significant as people make it out to be in actual use -- not just on paper. the X50 is supposedly around 6dBd on 2m but i know that's the manufacturer's number so who knows. a decent 9el probably does 12-13dBd? that's a big swing if the numbers are real. anyone made this switch and noticed a real difference in SSB contacts or weak signal stuff?

Check your VFO drive level into the mixer first - too much LO can cause overload symptoms exactly like you describe. Should be around +7dBm. Also verify your I-Q balance if you're doing phasing - unequal amplitudes in the signal paths create unwanted sideband breakthrough.

so ive been running an old FT-450D for about 4 years and honestly it served me well but the waterfall was always kind of an afterthought on that thing and i got tired of squinting at it. picked up a used IC-7300 a few weeks back from a guy in the club who was upgrading to a 7610 and figured id share some thoughts since i spent like 3 months reading threads like this before buying. first thing — the touchscreen took some getting used to. i kept accidentally changing stuff when i was just trying to rest my hand on the desk near it. had to move my mic stand. small thing but nobody mentioned that anywhere. the real time spectrum scope is genuinely useful though, not just a gimmick, i actually caught a pileup forming on 17m that i wouldve missed completely just spinning the dial. audio out of the box sounds really nice on SSB, better than i expected. did have to tweak the TX EQ a bit because my voice apparently sounds like a wet cardboard box according to my buddy in ohio. also the direct sampling architecture does seem to make a difference on crowded bands, 40m at night is actually usable now which was kind of miserable on the 450. only gripe so far is the fan kicks on pretty aggressively when youre running any kind of power. not loud enough to be a real problem but its noticeable. shack is in a spare bedroom so maybe thats why it bothers me. anyway if anybodys on the fence about the 7300 for a first real HF rig or an upgrade from something older its hard to argue with what you get for the price these days.