Brian Taylor

I was in the exact same spot about two years ago and I just went with the UV-5R because I didnt want to spend a lot on something I might not stick with. Honestly no regrets for getting started, hit all the local repeaters just fine, programmed it with CHIRP which made it way less painful than trying to do it from the keypad. Eventually got a used FT-60 and yeah the difference in audio quality is pretty noticeable but the baofeng did its job while I was figuring everything out. If APRS is a goal look into the Kenwood TH-D74 but thats a whole different price range, like way out of the $150 bracket. For now just get something and get on the air, thats the main thing.

yeah that's almost certainly the manual position override. on the D710 there's a setting buried in the APRS menu where you can toggle between GPS and manual position input, and if it got switched to manual at some point it'll just keep transmitting whatever coordinates you typed in originally. go into the APRS setup and look for something like position input method or GPS vs manual — it's not super obvious where it sits in the menu. once you flip it back to GPS it should start pulling the actual position from the receiver. happens more than you'd think, especially if someone was demoing the radio indoors and keyed in a position manually.

welcome to the hobby, dont stress too much about this. the short version is that LoTW is run by the ARRL and is the most trusted for award credit — things like DXCC and WAS pretty much require it. eQSL is a seperate system, some people use it some dont, and a lot of the big awards dont accept it but its fine for casual confirming. paper cards are still very much a thing and honestly there's something really nice about getting a card in the mail from some DX station, but they're not strictly required unless you're chasing awards that specifically need them. for TQSL, the setup does look intimidating but once you get your certificate loaded and your station location set up it becomes pretty routine. the arrl has a walkthrough on their site that actually isnt bad. i'd say just get LoTW going first since thats the one that matters most for awards, then worry about eQSL and paper cards later once you figure out what kind of operating interests you.

so ive been messing around with an RTL-SDR v3 for about a year now, mostly listening to HF with the direct sampling hack and running SDR# and sometimes GQRX on my linux box. its been fine honestly, got me into the whole SDR rabbit hole but lately ive been noticing the noise floor is pretty rough especially on 40m and below, and the dynamic range issues are really obvious when theres a strong broadcast station nearby wiping out everything around it. been looking at the SDRplay RSP1B as a step up, the specs look good on paper — 14-bit ADC, better front end filtering, and SDRuno seems pretty capable. but im also wondering if its worth just saving a bit more and going HackRF even though i know the HackRF has its own tradeoffs with the 8-bit ADC. mostly want it for receive on HF/VHF, dont really need to transmit. anybody actually made this jump from RTL-SDR to SDRplay and noticed a real difference day to day? not looking for lab results just real world impressions from people actually using it

the preamp placement thing the other guy mentioned is the most important thing tbh, a lot of people underestimate how much coax loss kills you on receive when youre talking about signals this weak. even a few tenths of a dB of noise figure degradation from having the LNA at the wrong end of a run of LMR-400 matters more than it would on basically any other mode. also worth mentioning that elevation capability matters a lot more for EME than people think going in — a fixed horizontal yagi might work for some limited windows but youre really leaving contacts on the table if the moon isnt conveniently placed. even a cheap TV elevation rotor can work if you gerry-rig it carefully enough, ive seen people make it work with some creative solutions.

yeah did mine about a year ago, late 2020 unit. the jumper is still in the same spot near the PA section, you have to pull the top cover and its pretty obvious once you know what youre looking for. there was a thread on eham with pictures that was way more helpful than the youtube stuff honestly one thing i'll say is just be careful around that area of the board because theres some smd stuff nearby that you dont want to accidentally brush with a screwdriver. used some kapton tape to cover adjacent components before i went in. worked perfectly after, no issues with normal ham operation and the MARS stuff checked out fine too. firmware version shouldnt matter, its a hardware jumper not software controlled

yeah i went through basically the same thing last year. one thing that got me was the ALC on the IC-7300 - vara really wants you to run it with no ALC movement at all, like set your output power lower than you think you need to. i was running 100w and the ALC was pumping all over the place and every session failed. dropped it to like 40w and kept an eye on the ALC meter and suddenly it started working. the 7300 and SignaLink combo is pretty common so theres probably someone local whos got it dialed in if you have a club nearby

so i finally stopped procrastinating and just built a simple 40m dipole out of some 14 awg stranded wire i had laying around in the garage. used a piece of pvc pipe as the center insulator and drilled a hole through it for the SO-239. nothing fancy. got it up about 25 feet in an inverted V configuration tied off to my chimney on one end and a tree on the other. swr came out around 1.4:1 at 7.150 which i was pretty happy with honestly. trimmed a little off each leg and got it down to like 1.2:1. my question is about the feedpoint connection itself. i just soldered the braid of the coax to one leg and center conductor to the other. no balun. ive been reading conflicting stuff about whether you actually need one for a simple dipole like this or if its overkill for casual use. rf seems fine and im getting decent reports on 40m ssb but im wondering if im missing something or if the feedline is radiating and im just not noticing it. also not sure if i should have used something heavier gauge for the elements, the 14awg feels kind of light but it was what i had

drill the roof. i know it sounds scary but if you do it right with a proper NMO mount and a good waterproof seal its really not a big deal and youll never look back. ive had lip mounts on two different vehicles and both times i eventually got intermittent ground issues that showed up as slightly elevated SWR that would change when i hit a bump. not terrible but annoying. on UHF especially you really want that solid ground connection, the wavelength is short enough that ground plane quality actually matters more than people think. just get a good chassis punch, measure twice, use some self-etching primer on the bare metal edge and a quality mount like a Larsen or Maxrad and seal around it with some silicone. ive had the same hole in my truck roof for 11 years with zero rust or leaks. the NR770HB is a good antenna too, just get it properly mounted and itll work great.

so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and i keep hearing people talk about CW and how its this whole other world and i kind of want to try it but i genuinely have no idea where to begin. like do i just memorize the dots and dashes on a chart or is there a better way? i tried printing out one of those alphabet charts and staring at it but that doesnt seem to be how people actually learn it. someone at my club mentioned the Koch method but i dont really understand how that works either. is there an app or website that walks you through it step by step or do i need to find a real person to help me. also how long does it take to get to like 5 wpm because thats what people say you need for HF stuff right, or is that not even a thing anymore since they dropped the requirement

The 4 contacts can absolutely all be on the same band and mode, no requirement to spread them across bands. 40m SSB on a weekend morning you'll have chasers lined up, honestly getting 4 won't be your problem, stopping at 4 might be. Post your alert with a realistic time window and spot yourself as soon as you make contact, that'll bring the pile in. On the antenna, ditch the AX1 for 40m if you can carry the wire. Even a simple end fed half wave with a 9:1 unun thrown over a branch is going to crush the AX1 on that band. I use a linked dipole myself, takes maybe 5 extra minutes to set up and the difference is night and day. Have a great activation, W6/NC-445 is a nice one I think someone activated it back in the spring.

yeah the 7300 at 100w is gonna eat you alive over 8 hours if youre doing any real SSB work. i did a similar thing at a RACES exercise two summers ago with a comparable radio and a 50ah AGM and i was sweating by hour 5. LiFePO4 is better but 40ah is still tight depending on your duty cycle. rough rule of thumb im using now — figure about 20-22 amps at 100w transmit on SSB, maybe 2-3 amps receive. if your exercise has you talking a lot figure maybe 25-30% TX duty cycle over the whole thing and do the math from there. for me that works out to somewhere around 35-45ah for 8 hours which puts you right on the edge. i'd personally either bring a second battery or turn power down to 50w and see how that affects your signal reports — honestly on 40m most of the time nobody notices the difference in a local net situation. on the antenna thing, chain link is annoying but not a dealbreaker. i've run a vertical in worse RF environments and still made contacts. if you can get 20-30 feet of separation from the fencing youll be ok for NVIS 40m work. the two mast dipole idea is better if you can swing it, even a simple inverted V off a 25ft mast in the clear would outperform the vertical there probably.

honestly the General exam is very doable, dont psych yourself out looking at the full pool all at once. when i upgraded i just used HamStudy dot org every spare minute i had for about three weeks and passed no problem. the electrical theory does feel overwhelming at first but a lot of those questions are the same concept just worded differently so once you get the underlying idea the answers start to feel obvious. as for the band access question, General gives you a really solid chunk of HF. youll have phone privileges on 40, 20, 15, and 10 meters which honestly is where most of the action is anyway. 20m especially is incredibly active. i went probably eight months as a General before i even thought about going for Extra because i was having too much fun just working stations and learning the bands. the Extra portions that are restricted are real but theyre not so crowded that youll feel locked out of anything meaningful as a new HF op. just get the General and start playing around with the bands, youll learn way more from actually operating than from any exam prep

yeah i felt totally lost my first contest lol, i just kinda tuned around and called a few stations and got maybe 12 contacts and thought i was terrible at it. turns out that's pretty normal when you're starting. the logging software helps a lot btw — N1MM is free and once you set it up for a specific contest it basically tells you what exchange to send so you're not guessing. theres also a contest called the ARRL 10m contest coming up later in the year thats really easy for newer folks when the band cooperates.

so ive had my 7300 for about three years now and it was always a solid radio but i kept reading about the TCXO upgrade and the various filter mods people do and finally just decided to go for it over the winter. pulled the covers off and installed the SC-7300 TCXO option board first which wasnt too bad, just a few connectors and some careful work around the main board. the frequency stability improvement is real and not just placebo, i was skeptical but doing some weak signal work on 40m at night you can really tell the difference when you're not constantly nudging the dial. after that i went down a bit of a rabbit hole honestly. did the internal fan mod where you swap the stock fan for a quieter noctua-style unit and rewire it to run at lower voltage most of the time. runs so much cooler temp-wise in the shack now and i dont have to turn up the monitor speakers every time i key up. also did the barefoot audio mod that's been floating around the groups.io for a while, just a couple resistors on the TX audio path and it really does open up the transmitted audio a bit, my buddy in michigan said i sounded noticeably better before i even told him i changed anything. anyone else gone down this road with their 7300 or other radios? curious what mods people actually found worthwhile vs the ones that were more hype than anything

oh man i went through this exact thing about two years ago. honestly the baofeng works fine for getting started and hitting repeaters, the main complaints are about the transmit quality being a little rough and the programming software being kind of a pain, but for just listening and checking into nets its totally adequate. i started with one and used it for about six months before i upgraded. that said if you can stretch to the 130-150 range, a yaesu ft-65 or one of the wouxun kg-uv9d models are noticeably better built and the audio on both tx and rx is cleaner. the receivers are more selective too which matters more than people realize when youre near a busy area with lots of signals floating around. the club guys probably arent being snobs exactly, they just remember when cheap chinese radios were really truly awful, and some of the older baofeng models kind of were. the newer ones are better than their reputation at this point.

So I finally decided to stop just reading about WWFF and actually go do one. Got a nature reference picked out, its a state wildlife management area about 20 minutes from my house, KFF-XXXX number registered and everything. Planning to run QRP with my KX2 and a wire antenna thrown up in a tree. My question is really about the logging. I know you need 44 QSOs minimum to get the full activation credit but im not 100% sure about what info I actually need to capture per contact. Obviously callsign, time, frequency, mode... but does the exchange have to be anything specific or do people just do a normal signal report exchange? I've seen some people mention giving out the reference number during the contact and others don't seem to bother on every QSO. Also wondering about spotting myself on the WWFF spotting network vs pota spots. Can you use both? Feels like a dumb question but I genuinely dont know. Any advice from folks who've done a bunch of these appreciated, dont want to mess up the logging and have to redo it.

hey welcome to the rabbit hole lol. so i've been with ARES for going on 6 years now and the honest answer is it really depends on your local group. some counties are super organized with monthly nets and tabletop exercises and some are kind of... not. best thing you can do is just show up to a meeting and see what the vibe is like. as for real activations, yeah youre not gonna get thrown in blind. most of the actual work at a deployment is message handling, net control stuff, or acting as a liaison at a shelter or EOC. the ICS courses you took are actually exactly what they want so youre ahead of a lot of people who show up without those. and dont worry about your gear, honestly a mobile rig and a handheld is perfectly fine for most assignments, especially shelter support where you might just be relaying info between the EOC and the site. i ran just a 50 watt mobile for my first two activations and it was fine. the training drills are where you really figure things out before it matters. try to get to those if your group does them, even if it feels kind of low stakes at the time.

yeah deoxit on the pot for sure, thats the easy answer and probably right. but if that doesnt pan out id scope the mic amp output before assuming its the modulator. on the 857 the mic preamp is on a separate little board and those electrolytic caps on it can go leaky or just lose capacitance over time, especially on a rig thats been around for 15+ years. a leaky coupling cap before the modulator would give you exactly what your describing — carrier present, ALC reacting, but no actual audio getting through to be modulated. caps are cheap, if you find one thats drifted out of spec just replace the whole section while you're in there. not a hard job if you've got decent soldering skills and patience.

ok so i passed my technician exam about 3 months ago and ive been mostly doing 2m and 70cm stuff which is fine but i keep hearing people say techs can do some HF too and i honestly cannot figure out from reading Part 97 exactly what that means in practice. like i know there's something about 10 meters and maybe some other bands but the way the FCC document is written it kind of makes my eyes glaze over after a few paragraphs. so can someone just tell me in plain english what i can actually transmit on below 30 mhz? phone, digital, cw, what? i dont want to accidentally key up somewhere i'm not supposed to be and get in trouble. also is there anything in particular i should know about power limits that are different from the normal tech limits on vhf/uhf

yeah the first one is always a bit chaotic, dont sweat it. i remember mine i forgot to bring a pen to log contacts and was trying to type into my phone with cold fingers. nightmare. you get a system going after a few activations though and it becomes way more streamlined. i do mostly POTA these days since theres a park near me i can drive to but SOTA is more satisfying somehow even when it goes sideways.

so ive been meaning to do this for like two years now and after the last storm that knocked out power for four days i finally got serious about it. got a Yaesu FT-857D that im planning to build the kit around, already have a 35ah LiFePO4 battery and a decent portable antenna situation sorted out. the thing is i keep second guessing myself on what else needs to go in the bag or case or whatever. i have a checklist ive been building but every time i think im done i read something on here or on reddit and realize i forgot something obvious. like i completely forgot about coax adapters for three days until someone mentioned it offhand in another thread. what are the things that you guys always grab that a newer guy might not think of? not the obvious radio and power stuff but the little things. also curious what people are using for cases, im currently leaning toward one of those harbor freight pelican knockoffs but open to ideas.

the switching supply is almost certainly your problem, those things are garbage for receiver work, i learned that the hard way on a similar build a few years back. but the thing about it getting louder with strong signals is actually pretty explainable -- if your AF gain stage has any DC offset or your op-amp rails are getting pulled around by the supply noise, a strong signal coming through is going to modulate that noise floor in kind of a weird way. basically the supply cant keep up cleanly and you hear it. TL072s are fine btw, thats not your issue. what i would try first is just temporarily running the thing off a 9v battery or a decent bench supply and see if the hum goes away. if it does, you have your answer and you can work on filtering from there. a 7812 regulator with some decent filtering ahead of it goes a long way. if the hum persists on battery power then you got a grounding or layout problem and thats a whole different conversation

yeah that RPM-related whine is almost always alternator interference getting into the coax shield or the power leads, sometimes both. a few things worth checking — first, is your coax shield actually grounded at the antenna mount? lip mounts can be tricky because you're relying on that metal-to-metal contact with the lip of the tailgate and sometimes there's paint or coating in there breaking the ground path. try running a short jumper from the mount to bare metal and see if that changes anything. second thing is you can try a ferrite choke on the coax right at the radio end, just a couple turns through a type 31 mix toroid. ive also seen people have luck with a noise filter inline on the power leads but honestly fixing the antenna ground is usually the first thing to nail down.

so i've been wanting to do this for probably two years now and last weekend i finally just did it. built a little bitx40 variant, nothing fancy, maybe 5 watts out on a good day, and threw it in a bag with a end-fed wire and a small lipo pack and drove out to the state park about 20 minutes from my house. honestly wasnt expecting much, i figured id maybe make a couple contacts if i was lucky. but i set up under a tree, got the wire up maybe 25 feet into the branches with a throw line, tuned around 7.030 and within about 15 minutes had a guy in ohio come back to my CQ. we talked for maybe 10 minutes, solid 559 both ways, and i just... i dont know, something about doing it with a rig i built myself, running like 4.8 watts, sitting on a picnic bench in the middle of nowhere — it just hit different than working from the shack. made three more contacts that afternoon. one guy in tennessee who was also running QRP (we had a good laugh about that), and two others in the midwest somewhere. nothing exotic but i was grinning the whole time. anyway just wanted to share because i feel like QRP portable stuff doesnt get talked about enough compared to like the big antenna threads and whatnot. anyone else doing this regularly? tips for improving efficiency on a budget build?