Amanda Jackson

the displayed frequency on SSB is the suppressed carrier frequency not the center of your signal, so yeah 7.298 on USB means your voice is going from roughly 7.298 up to maybe 7.301 depending on how high your audio goes. thats why the rule of thumb most ops follow is stay at least 3 khz inside the band edge on the upper end. some guys are more cautious than that especially if theyre running any kind of speech processing which can splatter things around more than you'd expect

so ive had my technician license for about 8 months now and honestly i mostly just use it for local repeaters and some 2m stuff but ive been reading about HF and it sounds really cool, like actually talking to people across the country or whatever. my buddy told me i should just go ahead and upgrade to general since the test isnt that much harder than tech but i dont really know what to study or how different the material is. the tech exam felt pretty manageable once i went through the question pool a few times on that hamexam website. is general like that too or is there actually harder concepts i need to understand for real? im worried about the electrical theory parts because i barely passed that section on the tech exam honestly. also once i get general what bands am i actually going to have access to that i dont have now, i know there are some HF privileges but im fuzzy on the specifics

Had similar issues with my Predator 3500. Solution was running 100ft of extension cord to get distance, plus multiple snap-on ferrites at both ends. Still not perfect but usable for emergency power needs.

yeah my first QSO i totally forgot to say over and just went silent for like five seconds like an idiot. the other guy was patient about it though. this hobby has some of the most welcoming people ive met which honestly surprised me. enjoy it

not a dumb question at all, this stuff trips up a lot of new hams. so the short version — technicians do get some HF but yeah its limited. you get 10 meters for phone above 28.300 MHz and there are small CW/data slices on 15, 40, and 80 meters too but they're pretty narrow. the 10 meter phone allocation is actually the most useful of the bunch, especially when the solar cycle is up like it is now. as for your band plan question, thats actually a really good one that a lot of people dont think to ask. the FCC allocates frequency ranges to different services and sets the license class privileges within amateur radio, but the specific band plans you see on the ARRL website are voluntary gentlemens agreements basically. so technically nobody can fine you for calling CQ on a frequency thats traditionally used for digital modes, but you'll get an earful from other operators. the FCC rules are the legal floor, band plans are the social contract on top of that. grab a copy of the ARRL handbook or even just the part 97 quick reference card they publish, it lays out the privileges by license class in a table thats way easier to read than the actual regulation text.

interesting, i always figured the 7300 was good enough out of the box that mods were kinda overkill for most people. but the TCXO thing makes sense for digital ops i guess. i run mostly CW and SSB so maybe i just never noticed any drift. my old FT-817 on the other hand, that thing drifted like crazy until i did the TXCO mod on that one, totally different world after. so yeah i believe you that it makes a difference, just depends what youre using it for.

Try creating a custom INI file that launches N1MM+ without CAT control enabled to prevent serial port conflicts. Launch N1MM+ with this custom config, then start WSJT-X separately. Sometimes port sharing issues cause UDP problems.

yeah the browser tab juggling gets old fast, been there. what most people end up doing is using a logging program that has a built in cluster feed so the spots just pop up right in the software and you can click to tune your radio if you have CAT control set up. Log4OM and N1MM both do this, DXKeeper/DXLab suite too. once you have that running you barely need to have DXwatch open separately for mobile i use the DX Toolbox app when im away from the shack, its decent enough for checking spots on the go. QRZ has their own app too but i mostly just use the website. the real game changer for me was getting the cluster feed piped directly into my logging software though, seriously cuts down the lag between seeing a spot and actually being on frequency

so ive been running a ground mounted vertical for 40m for about two years now, it works okay but ive always wondered if i was leaving a lot on the table compared to a proper dipole. the thing is my lot is not huge and getting a dipole up at any reasonable height is kind of a pain. i could maybe get it to about 25 feet at the center which i know isnt great for 40. been reading a bunch of stuff online and honestly some of it contradicts itself pretty badly. my vertical is a hustler 4btv with the recommended radial field, maybe 16 radials not all of them full length if im honest. gets out decent on 40 and 20 but on 40 especially i feel like im missing some contacts that other guys are making. or maybe thats just operator error i dont know. anyone switched from a vertical to a dipole on 40 and noticed an actual real world difference, not just modeling software telling you what should happen

so ive been trying to learn CW for about 6 months now and im finally to the point where i can copy maybe 10-12 wpm on a good day but my sending is a mess. i have a cheap bencher paddle i picked up used and a keyer built into my radio (ic-7300) and honestly i cant tell if the problem is me or the settings or both probably the dits and dahs just dont sound crisp, like everything kind of runs together and when i listen back to recordings of myself it sounds nothing like the code i hear from the DX stations. i have the weight set to 50 and speed around 15 wpm trying to push myself a little but maybe thats the issue. anyone been through this and figured it out

okay so first thing — you cant skip technician, everyone has to start there no matter what. the tests build on each other and you have to hold tech before you can upgrade to general. some people do tech and general back to back at the same session which is totally allowed if youre feeling confident but most people just do one at a time. hamstudy.org is honestly what most people use and its pretty solid, just drill the practice questions until youre consistently hitting like 85% or better and youll be fine on the real thing. the actual test is 35 questions and you need 26 right to pass, the question pool is public so theres no surprises. gordon west study guides are also popular if you want something more structured but i just used hamstudy myself and passed first try without too much stress. for finding a test session go to the ARRL exam search or look up your local ham club, a lot of clubs run VE sessions pretty regularly and some are even doing online testing now through a couple different organizations

honestly the theory stuff is more useful than i expected when i went for it. i spent maybe 6 weeks going through the question pool and i remember being frustrated by the transmission line matching questions and the filter stuff but once it clicked it actually helped me understand why my antenna tuner was behaving weird on certain bands. so its not totally useless knowledge even if you dont go into engineering or anything like that. the exam fee situation is a bit annoying right now, the FCC charges 35 dollars for the license application and then the VE session is usually 15 bucks or sometimes free depending on the club running it. so budget like 50 bucks to be safe. as for the privileges i thought the same thing you did before i upgraded but having access to the full 20m CW segment has been genuinely useful during contests and the 60m channel situation is slightly different for extras too i think. the band edges on 80 and 75 open up more than you'd expect once you start hunting DX on phone. just use hamstudy.org and grind the questions for a few weeks, you'll get there

yeah i went through pretty much the same thing about a year ago. ended up keeping N1MM strictly for contests and using Log4OM for everything else. the UDP integration with WSJT-X in Log4OM actually works pretty well once you get the ports configured correctly, just make sure WSJT-X is set to send logged QSOs to the right port and Log4OM is listening on the same one, theres a setting in Log4OM under tools > UDP server or something like that. the two can coexist fine if you're disciplined about which log you're entering QSOs into but honestly that discipline part is where i fall down sometimes the dupe thing you mentioned is a real issue. what i do now is before any contest i export a clean ADIF from Log4OM and import it into N1MM so at least the dupe checking is accurate, then after the contest i import the N1MM log back into Log4OM. its a little annoying but it keeps everything in one master log. havent found a cleaner way to do it

you're good to go on 14.230 with general class. phone privileges for general start at 14.225 on 20 meters, not 14.150 (thats where you can start on other bands). 14.230 is definitely in the phone portion so no worries there. just watch out for the digital modes that hang around 14.230, lot of psk31 and ft8 activity in that area

this is maybe a dumb question but did you check the firmware version? there was some weirdness with a particular version causing ALC behavior to go a bit off, i vaguely remember something about it on the icom reflector. probably not your issue but took me an afternoon once chasing a hardware fault that turned out to be firmware being weird after a partial update. also worth pulling the top cover off and just having a look at the PA board for any caps that look even slightly domed. had a different radio (7200 actually) where a cap on the PA board had started to go and it caused intermittent low power that eventually got worse. not saying thats it just something easy to check visually before you go digging deeper.

this is really helpful to read actually, im fairly new to ARES and just got my general so ive been trying to understand what these drills actually look like in practice vs what the handbook describes. the winlink part especially — i set it up on my laptop a few months ago and sent a couple test messages but i honestly dont know if id be able to troubleshoot it under pressure if something wasnt connecting right. maybe i should find someone to practice with more before the next exercise.

W6/NC-437 nice, ive been meaning to do that one. was the trail in decent shape? i heard there was some washout last spring but wasnt sure if that got fixed. oh and yeah what the previous guy said about spotting is right. i usually set an alert the night before on sotawatch too so chasers who have alerts set up get a heads up. makes a big difference in how many people show up on frequency when you get there, especially if youre doing CW and want to actually work a decent pileup

yeah the third party thing trips a lot of people up. basically within the US it's pretty relaxed, you can let someone else talk through your station as long as you're there supervising and they're not doing anything that would otherwise violate part 97. the tricky part is international contacts. if you're talking to a station in another country, that country has to have a third party agreement with the US before you can hand the mic to an unlicensed person. the ARRL keeps a list of countries that have those agreements and honestly its not that long. some pretty common DX destinations are NOT on it so you really do have to check. your instinct to say no when you weren't sure was honestly the right move. better to be cautious than to have your callsign attached to a violation you didnt know you were making.

yeah the allstar + remote HF thing is one of those ideas that sounds great until you actually try to implement it and then you realize every component in the chain wants to add its own delay and suddenly youre having conversations that feel like a moon bounce QSO. i went down that rabbit hole for a while. what rig control software are you using alongside RCForb btw? i found that having both rigctld and the RCForb rig interface trying to talk to the 7300 at the same time over the same virtual COM port was causing some weird timing issues for me that kind of manifested as audio glitches weirdly enough, took me forever to figure out that was the culprit

congrats on the first activation, 35 minutes to 10 contacts on your first time out is honestly pretty solid especially if you weren't pre-spotted before you set up. some folks struggle to get the 10 the first couple times. on the boundary question — you can only log the park you were actually operating from. even if the other unit is a quarter mile away you'd need to physically go there and operate to claim it. the honor system is pretty much how it works, theres no GPS verification or anything like that, but the community takes it seriously and most people are pretty honest about it. if you were clearly inside K-4861 then that's your activation, done. two-fers are great when you can pull them off. i did three parks in one day last fall and it was exhausting but really rewarding. just watch your time — moving between parks eats up more time than you think, especially if you're trying to get a good run going at each one before packing up.

yeah im in the same boat honestly, been doing my local net for maybe 6 months now and it still feels a little awkward sometimes. one thing i noticed is that some nets post their procedures on the club website which helped me a lot — might be worth checking if your club has something like that. ours had a whole little guide for new check-ins.

so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and done a fair bit of HF stuff, some 2m weak signal, but ive always had EME in the back of my mind as kind of the ultimate goal. talked to a guy at our club last month who actually runs a 4x4 yagi array on 144 and he made it sound almost... doable? like not just for the big gun stations. my situation is a suburban lot, no HOA thankfully, and i could probably put up a pair of long boom yagis if i go vertical stack. been looking at the K1FO designs and some of the stuff on the moon-net reflector. the software side seems okay, i already use WSJT-X for meteor scatter so JT65B or Q65 isnt completely foreign to me. what i cant figure out is where the realistic floor is for actually making contacts. like if im running say 500w into a 2x9el setup what am i actually looking at. is this a thing where i need to wait for guys with massive arrays to point at me or can i work other small stations too. and the elevation rotor situation — do i need full az/el or can i get away with something simpler depending on my latitude. im in the midwest, roughly 43 degrees north if that matters. any pointers appreciated, this forum has always been straight with me on this stuff

so anyway i passed mine last spring and the one thing nobody told me was that the actual exam questions are pulled word for word from the pool, like exactly word for word, so if you know the pool you know the exam. i used Ham Radio Prep which costs a few bucks but it has little videos explaining each section which helped me a lot with the antenna and propagation stuff since i had zero background in any of this. the electrical questions look intimidating but there are only a handful of actual math problems and they give you a calculator at most VE sessions so dont panic about those. good luck with it, its not that bad once you get going

so the short answer on DXCC is yes, LoTW is pretty much the main thing the ARRL accepts for that award. eQSL has its own award system called the Worked All Continents and a few others, but for DXCC specifically you really do need LoTW or physical cards. a lot of people use both just to cover their bases. the LoTW setup is honestly a bit of a pain the first time but once you get through it you basically forget about it. the hardest part is just getting your certificate signed and uploaded, after that you just export your log from whatever software you use and upload it and LoTW does the matching automatically. i was dreading it for like two years before i finally sat down and did it in an afternoon. your elmer can probably walk you through the certificate part if you get stuck, thats where most people trip up. paper cards though, dont count them out entirely. some DX stations only confirm via bureau and if youre chasing a rare entity thats sometimes your only option. plus honestly getting a nice card in the mail from somewhere exotic is still pretty cool even after all these years. i still get a little excited when i open the bureau envelope

the stealth factor alone might make the dipole the right call for you. a wire dipole painted or using dark wire basically disappears especially once leaves are on trees. a vertical sitting in the yard is harder to explain to neighbors. just my two cents from dealing with that exact situation for a few years before i moved somewhere less annoying.