Robert Miller

ha, i remember feeling exactly the same way about a year into my license. honestly the thing that helped me most was just doing it wrong a few times and seeing that the world didnt end. ham radio folks are generally pretty forgiving especially if you're clearly trying. the listen first thing is absolutely real and not just courtesy — its actually in part 97 that you have to make sure a frequency is clear before transmitting. the general rule of thumb most people use is listen for a minute or two, then ask if the frequency is in use (you literally just say your callsign and ask "is this frequency in use"), and if nobody comes back after a reasonable wait you call CQ. some guys are lazy about it yeah but that doesnt make it right. as for nets versus just operating, they really are different things. nets are structured and have a net control running the show, and even the casual ragchew nets have a format. free operating is just you out there making contacts on your own. both are valid, i do both depending on my mood. the nets are great for building confidence because you know your turn is coming and you know what to say basically. free operating feels more like a real conversation once you get used to it. just takes time honestly.

Yeah what he said, and also just wanted to add — WAS is fun because its 50 states so in some ways easier to wrap your head around when youre starting out. I actually knocked out WAS before I got serious about DXCC just because stateside contacts are easier to confirm when youre still figuring out propagation and all that. WAZ is 40 CQ zones and some of those zones are genuinely hard to find active stations from depending on where you live. One thing nobody told me when I started chasing DXCC was to be really careful about logging the entity correctly at the time of the QSO. Some places have weird situations where different parts count as different entities and if your logging software doesnt flag it you can miss it. WSJT and a lot of the digital mode stuff handles this pretty well automatically but worth double checking on older contacts you import.

welcome to the hobby, dont stress too much about the first radio honestly. the baofeng will absolutely work for hitting local repeaters and you'll learn a lot just fumbling around with it. the interface is a bit clunky and the manual reads like it was translated by someone who had never seen a radio before, but CHIRP makes programming it way easier once you get that set up that said if you can swing the FT-60R i do think its a noticably better radio, better receiver, built tougher, audio is clearer on both TX and RX. ive had mine for like 6 years and dropped it more times than i care to admit. the baofeng i had before that lasted about 18 months before something went weird with the squelch and i never bothered fixing it for APRS on a basic HT you'd need a separate TNC or use your phone with an app like APRSdroid over bluetooth, the FT-60R doesnt do APRS natively either. if you know youre definitely gonna want APRS built in you might look at the yaesu FT3DR or one of the kenwood TH-D series but those are a bigger jump in price

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and been using a buddistick which works ok but i want to build something more permanent for 40m. been reading everything i can find about half wave dipoles and i think i get the basic math, 468 divided by freq in mhz, so for 7.150 thats roughly 65.5 feet total, each leg about 32.75 feet. seems straightforward enough. my question is more about the feedpoint. im planning to use 50 ohm coax to the shack and i keep reading about how the impedance at the feedpoint of a dipole is around 73 ohms so theres a slight mismatch but most people just deal with it and the swr is still low enough that a modern radio wont freak out. is that right? or do i need a balun at the feedpoint, and if so what kind. ive seen people say 1:1 current balun, some say voltage balun, some say just choke the coax with some ferrite beads and call it a day. also planning to hang it in an inverted V config because i only have one good tall support (a pine tree thats maybe 40 feet up). the ends would only be about 8-10 feet off the ground. is that gonna be a problem for the radiation pattern or should i just not overthink it and try it

i went through the exact same thing a few months ago lol. what finally helped me was just running gpredict on my laptop next to me with the doppler display up so i could at least see roughly where i should be, even without CAT control its useful just as a reference. also 47 degrees is a solid pass, you should definitely be hearing traffic on it. if you were only getting noise i wonder if maybe you had uplink and downlink swapped or something? i did that embarrisingly long time before i caught it

congrats on already being that close without even trying, thats actually a solid start. so for DXCC the paper QSLs absolutely count, you just have to get them verified at an ARRL card checking session — your local club probably does them or you can send them in directly. LOTW is easier for sure but dont throw away your bureau cards, they still have value for this. WAZ is a CQ Magazine award, totally separate from ARRL. you need to work all 40 zones and yes some of them are genuinely painful to get, zone 26 being the classic one everyone complains about. but a lot of the zones stack up pretty fast if youve been working DX at all. honestly with 87 confirmed my advice is just get on during good DX openings and work everything you havent worked before, dont overthink it yet. the last 10-15 toward 100 will slow down a bit but its very doable on a vertical and 100w if your location isnt terrible. WAS you can knock out mostly on 40m if you have patience.

yeah what he said about the EQ is real, i ignored that for way too long on mine. one thing i'd add is just get on websdr or have someone you trust do a real recording of your signal and actually listen back to it. sounds obvious but i didnt do it for like a year and when i finally heard myself i was like oh wow that explains the reports. turned out i had a grounding issue that was adding some low level hum and i never would have caught it just going by ALC and reports alone.

ok so ive been trying to get more into chasing DX lately and a buddy at my club mentioned using cluster spotting networks to find activity. ive been poking around DXwatch and the QRZ logbook page for a few weeks now and i think i understand the basics but honestly im not totally sure im using these together in the most efficient way. right now what i do is pull up DXwatch and filter by band, then when i see something interesting i jump over to QRZ to look up the callsign and check if its a new one for me. then i go tune to the spot frequency and hope the station is still there. half the time they're gone by the time i get there or the frequency is just chaos with a pileup and i cant really figure out where the DX is actually transmitting vs where everyone is calling. is there a better workflow here? like should i be running something like DX4WIN or one of the logging programs that pulls cluster data in automatically? i have Ham Radio Deluxe but havent really dug into the cluster integration part of it yet. also are there any good phone apps for this stuff, i saw someone mention DX Toolkit but couldnt find much about it. just want to make sure im not overcomplicating this whole thing when maybe theres a simpler way.

so ive been chasing this one for about two weeks now and im at the point where im just going to post about it because i clearly cant figure it out on my own. the radio receives fine, i can hear everything perfectly, swr is where it should be, power output looks normal on my meter (about 95w on 40m which is what i expect). but apparently when i transmit nobody can hear me or they say its just a faint carrier with no audio at all. ive already swapped the mic and that wasnt it. checked the mic connector for cold joints and reflowed a couple that looked questionable, still the same issue. the ALC is doing something when i key up so the PA stage isnt completely dead. im starting to wonder if its somewhere in the modulator section or maybe the mic amp itself. i did notice the mic gain pot feels a little scratchy when you turn it but even cranked all the way up no difference. anyone dealt with this on an 857? or really any similar symptom on any rig. im running out of ideas and the service manual isnt exactly written for humans to understand.

so ive been working on this 40m direct conversion receiver for about three weeks now, following the NorCal 40A schematic more or less but i kind of deviated on the audio section because i had some TL072s on hand instead of whatever they called for. got the thing mostly working last night and i can hear stations but theres this really annoying hum that seems to follow the signal level, like it gets louder when im tuned to a strong station and then quiets down a bit when im between signals. doesnt totally go away even with the antenna disconnected though which is weird. my power supply is a wall wart 12v switching type, i know i know, probably should have used a linear supply or at least added more filtering. i do have a big 2200uf cap across the rails and a couple of .1uf ceramics scattered around. the hum is around 120hz i think, i tapped it through my soundcard and looked at it in fldigi and it looks like a really dirty 120hz spike, so definitely some rectification artifact getting in somehow. has anyone dealt with this on a homebrew DC receiver specifically, the part that confuses me is why it gets worse with strong signals. i half wonder if the switching noise is somehow getting coupled back in through the antenna but that seems backwards. anyway its been bugging me for like 4 days and im starting to question all my decoupling choices

Planning to hit my first hamfest this weekend at RARSfest in Raleigh. I've been licensed for about 6 months and my XYL is coming along too. What should we expect? Any tips for first-timers? I've heard the flea market can be overwhelming.

honestly for casual use and domestic contacts the difference is pretty small in practice. on paper the flat top has a slight edge for low angle but at 35-45 feet on 40m youre not getting amazing low angle radiation from either one, the antenna is just too low electrically speaking. an inverted V with apex at 45 and legs at 45 degrees is going to have a higher angle lobe anyway which actually works fine for stateside stuff, skip distances under 1000 miles or so. i modeled something similar a while ago and the gain difference between a clean inverted V and a droopy flat top was basically noise, like half a dB or less. what matters more is feedpoint impedance — a proper inverted V at 45 degree leg angle comes in closer to 50 ohms which makes your coax happy without a tuner, whereas a flat top is closer to 72 and you might see some mismatch depending on your rig. so honestly just commit to the inverted V, easier to set up cleanly and probably fewer headaches

Using "cute" phonetics under marginal conditions will probably just confuse the other operator. Sometimes switching between phonetic systems can help if the other station is having trouble copying your callsign through the noise. Stick to the standards until you get more experience!

had almost the exact same thing on mine last year. turned out to be a cold solder joint on one of the driver board connectors — the internal ribbon cable that connects the PA to the main board had a connector that wasn't fully seated and would flex just enough under thermal expansion to lose contact. worth pulling the covers and reseating all the internal connectors first before you go chasing something more serious. takes maybe 20 minutes and costs nothing. also worth checking is whether you have any RF getting back into the rig somehow. i know you swapped coax but if your feedline runs near the power cable you can sometimes get common mode garbage causing weird ALC behavior. threw a few ferrite clamps on mine and it helped with a different issue i was having.

I see your point about self-reliance, but remember that remote operation still requires significant technical knowledge to set up properly. The RF engineering, antenna theory, and propagation understanding remain essential.

NEVER CROSSBAND REPEAT TWO REPEATERS TOGETHER!! By doing so, you run the risk of a signal loop, causing both repeaters to remain up, and rendering the systems useless. Keep power levels low to manage heat and battery drain. I typically run 5-10 watts max on the mobile units.

I've run both extensively. wfview typically gives me under 200ms audio latency locally, and even through VPN from remote location it's under 400ms. The hamlib integration is solid for JTDX and WSJT-X. RemoteHams has better antenna rotator control but requires more port forwarding setup.

yeah what he said. also make sure you have the net control's callsign written down somewhere and the primary and any backup frequencies — dont rely on memory when you're standing out in the cold at 0630. i keep a little laminated card in my go bag with all of that plus the phonetic alphabet even though i know it by heart now, just a habit from my first few years doing RACES events. oh and one thing nobody told me early on — when in doubt, just say your callsign and stand by. dont step on traffic trying to figure out what to do. net control will come back to you.

the extra dit thing is almost definitely your timing on releasing the paddle — iambic keyers are pretty sensitive and if you hang on the dit paddle even a tiny bit after finishing a dah it'll grab another element. took me forever to unlearn that when i switched from a straight key. some people actually turn off the iambic mode entirely and just use single lever mode on the keyer until they get the feel for it, might be worth trying that first so you're not fighting the squeeze timing while you're still building muscle memory as for getting on the air, 10 wpm is totally fine. just put QRS in your CQ or answer someone who's calling slow. there are also dedicated slow speed nets, the FISTS club has a few and the SKCC folks are super welcoming to newer CW ops. honestly if you call CQ at 10 wpm most decent operators will come back to you at whatever speed you sent, just dont panic when they do and take your time

Our club is planning to activate special event station W3XYZ in April for our town's 150th anniversary. We expect to work multiple bands simultaneously with several operators over the weekend. What logging software works best for multi-op special events? We need something that can handle multiple rigs, prevent duplicate QSOs, and export to ADIF easily for QSL processing. We're looking at N3FJP software and Ham Radio Deluxe, but would love to hear real-world experiences from other special event operations.

ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i keep seeing people talk about LoTW and eQSL and paper QSL cards and im honestly not sure if i need to be doing all of these or if one is enough. like right now i log everything in WSJT-X and then it goes into JTDX wait no i mean i use WSJT-X and log to the ADIF and i upload to LoTW when i remember to but i havent really sent any paper cards out at all. my question is basically does it matter? i got a card in the mail last week from a station in Japan which was pretty cool honestly but i dont have anything to send back. do people actually care about getting the physical card or is digital confirmation fine these days. also ive seen some awards that specifically require LoTW confirmations and others that say eQSL is ok but im not sure what the difference is in terms of which one is more accepted. sorry if this is a dumb question im just trying to figure out how all this stuff fits together

just passed my tech last month actually so this is pretty fresh for me. i used hamstudy and also watched some youtube videos from a guy called KB6NU i think, he has a no nonsense study guide thats pretty cheap. took me maybe 3 weeks of studying like 20-30 mins a night and i passed no problem one thing i'd say is dont overthink the electrical theory questions, theres only a few of em and you can honestly just memorize the answers even if you dont fully get ohms law or whatever. the rest of it is mostly rules and operating procedures which makes more sense once you read a bit about how the bands work

Honestly a lot of it just comes down to listening way more than you transmit. I know that sounds backwards but the operators running these DXpeditions are usually pulling out partials and specific calls from the chaos so if you pick your moment carefully you have a way better shot than just hammering away. Figure out exactly where they're listening — not just "up 5" but are they moving around, working by call district, going by suffix? A lot of expeditions will work by number or region and half the pileup is calling when they literally cannot work them. The other thing is timing. Wait until you hear the DX come back to someone, copy the full exchange, then as soon as that QSO wraps transmit your call once or twice clean. Tail-ending works but you gotta be precise about it, like right on the heels of the previous contact finishing not half a second into the DX transmitting again. Takes practice to get the feel for it. 100w and a vertical can absolutely work rare DX. Propagation and timing matter way more than most people realize. That said a small beam even a 2 or 3 element thing would definitely help, the gain is real but honestly the front to back is what cleans up your receive side and that changes everything.

honest answer: SO2R is a multiplier on your existing skill, not a replacement for it. if you're doing 1000 QSOs single radio, adding a second radio won't double that unless you already have solid band change discipline and know when to abandon a run frequency. i ran single op for probably six years before i set up a second radio and the first few contests i actually did WORSE because i was so distracted managing two VFOs that i lost my run freq constantly. the dead time problem you're describing is real and SO2R does address it, but you can get most of that back just by being more aggressive about when you move. a lot of ops sit on a dying run freq way too long out of habit. if the rate drops below maybe 40/hr for more than 10 minutes on a band that should be producing, just go S&P for a bit and come back. also are you using the packet cluster or running assisted? that changes the S&P math quite a bit

A simple ground rod and 4 x 12m radials can work incredibly well if you're on a budget. Start with 16-20 radials and add more if needed. Dollar store speaker wire works for radials - just strip it apart. Focus on getting the antenna up first, then optimize the ground system.