Diploe Dan

the 756pro and 7300 combo is a bit awkward just because of the control interfaces but people have made worse combinations work. main thing i'd worry about is your antennas — are they close together? thats usually where people get into trouble before they even get to the filter question. if you have a tribander and a wire in a totally different direction you might be surprised how well it works even without perfect filtering, at least on bands that are far apart like 40 and 10. also dont underestimate just getting better at running a single radio first. like the guys making crazy rates in SO1R are doing things most people dont think about — holding a frequency agressively, how fast they send CW, when to send a partial call vs wait, QSY strategy between bands. SO2R adds complexity on top of all that, it doesnt replace the fundamentals

congrats on the first one, 47 QSOs is a solid debut honestly. and yes you remembered right, 44 is the magic number for a valid activation in WWFF. phone and CW and digital all count together toward that total, you dont need 44 of each mode separately which is good news for most of us. for uploading, wwff.cc is the main database you want. some folks also upload to their own logbook of the world or qrz log just for personal records but as far as WWFF credit goes, the .cc site is where it counts. just make sure your ADIF has the WWFF reference in the right field — i think its the SIG and SIG_INFO fields if i remember right, or you can sometimes just use the comment field depending on what software youre validating with. worth double checking the wwff.cc upload guide because ive seen a few people have their logs kicked back for formatting. 40m is great for activations, especially in the morning. glad you had some EU hunters calling in, that always makes it feel a bit more real somehow.

the doppler thing is probably your main issue. on a linear transponder the uplink and downlink are on different bands so the doppler shift is different for each one and you have to correct both independently. gpredict can drive the 9700 via CAT if you set it up right, there's a radio control section in the settings where you point it at the CI-V port. once thats done gpredict will chase the frequency on both VFOs as the pass progresses. but honestly even before that, try just listening first. tune around the downlink passband during a good pass, like 60 degrees or higher elevation if you can catch one, and just see if you can pull out any SSB signals. AO-73 isnt always active depending on its power budget too, worth checking amsat's status pages before you go out because sometimes the bird is in economy mode and the transponder is off or limited. also your homebrew yagis — are they circularly polarized? linear pol works but you'll have deep fades as the satellite tumbles, which AO-73 does. not a dealbreaker but something to be aware of.

congrats man. i remember my first qso on a local repeater, guy on the other end had been licensed since the 70s and he just started telling me about field day stories and i had no idea what field day even was yet lol. you'll figure it out. HF is a whole different world once you get there, in a good way mostly

Start with Gpredict - it's free and works great for beginners. Popular picks include AMSAT Online Pass Predictions, Gpredict, and Ham Radio Deluxe. You'll get real-time maps, elevation graphs, and azimuth headings. Download fresh Keplerian elements daily and you'll be good to go.

so ive been messing around with an arduino mega for a few weeks now trying to get it to automatically switch between my vertical and my dipole based on what band i dial in on the radio. the idea is to have it read the band data output from my IC-7300 (it outputs band info on the USB serial port) and then fire the appropriate relay to route the feedline. sounds simple enough in theory but im running into issues with the relay coil voltage — the arduino 5v logic isnt driving the relay directly without a transistor buffer and i keep frying things apparently anyway before i go further down this rabbit hole wondering if anyone has done something similar or has a better approach. ive seen some folks use raspberry pi instead but honestly seems like overkill for just switching relays. also not sure if i should be looking at a proper relay shield or just rolling my own with discrete transistors and some flyback diodes. my soldering is decent but im not an EE by any stretch any pointers welcome, been at this hobby about 3 years now mostly HF digital modes and this is my first real electronics project beyond kit building

I've done similar scaling projects and the diameter effect is real but not huge. Use tools like MMANA-GAL or EZNEC. Model both versions in software first - it'll save you hours of cut-and-try work in the field.

so ive been trying to work some DX on 17 and 20 meters for the past couple weeks and honestly its been pretty discouraging. like i can hear the odd european station early morning but by the time i get my antenna tuned up and actually call they're gone or buried in noise. checked the solar flux index this morning and it was sitting around 118 which i thought was decent enough but still nothing really opening up for me toward EU from the midwest. my buddy down in texas was telling me he had a great run into japan last weekend on 15 meters but when i tried the same time window i got basically nothing. is this just a geographic thing or am i missing something about how to read the conditions better. i use the DXmaps site sometimes but im not always sure how to interpret what im seeing there. any advice from people who actually chase DX regularly would be great

Been running the BEKO HLV-523 500W amplifier for 23cm EME but experiencing thermal shutdowns during 60-second Q65 transmissions above 200W output. Initially had a Gemini 23 PA that would temperature trip during Q65 bursts, had to back it down to 120W. The HLV-523 seemed like the solution but now having similar issues. Discovered arcing at the output cable interface - turns out the semi-flex coax was only 0.114" rated under 300W for a 500W amplifier! Replaced with 0.25" coax and solved the problem. Anyone else run into power handling issues with microwave EME amplifiers during long digital transmissions?

one thing i dont see mentioned much is just working the less popular bands for the same DXpedition. everyone piles onto 20m and 15m, but if thats a longer haul DX the 40m window in the evening might be way less crowded and propagation might actually be better for your path anyway. got my ZL8 on 40 CW years ago in about three calls while 20m was an absolute mess. sometimes the obvious band isnt the right band.

yeah canada is actually one of the easier ones to deal with for this. there's a reciprocal operating arrangement between the US and canada so you dont need to apply for a separate license or anything like that. you basically operate under your US callsign but you have to follow canadian regulations which means IC (Industry Canada, or i guess its called ISED now) rules apply not FCC part 97. so your privileges are kind of the intersection of what both countries allow which in practice usually just means following whichever is more restrictive. you should append something to your callsign while operating from canada, like W1XYZ/VE3 or however your brother in laws province prefix works out. honestly just look up the CEPT agreement and also the specific canada-US arrangement because theyre slightly different things and people mix them up all the time including me for a while.

not a dumb question at all, honestly most new hams go through exactly this. for a regular net the net control station will usually open it up and say something like "is there any station wishing to check in" or whatever their format is, and you just key up and say your callsign phonetically. thats really it. some nets want your name and location too, net control will usually tell you what they want when they ask for check-ins. the nervousness goes away fast, i promise. first few times your voice might shake a little but nobody cares, everyone was new once. just make sure you wait for a clear break and dont step on anyone. if you miss the check-in window some net controls will still take late check-ins toward the end too so dont stress if you miss the first round. the special event stations are a totally separate thing from nets. youre just making a normal QSO with them to get the credit or certificate, no formal check-in procedure. the lighthouse ones are usually on weekends and theyre fun to hunt around for. worth doing if you have time.

I keep mine at 300-2800Hz on the TS-590SG. Setting high pass to 100Hz helps avoid puffing sounds, though too much bass makes you sound muddy and wastes power. During contests I'll narrow to 400-2500Hz to be a good neighbor.

Emergency services coordination as a volunteer is generally fine - meal vouchers for actual emergency response wouldn't typically be considered "material compensation" in the prohibited sense. However, discussing work projects is definitely a gray area that's best avoided. The key test is whether amateur radio is being used to conduct business or for commercial advantage.

yeah im definitely going, been going for like 6 years straight now. the swap meet tables are where its at honestly, got a almost mint IC-7300 two years ago for way under market price from some guy cleaning out his shack. just get there early if you want the good stuff cause by noon its mostly picked over junk and overpriced adapters

ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (tech class) and i finally got a Baofeng UV-5R which i know i know everybody has opinions about those but its what i could afford. anyway i programmed in the local 147.xxx repeater and i can hear people talking on it just fine but when i try to transmit nobody responds and im not sure if they can even hear me. i looked up the repeater on repeaterbook and it shows a CTCSS tone of 100.0 Hz but i honestly dont fully understand what that means or how to check if ive set it up right on the radio. i set something in the menu called CTCSS T but there are like 50 menu options on this thing and half of them make no sense. also someone on another forum said something about needing to set the receive tone too but i wasnt sure if that applied here. also separate question kind of — when i do get on the repeater is there any like etiquette i should know about? i dont want to step on someone mid conversation or do something embarrassing. heard there's kind of an unwritten rulebook for this stuff

so ive been trying to get my remote station dialed in for the past few weeks and im at my wits end with the audio side of things. quick background: i've got an IC-7300 at the remote end running through RemoteHams RCForb server software, internet connection at the shack is about 25Mbps down and maybe 5 up, which i thought would be plenty. the SDR piece is where it gets weird — im also pulling in a separate SDR stream via WebSDR for a panadapter view since the 7300's scope doesnt translate super cleanly over the remote link, at least not in my experience. the audio drops happen randomly, sometimes every few minutes, sometimes i get a solid 30 minutes of no issues and then bam it just cuts out. i dont think its the internet connection itself because my ping stays pretty stable when i check it. latency to the remote site is around 40ms which seems fine. i've messed with the jitter buffer settings in RCForb and bumped it up a bit but havent noticed a huge difference. codec is set to OPUS at 32kbps which i figured was a reasonable middle ground. anyone been through this? wondering if its worth trying to set up a dedicated VLAN just for the radio traffic to keep it separate from the rest of the house network or if thats overkill. also curious if anyone has used the internet linking side for connecting to a local repeater while running remote — im thinking about tying into a nearby Allstar node but not sure how that plays with RemoteHams at the same time.

oh man i didnt know about the spotting network thing either when i started, cost me probably an hour of calling CQ into the void on my first activation haha. now i spot myself on the wwff network and pota app at the same time before i even key up and the first call usually comes within a minute or two. also dont underestimate 17m if you have the capability, weirdly good for WWFF sometimes especially mid morning

honestly the theory isnt as brutal as the reputation suggests, at least not if you give yourself a few weeks and dont try to cram it all in a weekend. the harder parts for most people are the filter sections and anything involving reactance and impedance calculations but even those follow patterns once you sit with them long enough. i used the ARRL extra class manual and just worked through it chapter by chapter, took me about 6 weeks studying maybe 30-45 min a night. the thing people forget is you dont need a perfect score, you need 74% so there's room to have weak spots. i was never fully comfortable with the transmission line loss calculations but i understood enough to pass and honestly being forced to study that stuff made me a way better operator overall. i actually understand why my antenna tuner is doing what its doing now which i definitely could not have told you before. as for privileges changing day to day use — yeah it does matter if you're into contesting or dx chasing. that extra slice on 75m and the cw portions of 40 and 20 are not huge but they add up when a pileup is happening and the dx station is parked right at the edge of the general limit and you just... cant get there.

yeah the weight thing is real, took me three activations to figure out what i actually needed vs what i was just hauling up for no reason. i left my big battery at home and just use a small 3ah lipo now, 5 watts is usually plenty for ssb if conditions are decent. also pota is a bit more forgiving if you want to practice cause you can usually drive right up to the park and just sit at a picnic table which is way less stressful when youre still figuring out your kit

Been experimenting with ground plane configurations on my homebrew 20m vertical and getting conflicting advice. 76.5 is the recommended angle for achieving an impedance of 50 ohms when using a single elevated radial. 45 degrees is recommended when two or more or used. Some sources insist on 4+ radials while others claim single radial works fine. Currently running SWR of 1.02 with one elevated radial at approximately 76° angle. Performance seems decent for DX but wondering if I'm missing something. As long as you install at least 60 ground radials, it will work well enough for DX to keep your Amateur Radio enjoyment up for a long, long time - but that seems excessive for elevated systems.

so after years of telling myself i'd get around to it, i actually started building a proper go-kit this weekend. got a pelican case, threw in my FT-857D, a small switching power supply, some coax jumpers, my logging notebook, extra fuses, a headlamp and some other random stuff. also grabbed a cheap 100ah lithium battery off amazon that i havent fully tested yet under load. the thing is i dont really have a defined role in any ARES group or anything, im just trying to be ready in case something happens locally and they need operators, or honestly just for personal preparedness if the grid goes down for a few days. im in a suburban area so HF seems more useful than just relying on local repeaters that might be down. anyone been through this process and look back and go 'man i wish i had included X' — like what are the things you forgot until you actually needed them during a real event or drill? i feel like im missing something obvious but cant quite put my finger on it

had something similar on a friends 7300 last year. first thing i'd check before assuming PA is dead is the TX inhibit line — there's a protection circuit that can latch up after a high SWR event or even just a firmware hiccup and it just silently blocks TX. connect it to a PC, pull up the diagnostic mode in the menu (hold down the menu button on boot if i remember right, might be slightly different on newer firmware) and see if theres any fault flags sitting there. also check that the ACC socket on the back hasnt got something weird happening on pin 3, external TX inhibit can come in that way and people forget they had something plugged in there six months ago. if none of that pans out then yeah you're probably looking at Q1010 or one of the driver transistors upstream of the finals. the 7300 PA section isnt terrible to work on but you really want the service manual before you start probing around in there. icom's SM is actually decent for this rig.

That FT-857D is a solid choice for a first kit. Since you're new, consider starting with a simple wire dipole for 40m - cheap, effective, and easy to deploy. Once you get comfortable with that, then look at more complex antenna systems.

you'll do fine, wwff activations are pretty relaxed compared to some of the other programs. I always call CQ WWFF when im activating, seems to help pull in the hunters who are specifically looking for those contacts. As for qsl cards, i upload everything to lotw and eqsl but also send paper cards to anyone who requests them - lots of wwff folks still like the paper cards for their collections. Make sure you have your reference number handy and maybe write it on a piece of tape stuck to your radio so you dont forget it when people ask. The 10 qso minimum is pretty easy to make on 20m during the day. Have fun out there!