David Kim

congrats on the General! so the vanity system isnt too bad once you understand the basics. basically you file through the FCC ULS and you list up to 25 callsigns in order of preference. after a 30 day waiting period (used to be shorter, they changed it a while back) if nobody else applied for the same call with a higher priority claim, you get it. theres no lottery exactly but if multiple people apply for the same call in the same window, whoever has the highest "preference" wins -- and thats based on things like whether you held that call before, whether its a former holder's family member applying, stuff like that. most of the time for a random available call you wont have competition though. as for formats, with a General you can apply for most of the standard formats in your district -- 1x3, 2x3, 2x2 i believe, and i think 1x2 might require Extra but dont quote me on that part, double check the FCC rules. the AE7Q website is your best friend here, it shows available callsigns and upcoming ones coming back into the pool. seriously bookmark it. and no you dont have to wait any time after upgrading, you can apply right away.

so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and i keep seeing people talk about cw on here and it honestly sounds kind of cool but i have absolutely no idea where to begin. like do you just memorize the dots and dashes on a chart or what? i tried that once and got nowhere fast. someone at my club mentioned the koch method but i dont really understand what that means in practice. is there an app or a website that walks you through it or do i need to buy something. also how long does this realistically take to get to like 5 wpm, i know everyone is different but ballpark. i feel like this is one of those things thats easier if someone just shows you the right path first instead of you figuring it out by trial and error

ok so i passed my technician exam about three weeks ago and im still trying to figure out exactly what im allowed to operate on. i know i have HF privileges on 10 meters but my buddy told me theres also something on 15 meters for techs? and i looked at part 97 but honestly that document is not exactly easy to read if you know what i mean. like i found the frequency allocation tables but then theres all these footnotes and sub-sections and i got lost pretty quick. also im a little confused about the whole control operator thing. if a general class guy is at the club station and he lets me sit down and operate, can i transmit on his privileges or do i still have to stick to mine? i feel like i heard both answers and dont want to get myself in trouble with the FCC before ive even really gotten started.

this is really interesting to read as someone who just got their ticket a few months ago and joined ARES but hasnt been to a drill yet. I always kind of assumed the experienced guys had all this stuff figured out and it's weirdly reassuring to hear that dead batteries and coverage gaps are things everyone deals with. I've been nervous about showing up and not knowing what I'm doing but maybe that's less of a thing than I thought. Do you usually have a role for newer people in these exercises or is it mostly the experienced ops running things?

so ive been using the hamstudy.org site and also got the ARRL technician manual but honestly its a lot of stuff and im not sure what actually matters for the test vs what i should just know generally. like some of the electrical theory stuff feels really deep for what im trying to do. my goal is just to get on 2m and maybe HF eventually with a general but for now just trying to pass tech. anyone have a sense of how hard it actually is if you just grind the question pool? i heard the questions are taken directly from the pool so if you memorize them you should be fine but then i also heard you actually need to understand stuff for general so maybe i should learn it properly now. idk just looking for what worked for people

yeah the peer to peer mode is really for when theres no gateway reachable at all, like you and another guy both have winlink and you just connect direct radio to radio and exchange messages that way. useful for actual emergencies where infrastructure is down but for normal use you want RMS gateways. our emcomm group drills with both just to make sure people know how to do it when things go sideways.

yeah i do this but usually on 80 because thats where all the old timers in my area hang out and honestly the conversations are way more interesting than anything on 40 lol. though the noise floor on 80 at my qth is pretty rough lately not sure whats changed

the SDR piece is honestly easier than you think once you seperate it in your head from the control link. what i do is run SDR# or SDRuno locally and just pipe the IQ stream over the LAN at the remote site, then tunnel it back. if you go the SDRplay route there's that RSP TCP server thing that works pretty well over a stable connection, though it does eat more bandwidth than you'd expect — figure maybe 3-4 mbps depending on your sample rate settings so it shouldnt kill your 15 meg pipe as long as you're not also streaming full res audio from RCForb at the same time. the echolink question — yeah thats kind of a different thing entirely. echolink and IRLP are really for linking repeaters or nodes so VHF/UHF users can access each other, its not really meant to layer onto an HF remote setup the way you're describing. you could technically put an echolink node out there if you have a 2m radio at the site too but thats a whole separate project and yeah more failure points like you said. id just leave that alone unless you have a specific reason for it. one thing i'll say is make sure your remote box has a watchdog on it. i learned the hard way that windows update will just reboot the thing at 3am and then you have no way to get back in without calling your brother in law

congrats on passing the exam, welcome to the hobby. okay so the baofeng vs everything else debate is basically a rite of passage at this point. here's my honest take after having used a bunch of different HTs over the years — the uv-5r works fine for hitting repeaters, it really does, but the programming software is a bit janky and the receiver isnt great in areas with a lot of RF noise. if youre in a busy metro area you might get some desensitization issues. for $25 though its hard to argue with it as a starter radio just to learn the ropes. that said, if you can stretch to the yaesu ft-65 range, or even look at the ft-4xr which tends to go on sale, you'll notice the build quality is just noticeably better and the receiver is cleaner. wouxun is also solid, i had a kg-uv8d for years and it held up great, good audio on both ends. for 8 miles simplex that's going to depend way more on terrain and antenna than which HT you pick honestly — rolling hills will kill you no matter what radio you have.

okay so i passed my technician exam last saturday and im super stoked, got my callsign showing up in the ULS database now which is cool. but ive been reading about vanity calls and honestly the FCC website is kind of a nightmare to navigate and i cant tell if i need to wait some specific amount of time before applying or if i can just go ahead and do it now. my uncle who got me into the hobby has a really clean 1x2 call and id love something similar eventually but i know those are harder to get. for now i was just thinking maybe a 2x3 in my district would be easier to snag. does the sequential process still happen automatically or is that only if you dont apply for a vanity? i feel like ive read like four different explanations and they all contradict each other a little

so ive had my 7300 for about 3 years now and honestly its been a great radio, no complaints really. but ive been eyeing the 7610 for a while and im trying to figure out if its actually worth the price difference or if im just suffering from new radio syndrome. the dual watch thing is what keeps pulling me in because i do a fair bit of contesting and being able to monitor two frequencies at the same time would be huge. also the dual receivers mean you can run SO2R from a single box which would clean up my shack considerably. my current setup is the 7300 into an AL-811H, antenna is a trapped vertical for 80-10 and a 2el yagi on 20 that a buddy helped me put up last spring. the shack is pretty cramped so anything that reduces boxes is a win. anyway i guess my real question is has anyone actually made this jump and did you feel like it was worth it in day to day use not just on paper

been doing hilltop stuff for probably 12 years now and honestly the answer kind of depends on what youre actually trying to do up there. if its mostly just rag chewing and hitting local repeaters, the collinear wins every time — low hassle, decent gain over a rubber duck, and you can rotate your body if you need to aim anything. but the moment you want to actually work weak signal or do any kind of simplex link over real distance the yagi just isnt comparable, theres no contest. the cheap yagis from amazon and the gray market sites are usually not horrible but the gain claims are definitely optimistic. a 5 element 2m yagi isnt giving you 12dbd, thats just not happening. something like the Arrow or even a homemade one from the ARRL handbook will outperform most of the cheap imports on actual pattern and front-to-back. ive built a few from aluminum rod and they break down pretty small actually, worth looking into if the portability thing is the main concern

thermal issues on these are usually a capacitor going leaky when hot tbh. not always the obvious stuff like finals or drivers. ive seen electrolytics in the PA stage bias circuit cause exactly this - they measure fine cold and then change value enough when warm to shift the bias point way off. easy to miss if youre only looking at the big parts. also worth checking if there are any known service bulletins for your serial number range. icom has quietly issued a couple for the 7300 over the years and dealers sometimes dont mention them.

QRM is interference from other stations, like someone transmitting on your frequency or adjacent to it, basically man-made noise. QRN is natural static and atmospheric noise, like lightning crashes and that kind of thing. so yeah pretty different once you know. QSB is signal fading, you're right on that one. and 73 just means best regards, everyone uses it as a goodbye. OM is old man which sounds rude but its just what hams call other male operators, YL is young lady and thats for female operators regardless of age. there used to be XYL for a married woman but you hear that less now. honestly the ARRL has a Q code reference sheet somewhere on their site and theres a few laminated cards you can buy that have the common ones. after a while you just absorb them without thinking about it, especially if you hang around on HF and watch the clusters or read other peoples logs

SSB QRP is totally doable but yeah CW is just more efficient for those power levels, every watt counts when youre that low. i run 5w on 40m CW most evenings and regularly get into europe from the midwest which still kind of blows my mind. congrats on the first contact tho, ohio from new mexico on 4 watts is a solid start