Radio Geek

honestly the difference on 40m is probably not going to blow your mind. the inverted V does have a bit higher takeoff angle and loses maybe a dB or two broadside compared to a flat dipole at the same apex height, but were talking real-world signals here not an anechoic chamber. if you're working DX regularly and chasing that last dB then yeah maybe its worth the effort, but for general domestic use on 40 i wouldnt bother dragging extra lumber around just to flatten it out. the omnidirectional-ish pattern is actually a legit advantage the way you described using it. flat dipole has more pronounced nulls off the ends and if one of those nulls points at somewhere you care about youll notice it. keep what you got and put the energy into maybe getting that apex up another 5-10 feet if you can, height helps more than geometry at that point

the SOTAwatch spotting thing is really the key to getting more than just 4 contacts imo. once i started alerting a day or two ahead of time and then spotting myself right when i got on the air i started getting pileups pretty fast, like within a minute or two of calling CQ. people are just sitting there waiting. also dont forget you can work other modes too if ssb is slow, a lot of activators carry a tiny cw setup and the chasers on cw are super active. i only got into cw last year but it's made activations way more fun, especially when band conditions aren't great.

yeah you basically have it right. DXCC is run by the ARRL and requires 100 confirmed entities to get the basic certificate, though there are way more than 100 entities total so people keep chasing past that. WAS is also ARRL — all 50 states confirmed. WAZ is actually run by CQ Magazine, not ARRL, and the 40 zones are this international grid system that divides the world up, you can find a map online and it starts making sense pretty quick. the credits thing — yeah you submit through LoTW for the ARRL awards mostly, and CQ has their own system for WAZ but LoTW confirmations are accepted there too now i believe. fees are pretty modest, like under $20 for most of them when you apply, but the real cost is the radio time ha. and yes your club member is 100% right, log everything to LoTW from the start. i didnt do that my first couple years and i basically had to start over for award purposes. painful lesson. get your station callsign certificates set up properly and just make it part of your routine after every session.

I just keep N1MM for contests and import after. Tried to make one logger do everything for like two years and kept running into weird edge cases. Life got easier when I stopped fighting it.

yeah what he said but also dont stress too much about memorizing all of them at once, some of the Q codes on those big official lists are super obscure maritime stuff from like a hundred years ago and you will literally never hear them on the air. the ones that come up in everyday HF contacts you can probably learn in a week just from listening. i'd say QRZ, QSL, QTH, QRM, QSB, and 73 will cover like 80% of what you encounter in a regular ragchew or net

so i finally did my first real POTA activation yesterday at a state park about 45 mins from me, been putting it off for months and just said screw it lets go. brought my KX2 and a end fed halfwave up in a tree and figured id have no problem getting my 10 contacts. well the tree situation was not great, kept snagging the wire and i ended up with the antenna like way lower than i wanted, maybe 15 feet at the apex? also forgot my camp chair so i was basically sitting on a cooler the whole time which was not comfortable at all. ended up making it work on 40m, signals were decent and i got my 10 in about 25 mins once i actually got spotted on the app. 20m was pretty dead for me or maybe it was the low antenna i dunno. but yeah it counted and ill take it. already thinking about what i need to fix for next time, mostly the antenna situation and maybe a better kit overall.

okay so the power thing is pretty straightforward once you see it laid out. 1500 watts PEP output is the max for most HF bands yeah, but there are exceptions — 30 meters is limited to 200 watts PEP and you have to be secondary to government users up there so you also have to yield if there's any interference. and then some of the weak signal stuff like near the beacons has lower limits too. the general vs extra distinction is really about frequency privileges not power, so as a general you're just excluded from certain sub-bands that are extra only. like on 20m you cant operate phone below 14.225, that chunk from 14.150 to 14.225 is extra only. the ARRL band plan chart is honestly the fastest way to get a handle on it, way easier than trying to parse the actual CFR text. part 97.313 is the specific section for power if you want to look it up but the band plan chart just shows you where you can and cant go at a glance

also worth checking — are you talking directly into the mic or is it off to the side? i had a similar complaint from a buddy and turned out i was just not positioned right and the mic was picking up too much room. the stock HM-207 on the 7300 isnt bad but it kind of wants you right in front of it. minor thing but made a difference for me once i fixed my mic technique. also if you havent already, do a quick record and playback using the built in function on the radio, it'll kind of show you roughly what youre sending and sometimes thats enough to hear whats off without needing someone else to critique you on air

totally normal to feel that way starting out, honestly most of us were the same. for the open discussion part, most nets i've been on the net control will either open it up explicitly or you can just unkey after the current station finishes and give your call. something like just saying your callsign during a pause is the usual way to indicate you want to add something — net control will usually come back to you. you're not going to offend anyone by trying, worst case net control just moves on and you get the hang of the timing after a few sessions. the leaving early thing — yeah just give net control a quick call before you go, something like "[your call] needs to clear, thanks for the net" or however your net does it. most net controls really appreciate it because they're trying to track who's still there for traffic or emergencies. just disappearing isnt a big deal if it was a one-off but making it a habit might get noticed.

not dumb at all, everyone goes through this. so for most casual nets the net control will say something like "all stations wishing to check in please give your callsign" and you just wait for a pause and say your callsign phonetically. some nets want name and location, some just want the call, honestly you learn which is which pretty fast by listening for a session or two before jumping in. if you miss the check-in window its usually fine to say youre late when they give another opportunity. for special event stations, the ARRL website has a listing, its under operating resources I think. W1AW sometimes runs special events and there are a bunch of independent ones throughout the year tied to stuff like national parks, historical anniversaries, that kind of thing. QRZ also shows them sometimes. the one near you sounds like it might be a 13 Colonies event or something similar but without knowing your area hard to say. worth checking both sites though.

Q65 has basically taken over from JT65 for EME at this point, at least on 2m. the sensitivity is a bit better and it handles the doppler spread more gracefully which matters a lot depending on where the moon is in its orbit. you can still find JT65 activity but if you're starting fresh just go Q65, you'll have more potential contacts especially with the smaller pistol stations. on your antenna question, 4 yagis is very doable for initial EME contacts. guys have done it with 2 yagis and decent power honestly, maybe 400-500W at the feed. the preamp situation is real though, you absolutely want low NF at the antenna, like sub 0.5 dB if you can manage it. the SSB Elec units are fine, people use them all the time. cryogenic is fantastic if you want the last dB or two but its not where you start. the feedline matters a ton, you want it as short as physically possible. some guys mount the preamp on a relay right at the antenna so it switches with PTT, that's honestly the way to go even if it's a bit of wiring work. the bigger challenge honestly for a suburban lot is going to be elevation. you need to track the moon obviously so you need at least some elevation capability, which complicates the HOA situation. worth looking into what your actual moon windows look like from your location before you spend a ton on hardware.

so i finally did my first SOTA activation last weekend up on a local summit here in western NC, been wanting to do this for like two years and kept putting it off. anyway packed up my KX2 and a 20m end fed and a little tripod mast thing and hiked up about 45 minutes to the top. got everything set up and... yeah the wire kept catching in the trees on the way up and i lost like a whole section of the counterpoise somewhere on the trail. so im up there with basically half an antenna and no cell signal to look anything up. ended up making contact with 4 stations on 20m which i think technically counts but it was a mess. the band was also kind of dead when i was up there around noon which i know now is not ideal. going again next month and bringing way more wire than i think i need and also a proper antenna bag instead of just stuffing it in my pack. anyone else have a disaster first activation story

SOTA is what really got me hooked on actually operating instead of just tinkering with gear honestly. theres something about hauling a KX2 and a roll of wire up a hill and then actually making it work that just feels more real than sitting in the shack. the CQ WW activation i did from a summit last fall where i was also a SOTA reference was kind of a cool overlap, people were hunting me for both at the same time which was chaotic but fun. for Field Day i'd say try the club thing at least once, you can always go back to solo if it isnt your thing but you might meet people with killer stations who want a buddy for future stuff

the thing that gets people most often is power — not just having a battery but knowing how long it'll actually last under real conditions. like do you know your 817's draw on receive vs transmit? worth measuring that before you need it. i keep a small DC watt meter in my kit just for sanity checking. other stuff people forget: a headlamp (not just a flashlight, you need your hands free), a copy of your local ARES/RACES frequencies on paper because you wont always have internet to look them up, and honestly a small roll of electrical tape has saved me more than once. also some kind of antenna support — even a cheap telescoping painter's pole works, you'd be surprised how often there's nowhere good to hang a wire. and yes get your General, seriously. having HF capability when local repeaters go down or get overwhelmed is huge. the 817 you have is already a great HF rig once you upgrade.

So ive been noticing some really solid openings on 10 meters the past couple weeks, worked a few stations in South America yesterday afternoon with just 50 watts and my vertical which honestly surprised me. Solar cycle 25 doing its thing i guess. Feels like the band is starting to act like it did back around the 2000-2001 peak which is exciting if youre into DX at all. Also saw that Icom dropped some info about a new HF rig coming later this year, not sure how credible the source was but there was some chatter about it on one of the Facebook groups. Anyone else hear anything about that? And there was apparently a big hamfest in Dayton where some new antenna stuff was announced but i missed it this year so im going off secondhand stuff. Anyway just wanted to see if others are noticing the same thing on 10 and 15. Been a while since propagation was this fun.