Radio Geek

so ive been running a compromised end-fed for about two years now and finally decided to just build a proper center-fed dipole for 40m. cut it to the standard formula, 468/f, ended up with two legs around 33 feet each. strung it up inverted-V style with the apex at maybe 28 feet off the ground using my pushup mast. coax down the center to the shack. here's where im confused though. i built a simple ugly balun, just wound about 8 turns of the coax into a coil near the feedpoint, maybe 6 inch diameter coils. resonance came out around 7.150 which is pretty close to where i wanted it but the SWR curve is way wider than i expected, like it's under 2:1 from 7.0 all the way up to 7.3 which honestly seems too good? my old end-fed with the 9:1 unun was way more finicky. is that normal for a dipole or did i do something wrong that's making it look artificially flat. the antenna analyzer shows feedpoint impedance sitting around 58-62 ohms which seems right for an inverted V but i just want to make sure im not fooling myself here. also the legs arent perfectly straight, one of them has a slight droop and kind of goes around a tree branch. probably affects things but not sure how much.

so ive been licensed about 3 years now mostly just ragchewing on 40m and doing some local nets but lately ive been getting pulled into DX chasing and honestly its kind of addictive. i worked a station in Japan last week on 20m and that feeling of getting the QSL back is something else. anyway i want to start actually going for DXCC but im a little confused about the whole process. like i understand you need 100 confirmed entities but im not sure if i should be using LoTW from the start or paper QSLs or what. also how does WAS and WAZ factor in, are those totally separate awards you apply for independently or do some of the confirmations overlap somehow. i dont want to do a bunch of work and find out i was doing it wrong the whole time. also someone mentioned mixed vs phone vs digital modes for DXCC — do most people go for mixed first and then try the mode specific ones later or is there some better strategy. sorry if this is a dumb question im just trying to figure out the best path forward without wasting a lot of effort

so ive been on FT8 for a couple years now and its fine, great for getting contacts when the band is rough, but i keep hearing people talk about JS8Call like its this whole different thing and i guess i dont fully understand what the actual use case is supposed to be. like FT8 is basically just exchange callsigns and signal reports and thats it right, you cant actually say anything. i get that JS8Call is more like... free text? but i tried it a few times and it felt really slow and honestly wasnt sure if the people i was hearing were even responding to me or just doing their own thing. also while im at it — does anyone still actually use PSK31 regularly? i have fond memories of it from like 2012 or whenever i first got my general but every time i tune around 14.070 it feels pretty dead compared to what it used to be. RTTY still seems alive especially during contests but PSK feels like it just kind of faded out once FT8 showed up. curious if thats just my perception or if the mode actually died off. running an IC-7300 into a dipole at about 35 feet if that matters, usually 40 or 20 meters for this kind of stuff.

so i finally drove out to a summit that was listed as an easy activation, W4C/CM-093 if anyone knows it, and yeah the hike wasnt bad but i completely forgot to account for the wind up there. had my ft-818 and a linked dipole and the whole setup just kept flopping around every time i tried to tune it. spent like 45 minutes fighting with it before i got 4 contacts and qualified. honestly kinda embarrassing how unprepared i was for just the physical setup part. been doing portable ops from parks for a while but a summit is a different animal. anyone else have tips for keeping wire antennas from turning into a kite up there

so i finally did my first WWFF activation today, been meaning to try it for ages after reading about it on here. went out to a local nature reserve that's registered as a reference (KFF-xxxx i think, had to look it up on the wwff.cc site) and honestly wasnt sure what to expect in terms of whether anyone would actually call in or not. i set up a simple end fed wire in an inverted vee off a fiberglass pole, ran about 10 watts on 40m and made contact with 16 stations before the battery started getting low. i know you need 44 to actually activate the reference but i wasnt really expecting to hit that number on my first go anyway, more just wanted to see how the whole thing worked and get a feel for it. what surprised me was how friendly everyone was on the frequency, a couple of hunters (i think thats what they call the people chasing the references?) even stuck around and gave me tips in between contacts. one guy told me to post my spot on the WWFF spotting network before i even start operating which i had no idea about, would have helped a lot. anyone else do a lot of WWFF? curious whether 40m is usually the go-to band or if i should be trying other bands when conditions are better. also wondering if parks on the air activations count for WWFF too or if those are totally separate things

so ive been licensed about 8 months now and keep hearing people talk about how amazing 10 meters is supposed to be near solar maximum but honestly every time i tune around up there its just... quiet. like nothing. occasionally ill hear some beacon or a carrier somewhere but thats it. i know we're supposed to be near or at solar max right now and the SFI numbers have been pretty high lately, like ive seen it up around 180-200 some days, but i cant seem to catch any of these openings everyone talks about. is there a specific time of day i should be watching? or is it more of a regional thing where the paths just dont favor my location (im in the midwest, ohio specifically). my antenna situation isnt ideal — just a dipole up about 25 feet — but that shouldnt be a killing it completely should it. genuinely curious if im just on at the wrong times or if theres something else going on.

the WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 path is fine for mobile, thats what most people run. your problem is almost certainly igates. a digipeater will happily re-transmit your packet all day long but if there isnt an igate within earshot that has an internet connection, none of it makes it to aprs-is and you wont see squat on aprs.fi. easiest way to check is pull up aprs.fi and look at the map for your area, there should be igate stations marked differently from digis. if the nearest one is 50 miles away you've found your problem. you can also try dropping your beacon rate down and just listening for a while — if you hear lots of packet traffic but your position still drops off, its likely the igate situation and not your radio config. the D710G's TNC is solid, i'd be surprised if thats the culprit.

Germany on 10w SSB thats really cool, ive been thinking about QRP but always assumed i needed at least 100w to do anything useful on HF. maybe im wrong about that. does the built in battery last very long or do you pretty much always bring an external pack?

yeah ive been seeing the same thing on 15m too. propagation has been all over the place. checked the solar indices and theyre not showing anything unusual but something is definitely off. worked a JA station on 20 yesterday morning which shouldnt happen that time of day

Focus on the exceptions rather than trying to memorize everything. The bands Generals don't have full access to are 80, 40, 20, and 15 - memorize those specific frequency ranges. 160, 60, 30, 17, 12, and 10 meters are the bands that General class holders get all amateur frequency privileges. Much easier than trying to remember everything!

Try enabling debug logging in JS8Call (set QT_LOGGING_RULES=*.js8=true in your environment). This will show you exactly what the software is doing when it receives group queries. I found my issue was that the auto-reply logic wasn't triggering because I had MULTI decoder disabled and was missing some of the slower speed transmissions.

I had the exact same problem last month. Check your Station Information callsign field - mine had somehow gotten corrupted with extra spaces. Also verify your group names don't have any special characters or trailing spaces. The @ symbol gets added automatically, so just enter EMCOMM in the groups field, not @EMCOMM.

Morse Mania is by far the best app I've tried. Whether learning to hear or send, it provides excellent practice opportunities at your own pace, and well worth upgrading to the paid version. The newer apps with voice dictation and real-time feedback are game-changers - no manual note-taking required.

OM: Old man - an abbreviation really meaning friend (used for any male ham regardless of age). However xYL is technically not the correct term. The original term of YL , which is a CW (morse code) abbreviation, is the one that is technically the correct term to use. FB = "fine business" (means OK), TNX = thanks, ES = "and". These cover most casual QSOs.

The frequency shown on your radio is actually the carrier frequency, and for SSB the sideband signal can extend another 2.5 to 6 kHz up or down depending on whether you're using USB or LSB. Not all transmitters are calibrated perfectly, and some may drift off frequency during transmission due to temperature changes as the radio warms up. Always leave some margin!