HF Hunter

so im putting together a portable setup for a ARES activation exercise this weekend and ive been going back and forth on the power situation. we're deploying to a community center parking lot, probably 6-8 hours of operation, and i want to run an IC-7300 plus a laptop for logging and maybe a second VHF radio. i have a Honda EU2200i that ive used before and it runs great, quiet enough that you can actually hold a conversation next to it. but my buddy is saying i should just run off batteries and a solar panel to keep things simple. the thing is i dont think a 100w panel is going to keep up with the draw if we're transmitting a lot on HF, especially if we push 100w output. i ran the numbers and figure somewhere around 20-22 amps on transmit peaks which is a lot to ask from solar alone unless we have a big battery bank. antenna wise im planning on an EFHW for 40/20 with a 9:1 unun and about 65 feet of wire. throw it up in a tree with a fishing line launcher. done this a bunch of times and it works fine. but i keep second-guessing whether i should just bring the Buddipole because its faster to set up even if the EFHW probably outperforms it on lower bands. anyone run this kind of mixed power setup before? trying to figure out if the genny is overkill or if im going to regret not having it

so i finally passed my technician exam after studying for like 3 weeks and honestly i was terrified to key up for the first time. my uncle is W5 something and he lent me his old Yaesu FT-60 handheld and just told me to find a local repeater and go for it. i sat there for probably 20 minutes just listening before i finally worked up the nerve to say my callsign and ask if the frequency was in use some guy came back to me right away, a retired teacher from like 40 miles away, and we talked for maybe 10 minutes about how i got into the hobby and he gave me a bunch of advice about getting an HF rig eventually. it was honestly way less scary than i thought it would be. anyway just wanted to share because ive been lurking here for months and everyone seemed really welcoming so figured id finally post

honestly you probably are overthinking it a little but thats fine, we all do it. here's my take after running both setups over the years — at 35 feet an inverted V on 40m is not a bad antenna at all. yeah the takeoff angle is higher than a vertical but for 40m that actually works pretty well for regional contacts and even decent dx once the band opens up. the practical difference between a low vertical and a low inverted V is often smaller than the theory makes it sound, especially if your radial system isnt great. and thats the thing about the vertical — the radials really do matter a lot. a quarter wave vertical with only 8 or 10 short radials can actually perform worse than your inverted V depending on soil conditions. 16 is a reasonable starting point but theyre most effective if theyre close to a quarter wave long themselves. if you dont have room for decent radials the dipole is probably the safer bet to just get on the air and start making contacts. if i were in your situation id just throw up the inverted V first, its cheap and fast, and see how it plays. you can always add a vertical later and do a real world comparison. all the modeling in the world doesnt beat actually listening to the difference from your own location.

yeah the wire is fine dont overthink it. i built my first 40m dipole with wire i pulled out of an old extension cord and worked half the country with it lol. the balun thing is real though, i skipped it on my first build and had RF feedback into my mic on certain frequencies, was a pain to track down. just wind like 8 turns of your feedline coax into a coil about 4 inches diameter right at the feedpoint and tape it up, thats basically a choke balun and it solved my problem instantly. also when you go to tune it after you hang it, cut it a little long first, maybe 2-3 feet extra per leg, and trim from there. way easier than trying to add wire back. and your SWR will shift depending on height and nearby objects so what works on the ground wont be exactly right when its up in the air.

the biggest thing i'd tell anyone starting from scratch is don't learn the dots and dashes visually, like don't sit there memorizing that S is three dots on paper. you want to learn the sound of each letter as its own thing. look up the Koch method, thats what most people swear by now. basically you start with just two characters at full speed, like 20wpm, and you only add a new character once you can copy the existing ones reliably. sounds weird but it works way better than starting slow and trying to speed up later because your brain kind of gets locked into the rhythm of slow characters and its really hard to break out of it later. for actually doing it, LCWO dot net is free and pretty decent for Koch training. a lot of people also use the Morse Toad app or Just Learn Morse Code. i used a combination of LCWO and just listening to a lot of QRS stations on 40 meters while i was learning. took me maybe 3 or 4 months of pretty casual practice, like 15 minutes a day, before i felt comfortable enough to actually get on the air at around 8 or 10 wpm. first real qso was terrifying but the other op was really patient

ok so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i keep hearing people talk about confirming contacts and i kind of get the gist of it but im still confused about how all the different systems work together. like do i need all three or just pick one or what from what i understand LoTW is run by the ARRL and its the one that counts for DXCC and stuff like that. and eQSL is a separate thing that some people use but maybe not everyone accepts it for awards? and then paper QSL cards are the old school way and you either mail them directly or go through a bureau. is that right so far my elmer told me to just sign up for LoTW and call it a day but then i worked a station last week who asked for a direct card and i wasnt even sure what address to give them or how that works. do i need to register somewhere to receive paper cards or can i just put my address in QRZ and hope for the best sorry if this is a really basic question, i tried searching but got kind of overwhelmed with all the different threads

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i keep seeing people talk about CQ WW and Field Day and SOTA and honestly it all kind of blurs together for me. like i know Field Day is a big deal, my local club did one and i showed up for a few hours but mostly just watched because i didnt really know what i was doing. and then someone mentioned CQ WW is coming up and said i should try it but i dont even know if my station is good enough or if theres like a minimum skill level you need. im running a Kenwood TS-590SG into a 40m dipole in my attic which i know isnt ideal but its what i got. would i just be embarrassing myself trying to jump into something like CQ WW or is it actually okay for newer folks to just get on and try? also whats the difference between the SSB and CW weekends, do i need to be able to copy CW to participate in the CW one or can i just listen around also SOTA looks really fun but thats a whole different thing right, not really a contest per se more like an award program? anyway if anyone has advice on which of these i should actually try first id appreciate it

the N1MM keying config matters a lot more than people think for SO2R. make sure your focus follows PTT is set correctly otherwise you get that weird half-second lag where the software doesnt know which radio is active and you get the wrong audio in your ear at the wrong moment. drove me nuts for two contests before i figured that out. also if you arent using headphone audio switching so each radio goes to a different ear that alone will help massively. running mono audio on SO2R is kind of brutal for your brain because you cant spatially separate what youre hearing

so after about 8 months of going to the monthly ARES nets and doing the online ICS training (which honestly took way longer than i expected to finish) i finally got my first real activation last weekend. county had a pretty bad storm roll through friday night and the EC called us up to provide backup comms for the county EOC and one of the shelter locations about 12 miles out. i was assigned to the shelter and honestly i was way more nervous than i thought id be. its one thing to check in on the weekly net and do tabletop exercises but when someone actually hands you a message form and says get this to the EOC i kind of froze for a second. the traffic was pretty light thankfully — mostly resource requests and some health/welfare stuff — but it felt real in a way that none of the training exercises did. the thing that surprised me most was how much of the job is just... waiting. and staying ready. and making sure your radio is on the right freq and your battery is topped off and you're not in the way of the shelter staff. i kind of expected it to be more hectic i guess. anyway just wanted to share since ive seen a few posts from people wondering what an actual activation is like vs. the training side of things. happy to answer questions if anyone has em

The main requirement is regular practice - half hour daily. The objective is getting away from thinking 'dit-dah = A' to instantly recognizing dit-dah as a sound relating to A. Try 13 WPM characters at 5 WPM spacing to train your ear for the cadences.

This is why I stick with the RSPdx - much better Linux support overall. But for your immediate problem, try installing the libsoapysdr0.8-module-sdrplay3 package instead of the regular one. That version has GNU Radio 3.10 compatibility.