Susan Johnson

yeah no morse code requirement anymore, that went away back in 2007 so youre good there. the technician license is definitely where everyone starts, its the entry level one and honestly the test isnt that bad at all. the question pool is publicly available which is kind of a big deal because that means you can literally study the exact questions that will be on the exam. i used hamstudy.org and just did practice tests every night for maybe two or three weeks and passed no problem. some people knock it out in a weekend if theyre motivated. the tech license gets you all the VHF and UHF privileges which is plenty to get started, most people do local repeaters and stuff like that. once you pass that if you want HF and more frequencies you go for general class but thats a whole separate test. just start with tech though, dont overwhelm yourself

so ive been licensed about 8 months now and finally decided to really commit to learning CW. im using a cheap set of paddles i picked up off ebay and a MFJ keyer built into my radio (IC-7300). i can receive okay at like 12-13 wpm if the sending is clean but my own sending is all over the place. sometimes my dits and dahs sound fine and then i'll hit a rough patch and it just sounds like mush. i read somewhere that you should set the keyer speed a bit faster than you're comfortable with to force yourself to learn the rhythm but honestly that just made things worse for me. been practicing with the paddles every night for maybe 20 minutes but im not sure im building good habits or bad ones. anyone been through this and come out the other side?

honestly its mostly just feel after a while but the rough rule i use is -- if the band is noisy or youre not sure the other station copied clean, go full phonetics. on a quiet local repeater with decent signals you can usually get away with just saying the letters, but the moment somethign sounds off just switch to phonetics without waiting to be asked the NATO alphabet exists for exactly the situation you described, B and D sound almost identical over a marginal signal, same with M and N, S and F sometimes. on HF especially during a pileup or if propagation is being weird i always go full phonetics for my call. takes a half second longer but saves way more time than repeating yourself three times some guys get a little sloppy on the local repeater because yeah, they know each other and the signals are usually good, dont let that become a habit though if you ever get on HF youll thank yourself for building the reflex early

i passed mine about 4 months ago doing basically just the app thing. arrl has one, hamstudy has one, i just did like 20-30 questions a day for maybe 3 weeks and that was enough. the math scared me too but there are only maybe 5 or 6 questions on the actual exam that involve any real calculation and if you just practice those specific ones youll be fine. dont overthink it

so ive been licensed for about eight months now and i finally got comfortable enough to actually check into a net instead of just listening. did my first check-in on the local 2m repeater net last tuesday and honestly it wasnt as scary as i thought it would be, the net control was really patient when i fumbled my callsign the first time lol anyway now im kind of hooked and want to find more nets to participate in, especially on HF since i just got my general and i want to actually use those new privileges. ive heard there are some good ones on 40m in the evenings but i dont really know where to start looking for schedules. is there like a central place where nets are listed or do you just have to know people also saw something about a special event station for a local hamfest coming up next month and im curious how those work, like do you just call them like a normal QSO or is there some kind of certificate you can get afterward? sorry if these are dumb questions just trying to learn

Not required at all, at least not in the US under part 97. The rules just say you gotta ID with your callsign, doesn't specify phonetics. Phonetics are a tool, not a law. On a clear local repeater where everybody already knows you, saying your call once normally is totally fine. That said on HF it becomes way more useful, especially on SSB where the audio can be rough or you're working stations far away who aren't familiar with your call. I've had people completely mishear my suffix even on a decent band day so I tend to use phonetics more there just out of habit. DX especially — if you're trying to work some rare station and the pileup is a mess, you want your call to be unmistakable. The guys who do it every single time on a local repeater are probably just old habits from HF or maybe they came up through EMCOMM training where phonetics are drilled pretty hard. Not wrong, just... yeah, a bit much for a quiet 2m ragchew.

honestly the theory looks worse than it is. i put it off for like three years thinking the same thing and then sat down with the ARRL Extra Class License Manual and a lot of it started to make sense after a couple weeks. the LC circuit stuff and the filter questions especially, once you see why the formulas work they arent so bad to remember. there are a few questions in the pool that are just straight up memorization and yeah those are a grind but the question pool is finite so you kind of just grind through it. the privileges are worth it, especially if youre doing any HF and want to get into the CW segments or those phone sub-bands you mentioned. also some of the extra segments are noticeably less crowded which is a nice bonus. i'd say just start studying and see how you feel after a month, you might surprise yourself

dont forget there's also the ARRL band plan on top of the FCC allocations, they're two different things. the FCC stuff is what's legally required, but the band plan is more like gentlemens agreement about where to find certain modes. like around 7.040 is pretty much understood to be FT8 territory now even though thats not in any rulebook. worth downloading the ARRL band plan pdf and just keeping it handy for a while until it clicks

yeah the "baker" thing is the old Joint Army/Navy phonetic alphabet, it was what people used before NATO standardized everything in the 50s. you still hear it from guys who learned back then, baker, able, charlie, dog... some of them never switched over and honestly at this point nobody's gonna tell them to. it works fine, the whole point is just that the other person understands you. for when to use them -- on a clear local repeater with people you know, honestly most folks dont bother spelling out every letter phonetically. but if theres any noise, if youre making a contact with someone you havent worked before, or especially on HF where conditions can get rough, full phonetics for your callsign is just good practice. contesting is a whole other thing, people get pretty fast and sloppy with them but thats just the nature of it. id say just default to NATO phonetics when theres any doubt whether youre being copied clearly, and dont stress about it otherwise

for a one or two day exercise id skip the generator honestly. 100ah lifepo4 with a 7300 at reasonable power is plenty, ive done 14+ hour activations on similar setups and still had 40% left. the generator becomes worth it when youre talking multi-day or if you need to run 100w consistently or youve got other loads like a laptop, lighting, maybe a second radio. the eu2200i is a great unit but its another thing to fuel, maintain, haul, and the noise thing is real — people complain, it draws attention, and in some venues they wont let you run it at all. on the antenna, chameleon emcomm III is solid but if you can get any kind of wire up in a tree even a random length end fed with a 9:1 unun and your tuner will probably outperform it just on efficiency. that said the convenience factor of the chameleon is real when youre trying to set up fast under pressure which is kind of the whole point of an exercise

been lurking this thread and just want to say the latency thing on RemoteHams really depends on where the server node is geographically relative to both you and the rig. i had a terrible experience early on becuase i was being routed through a node that was like cross country for no obvious reason. once i figured out how to pin to a closer relay point it got a lot better. still not as good as a direct VPN tunnel but workable. one thing i havent seen mentioned — if your remote site has halfway decent upload bandwidth you might look at whether you can just run a direct HTTPS connection with something like Hamlib and a custom audio stream rather than going full VPN. bit more exposed security wise but some guys do it and it cuts out a layer. i dont do it personally but ive seen it come up on the RemoteHams groups.io list a few times.

so I've been interested in ham radio for a while now mostly because my neighbor has a big antenna setup and it looked cool and he told me to just go get my license and join him on the air but I have no idea where to start. like do I need to take a class or can I just study on my own? I looked up the FCC stuff and it was a little overwhelming. is the technician exam hard? I don't have a background in electronics or anything like that, I barely remember anything from high school physics. any advice would be really appreciated, I just don't want to waste money signing up for a test and then fail it

yeah this trips up a lot of new generals, dont feel bad. the short version is the FCC part 97 rules are the legal limit — so yes 7175 to 7300 is where you're allowed to do SSB as a general. but the ARRL band plan is more like a gentlemens agreement on top of that, it tries to keep different modes from stepping on each other and carves out space for things like digital and weak signal stuff lower in the band. the band edge thing is real practical concern. if youre operating at say 7300 on upper sideband, your actual signal has sidebands that extend a few khz above your carrier frequency, so your transmitted signal could be going out past 7300 even if your dial says 7300. thats why people say stay a bit below the edge, maybe 7295 or so to be safe depending on your rig. its not a written rule exactly but going over the edge is a violation so the buffer is just sensible. and yes the europe thing is real — ITU region 1 has a narrower 40m allocation, i think it goes up to around 7200 for them which is why you sometimes hear dx stations calling from frequencies that would be in our cw/digital portion. they're operating legally in their region, just weird from our end.

so i got my general back in 2014 and honestly just never bothered with CW since it wasnt required anymore. but ive been watching some videos lately and something about it just looks really satisfying, like there's guys making contacts all over the world with like 5 watts and a wire and i want in on that. problem is i have zero idea where to start with the actual keying side of things. i borrowed a straight key from a buddy at the club and i've been practicing a bit but my wrist gets tired fast and i know everyone says to eventually move to paddles but i dont even understand how paddles work with a keyer vs just a straight key. is the keyer a separate box thing or is it built into the radio? my ic-7300 might already have one i guess? i honestly dont know what im doing here lol also any tips on just learning to receive are welcome, i can copy maybe 5-6 characters and then my brain just turns off

JS8Call is genuinely worth trying if you want something that feels like actual communication. I run it pretty regularly on 40m in the evenings and theres usually a handful of people around, its not as dead as you might think but yeah its nowhere near FT8 in terms of raw activity. the message store-and-forward stuff is kind of neat too once you figure it out. the sensitivity gap is real though. JS8Call in normal speed mode is something like 10-12dB worse than FT8 which is significant — basically means you need a noticeably better path to make it work. there are slower speed settings that close that gap some but then your typing is painfully slow. for regional stuff on 40m your setup should be fine most of the time, its really when you push into marginal dx paths that you notice it. id say just fire it up and hang out on the calling frequency for a bit, you'll find people pretty quick on 40m evenings especially on weekends

yeah the outdoor flea market is the whole reason i go tbh. indoor vendors are fine but its just retail prices mostly. bring more cash than you think you need and wear comfortable shoes, my feet were destroyed by end of day saturday last time

whip is fine for FM repeaters but yeah for weak signal SSB you really want some gain. even a 3el gives you enough directionality that you can null out some QRM too which is underrated. i built a 4el from a DL6WU design last spring, cost me maybe 15 bucks in aluminum rod from the hardware store and works great. only annoying part is i made the boom a tiny bit short and the element spacing is slightly off but it still outperforms my old collinear by a noticeable margin on receive.

cant really speak to the SDR side but on the RemoteHams latency thing - have you tried the RCForb client versus the browser interface? the native client handles the audio buffering way differently and i found the scope data was a lot more responsive when i switched. the browser version was driving me crazy, kept getting that half second freeze on the spectrum display also 10 up should be workable for basic remote ops, i run my station on similar and its fine for voice and even some slow digital. might wanna look at what else is happening on that connection at the shack end, sometimes its a router QoS thing not the raw bandwidth

Welcome to the hobby! Don't get hung up on power differences - there isn't much difference in range between a 50w radio and a 65-80w radio. Getting hung up on power output of the radio is a common rookie mistake. A 80 watt radio will not talk twice as far as a 40 watt radio. Focus on getting a good antenna system with proper grounding and low SWR. That'll make way more difference than a few extra watts.

so ive been puttering around with this DC receiver for about three months now, kept setting it aside when work got busy but finally had a weekend to just sit down and get serious about it. its based loosely on the Norcal design but i swapped out some of the filter caps and used what i had in the junk box which was probably my first mistake honestly anyway it receives, like actually receives signals, i can hear 40m SSB pretty clearly which was shocking. the problem is theres this weird hum that follows the audio everywhere, not 60hz exactly but close, and i cant figure out if its the power supply coupling in somehow or if its a grounding issue with the audio stage. ive got a single point ground on the board but maybe i did it wrong. also the image rejection is pretty bad but i knew that going in with a direct conversion design so im not too worried about that part has anyone dealt with this kind of hum specifically in homebrew DC receivers? i wrapped the whole thing in copper tape on the inside of the enclosure and it helped maybe 20% but its still there. using a 12v wall wart right now, maybe thats the issue, should i just slap a 7812 regulator and some filter caps on it before the board

lol no youre not weird i do the same thing. theres something kind of relaxing about it honestly even when nothings happening. like just having the white noise of an open squelch is weirdly calming after a long day. that said i did catch a really nice contact with a station in Costa Rica last thursday around 9pm local so the band isnt totally useless

wait 10 meters was actually open?? i had my radio on all morning doing paperwork and heard basically nothing, now im wondering if i had a setting wrong or something. this is like the 3rd time ive missed an opening this month and its starting to bug me. might need to just leave a wideband scan running so i dont keep missing these things. im still pretty new so i dont really have a good feel yet for when to expect propagation on the higher bands, is there a good resource for predicting openings or do people mostly just check after the fact?

the flickering display on transmit specifically on 40 is interesting — that band is hard on finals in general and if something got jarred loose internally the increased current draw during TX could be causing a marginal solder joint to open up momentarily. i'd start by just reflowing all the connectors between the PA board and the main board before you do anything else, like literally just heat and reflow every connector joint you can access. seen that fix weird post-drop symptoms more than once on Yaesus. the ALC pegging could be related to the same thing or it could be the ALC line itself picking up garbage from a cracked trace somewhere. if you've got a scope, probe the ALC line while transmitting into your dummy load and see if its actually a clean DC level or if its bouncing around. that'll tell you a lot. also check the driver transistors with a DMM in diode mode while its powered off — if one took a mechanical hit it might read funny even if it isnt completely dead yet.

yeah i caught a bit of that too, worked a ZL and a couple VK's which i wasnt expecting at all on a Wednesday afternoon. 10m is really something when it opens up, its like a completely different band. I keep telling newer folks in our club to keep a radio pointed at 28.400 or so just as a habit during this part of the cycle. On the 905, my buddy picked one up a few months back and hes been pretty happy with it for 2.4 ghz stuff but yeah its definitely aimed at a specific crowd. Not exactly an everyday radio if youre not into the weak signal microwave scene. Cool piece of gear though if thats your thing.

The park I chose is a small state recreation area, nothing dramatic, but it qualified for the Parks on the Air program and more importantly it's close enough that if everything went wrong I wasn't stranded somewhere two hours from home. I pulled into the parking lot around nine in the morning thinking I'd have plenty of time to get set up before the bands got too noisy. What I Brought (And What I Forgot) My radio for this was a Xiegu G90 running at 20 watts. I know a lot of POTA folks go full QRP at 5 watts but I wanted a little more margin on my first outing. My antenna was a 40 meter end-fed half-wave that I bought as a kit and soldered up myself a few weeks ago. I'd tested it in the backyard and it seemed to work, SWR was reasonable on 40 and okay-ish on 20. I brought a 12 amp-hour lithium battery pack, a little antenna analyzer, coax, a notepad for paper logging because I didn't want to deal with a laptop outdoors yet, and way too many granola bars. What I forgot: my coax adapter. I had the antenna's BNC connector and the radio's SO-239 and nothing to connect them. Stood there in the parking lot staring at my gear bag for a solid two minutes feeling like a complete idiot. Fortunately I had a short patch cable with PL-259 on both ends that I'd thrown in as an afterthought, and I had a barrel connector in a little bag of miscellaneous hardware I keep in my car. It was awkward but it worked. Lesson one: make a checklist and actually use it. Getting the Antenna Up I'd planned to do a sloper, running the end-fed up at an angle from a tripod to a tree branch. The trees at this particular picnic area were not cooperating. First branch I could reach was maybe twelve feet up and the tree was weirdly positioned relative to where I wanted to set up. I ended up doing more of an inverted-V shape, sort of, with one end up on the tripod at about ten feet and the other end tied to a low branch. It was not elegant. The counterpoise wire was just laying on the ground which I've since read is actually fine for this type of antenna, so at least that part I didn't overthink. Getting the analyzer readings wasn't terrible. SWR was around 1.8 on 40 meters at the resonant point, which the G90's internal tuner handled without complaint. On 20 meters it was uglier but still matchable. I called it good enough and started operating. The Operating Part I'd decided to call CQ on 40 meters first since it was still morning and 20 might be better later. I picked a frequency around 7.245 MHz, listened for a couple minutes to make sure it was clear, and started calling. Nothing for about three minutes. I moved up a bit and tried again. Still nothing for a couple minutes, and then someone came back to me and honestly I got so flustered I fumbled my exchange. They were patient and we got through it. First contact logged. I may have done a small fist pump right there at the picnic table. After that things got a bit easier. I ended up with eleven contacts on 40 meters over about an hour and a half. A few hunters were clearly just running through activations quickly which I appreciated because they were efficient and easy to work. A couple of people wanted to chat a little which was also nice, and one person asked how my antenna was working which led to a genuinely useful two-minute conversation about end-fed antennas. I switched to 20 meters around eleven and got four more contacts, including one station that was quite far away geographically, which was exciting. Total for the day was fifteen contacts which is one more than the ten you need to count as a successful activation. I realize fifteen is not impressive by the standards of experienced activators who routinely log forty or fifty contacts in an outing, but for me it felt like a genuine accomplishment. Things I Would Do Differently The checklist thing I already mentioned. Beyond that, I'd bring a taller support for the antenna. Ten feet is pretty low and I think I lost some efficiency there. I've been looking at the lightweight mast options, the fiberglass push-up poles, and I think even a 20 or 25 foot mast would make a real difference. I'd also spot myself on the POTA website next time. I didn't do it this time because I was nervous and didn't want people to show up expecting a competent operator, but honestly the spotting system exists for a reason and it would have helped me get contacts faster. I also should have brought something better to sit on. The picnic table bench was fine but after ninety minutes my back was not happy. Some of those activators I see in photos have these little camp chairs that look much more reasonable. Would I Do It Again Yes, immediately, already planning the next one. There's something really satisfying about making contacts from a field setup that feels different from working from the shack. Maybe it's that you solved a bunch of small problems to make it happen. Maybe it's being outside. Probably both. I'm also thinking about trying to learn CW eventually so I can work the CW segments where there seems to be a lot of POTA activity, but that feels like a longer-term project. For now I'm going to keep doing SSB activations and try to get a little better at the process each time. If you're on the fence about doing your first activation, I'd genuinely say just go do it. You will forget something. Something won't work quite right. You'll work through it and you'll learn more in that one morning than you would from a month of reading about it. Or at least that's how it was for me. Thanks to everyone who came back to my calls last Saturday. You have no idea how much it meant to a very nervous first-timer.