QRP Master

Just passed my tech exam last week and I'm ready to buy my first handheld! I've been looking at reviews but getting confused by all the options. Looking to get back in with an HT. Any recommendations for a high quality, all around HT? My budget is around $150-200. I mainly want to hit local repeaters and maybe try some digital modes later. Not sure if I should start with a simple analog radio or jump into something with D-STAR/DMR capability. The local repeaters near me are mostly analog FM, but there are a couple D-STAR machines within range. Should I prioritize simplicity for now or get something I can grow into? Any specific models you'd recommend for a new ham?

ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now, general class, and i keep hearing and seeing all these weird shorthand things people use and i only know a handful of them. like i know QSL means confirm and QRM is interference from other stations but then someone told me QRM is specifically man-made interference and QRN is natural stuff like lightning and i didnt even know there was a difference before that. and then on digital modes especially like FT8 theres even more shorthand that doesnt seem to be the same as the Q codes at all. plus people on SSB just kind of shorten everything like theyll say 73 and i know thats goodbye but someone said 88 the other day and i had no idea what that meant until i looked it up later. are there like common ones i really need to know just to have a normal conversation on the air, or do i just pick them up over time? feels like everyone assumes you already know all this stuff

the rate thing surprised me too when I finally tried it seriously. I always figured my rate was limited by my antenna and location but turns out I was leaving a lot on the table just from dead air between QSOs. even a modest second radio setup basically eliminates the time you spend tuning around looking for the next mult because you already found it 30 seconds ago while you were finishing the previous contact. one thing i do now is keep a sticky note on the desk during the contest that just says CHECK R2 — sounds silly but for the first few contests i needed the physical reminder during busy runs. eventually it becomes habit but early on your brain just defaults to tunnel vision on whoever youre talking to on the run frequency.

Great advice here! As a new ham you should spend some time listening, so you can gain an understanding of how people speak and phrases they use in your area. Once you check in a few times, it becomes second nature. The Monday night crew is particularly friendly to new operators.

I went through this same thing like 8 months ago. ended up getting a baofeng uv-5r first just to have something to play with while I figured out what I actually wanted. honestly it was fine for learning how repeaters work and stuff, just kinda plasticky feeling. upgraded to a yaesu ft-70dr a few months later and it was like night and day in terms of audio and just.. feeling like a real radio lol. the chirp software makes programming both of them pretty painless if you're not afraid of a little computer stuff. so i guess my take is either option can work just depends how patient you are

Saw that GA ARES had voice and digital traffic nets activated for Hurricane Helene until September 27th. They were running multiple frequencies including 80m primary on 3.975 MHz, secondary on 3.982.500, plus 40m and Winlink operations. Impressive coordination with simultaneous net control on both 80m and 40m using P2P digital modes. For those who participated in Helene activations in other states, what worked well for your groups? Any new procedures or equipment that proved valuable during this event?

okay so the test is yeah multiple choice, 35 questions and you need 26 right to pass. honestly for technician it isnt that bad at all. the question pool is public so technically you could just memorize all the answers and pass but i think you mentioned you actually want to understand it, which is the right call because it'll help later when you upgrade to general or extra. for study material i used the ARRL Technician manual when i did mine back in like 2019, its pretty readable and explains the why behind stuff not just the answers. but a lot of people swear by hamstudy.org which is free and tracks what you're getting wrong so you can focus on those. i'd say do both honestly — read through a manual to get the concepts and then drill hamstudy until you're consistently scoring in the 80s or higher on practice exams. as for taking the test, yes you can do it online now through a bunch of VE teams that do remote sessions, look up the ARRL exam search or ham study's own exam finder. in person sessions are still common too, a lot of clubs do them monthly and they're usually pretty low key, just a handful of people in a library or community center. the examiners are volunteers and most of them want you to pass, nobody is trying to trick you.

im pretty new to HF (just got my general like 3 months ago) and i keep hearing people talk about 10 meters being good but every time i tune up there its completely dead. so it just randomly opens up like that with no warning? is there a way to check ahead of time or do you just have to keep checking? sorry if thats a dumb question

yeah dont overthink the generator thing, just dont plug your radio into it lol. battery isolation is the way to go like the other guy said. i run a 50ah lifepo4 and a small 100w solar panel for most of my portable ops and honestly for a 6 hour drill in decent weather that combo works great, generator is almost a liability more than an asset unless its night or overcast. jpole on a painters pole is solid for 2m/70cm, works every time. i've done that setup probably a dozen times for public service events and never had issues. just make sure your feedline is decent, i fried a whole afternoon once chasing an intermittent connection that turned out to be a sketchy pl-259 on a piece of rg-8x i hadnt checked in a while

honestly the extra segments on 40 and 20 arent huge but they do matter when things get crowded, which on a decent DX day they really do. the bottom of 20m especially, the extra portion is where a lot of the DX stations park themselves and if youre sitting just above the general limit watching a pileup you cant get into, you'll wish you had upgraded. been there. the exam itself yeah the theory is a step up but the question pool is public so its mostly just memorization with some actual understanding thrown in. i used hamstudy.org every day for about 6 weeks during my lunch break and passed fine. the transmission line and antenna theory sections are actually kind of interesting once you get into it, not gonna lie. some of that stuff made me understand my antenna system a lot better even after i passed. go for it, worst that happens is you fail and schedule another session. the privileges are real and the knowledge you pick up studying for it doesnt hurt either

so ive been messing around with an arduino uno for a few weeks now trying to get it to control my 6-port coax switch automatically based on what band i select on the radio. the idea is pretty simple — read the band data output from my IC-7300 (it puts out band voltage on the ACC port) and then drive some relays accordingly. in theory its straightforward but ive been fighting with the relay timing and the arduino is occasionally glitching when i key up, probably RF getting into the thing somehow. i wrapped the whole arduino in foil as a quick test and it helped a little but didnt fully solve it. im running about 100w into a dipole, nothing crazy. has anyone actually built something like this and got it stable? im wondering if i need to add ferrites to the USB cable or if theres something more fundamentally wrong with how im powering it. right now its just running off a cheap wall wart through the USB. also curious if a raspberry pi would be better for something like this or if thats total overkill for just switching relays based on a voltage level

As a newer ham, I found the mobile apps really helpful for learning about DX activity patterns. The visual interface makes it much easier to understand propagation than staring at telnet cluster feeds on a computer screen.

dont know about the 9700 specifically but with my setup i find manual tuning works better than trying to get the computer to do everything. i just start a few khz low on the uplink when the sat comes up and tune by ear until i hear myself in the downlink. takes practice but once you get the feel for it its actually pretty easy. gpredict is good for knowing when to start listening but i wouldnt trust it for exact frequencies

so i got my technician license back in march and ive been using my sequential callsign which is fine honestly but a few people at the club told me i should look into getting a vanity call. i went to the FCC ULS site and started poking around and now im more confused than when i started lol from what i understand you apply during a window and then theres like a batch processing thing where everyone who applied during that window gets considered at the same time? and its not first come first served within the window? i thought it was first come first served which is why i was gonna set an alarm and everything. someone at the club said it used to work differently also do i have to wait a certain amount of time after getting licensed before i can apply or can i just go for it now. and does it cost anything through the FCC or is there a filing fee now, i heard they started charging my sequential call isnt bad or anything im just kind of attached to a specific combination that has some personal meaning and id like to try for it if the process isnt too painful

so i finally did my first park activation yesterday at a state park about 40 mins from me, been wanting to do this for months. threw the KX2 in my backpack with a 40m end fed and a little 4ah lipo and drove out there. found a nice picnic table near the parking lot which felt kinda cheaty but whatever, rules say the park boundary counts right anyway the EFHW tuned up fine on 40 but 20 was being weird, swr kept jumping around and i think the wire was too close to a metal fence post or something. managed 11 QSOs on 40m before a family set up right next to me with a bluetooth speaker blasting and i just kind of lost focus and packed up. still counts as an activation i think since i got 10, but man i was hoping for more. anyone else have the whole "random people want to chat about your radio" thing happen? spent like 20 mins explaining what amateur radio is to a guy and his kid which was actually pretty cool but yeah not great for the log

Check your DT column in WSJT-X during receive periods. If you're seeing consistent +/- values beyond 0.5 seconds, that's your smoking gun. When using FT8 and receiving contacts, look at the DT column to verify timing alignment.

so ive been messing around with an arduino uno for a few weeks now trying to get it to handle my antenna switching automatically based on what band the radio is on. right now i have a yaesu ft-991a and it puts out band data on the accessory port so thats at least something to work with. the idea is to read that band data and then fire the appropriate relay to switch between my wire antennas out back. ive got the relay board wired up and the arduino reads the band voltage fine, i tested it with a multimeter and it all checks out. but the switching itself is kind of glitchy — like sometimes it switches twice real fast or hesitates before it does anything. i think its a debounce issue or maybe im not filtering the input properly but honestly im not 100% sure. the code is pretty basic right now, just a bunch of if statements checking the analog voltage. anyone tackled something like this before? wondering if i should ditch the uno and move to a pi or if thats overkill for something this simple. also not sure if the relay board im using is rated for the coax switching side of things, its one of those cheap 8 channel ones off amazon.

congrats on the first one, that's the hardest part honestly just actually doing it. the antenna situation you're describing is super common on rocky summits, i struggled with the same thing for a while. what helped me was switching to a linked dipole instead of the EFHW -- easier to get resonant without a tuner and if you have two trees or even one tree and a trekking pole on the other end you can usually get something usable up. also on the spotting thing, Garmin inReach will let you spot via SMS even when there's zero cell service. bit of an investment but after my third summit where i had no signal i finally got one and its been worth every penny. you can also pre-spot on SOTAwatch before you leave if you have a rough idea of your start time, people will watch for you and sometimes just knowing spots are coming in keeps the chasers hanging around a frequency. six contacts with a DX on a first activation with a wire falling out of a tree is actually a solid result, dont be too hard on yourself

Once your payment is processed, your callsign should be generated and appear in the ULS, though it may take several days. You can check your application status on the FCC website. The 10-day rule is critical - I've seen new hams lose their applications by waiting too long to pay.

oh man i remember my first activation i was so nervous i forgot to write down half my callsigns lol. just bring a real paper log as backup even if you're using an app. the linked dipole should work great, thats basically what i use. 40 meters is usually your bread and butter for summits, especially in the morning before the greyline moves. one thing nobody told me before my first time - yell out your summit reference on the air when you call CQ. like say "CQ SOTA from W4T slash SU-068" or whatever, chasers really appreciate it and it saves you repeating it every contact. good luck hope you get your four contacts easy

so ive been going back and forth on this for a few weeks now and just want to hear what people are actually using day to day. currently got a mag mount diamond NR770H stuck on the roof of my truck which honestly works fine but im kind of done with the cable routing situation and the fact that i always forget to take it off before pulling into the garage. happened twice already and somehow the antenna survived but the cable is looking rough. thinking about doing a proper NMO hole in the roof or maybe a lip mount on the trunk edge. the truck is a 2019 F150 so the roof is pretty accessible. im in a situation where i use this mostly for local repeater stuff on 2m and occasionally hitting the 70cm machines when i drive through the next county over. nothing exotic, no satellite, just reliable everyday use. the NMO option seems cleaner electrically but im not sure my wife is going to love a hole in the roof of a vehicle we still owe money on lol. lip mounts i know have some compromises but ive heard they work pretty well if you mount them in the right spot. anyone gone from mag to NMO and noticed an actual difference on VHF, or is this more of a cable management and permanence thing than an RF thing

ok so I passed my general a few weeks ago and im trying to figure out where i'm actually allowed to operate on 40 meters. I've been reading the band plan stuff on the ARRL site and also looking at the FCC part 97 rules and honestly it's a bit confusing because they dont always match up exactly? Like the FCC says one thing about the allocation and then the band plan seems to suggest different segments for different modes and I'm not totally sure which one I actually have to follow vs which one is just kind of a gentlemans agreement thing. Also I keep hearing about staying away from band edges but nobody really explained why. Like what actually happens if you're operating right at 7.000 or whatever, is that actually illegal or just frowned upon? My elmer kind of glossed over this part. Just trying to not make any embarrassing mistakes on my first few contacts.

The standard convention is to listen on USB downlink while transmitting LSB uplink. You've got the frequencies right - 435.140 LSB up gives you 145.950 USB down. Just remember to tune the uplink while transmitting to keep your downlink signal steady!

one thing nobody mentioned to me when i first started with Winlink was that the RMS gateway list in the program isnt always showing you current status, like a gateway can show up green and be basically unreachable at that moment for various reasons. i started cross-referencing with the Winlink.org map online before i connect and that helped a lot honestly. you can see last activity timestamps and get a better sense of which nodes are actually active versus just listed. also if you havent already, try Telnet mode just to verify your account and message handling is working end to end before you blame the RF path. if Telnet works fine then you know its definitely something in the VARA or audio chain and not a Winlink account configuration issue.

Finally getting licensed and planning my first Parks on the Air activation next weekend at the local state park. I've been looking at the Icom IC-705 and Xiegu G90 for portable QRP radios, but I'm really confused about batteries. Everyone talks about LiFePO4 being the way to go, but they're pretty pricey. For QRP operation (10W or less, CW/SSB): A good starting point is a 6 Ah LiFePO4. It's relatively small and will keep you going most of the day. Would something like this work for a 4-5 hour activation? I don't want to get stranded with a dead radio!