Linda Hayes

Gpredict controls rigs and rotors using Hamlib - this is key for modern transceivers. The radio and antenna rotator control for autonomous tracking works flawlessly with my IC-9700 once properly configured. Much more flexible than proprietary solutions.

man this is inspiring me to actually finish the kit thats been sitting on my bench for like 6 months lol. im a newer ham and i got intimidated partway through and just kind of stopped. what did you use for the antenna situation? that part always confuses me for portable ops, like how long of a wire and do you need a tuner or what

yeah the flux index thing took me a while to wrap my head around too when i first started chasing DX. basically anything above 150 or so and you start seeing 10m and 15m come alive in ways that just dont happen at lower numbers. 20m is kind of the workhorse band that stays open in more conditions but even it gets weird when the flux dips into the 80s or 90s. the K index is a different thing -- thats geomagnetic activity, and when it spikes above 4 or 5 all bets are off especially on the higher latitude paths. your JA opening probably happened during a nice quiet period, K index of 0 or 1 and decent flux. i use spaceweather.com almost every morning before i even turn the rig on, just to get a sense of what to expect. after a while you do start to just feel it but the data helps a lot in the beginning.

I pretty much always use phonetics for my call sign especially when band conditions are rough or theres QRM. For regular conversation though i dont bother unless the other station asks for a repeat. If youve got letters like M and N or B and D in your call definitely use phonetics - those get mixed up all the time

been running SO2R for about 6 months now and my rates are still pretty bad compared to the big guns. got the microham mk2r+ with n1mm and two ic7300s. bandpass filters installed, antennas are ok (beam + wires). during cq ww ssb last weekend i was only hitting maybe 80-90 qso/hr at best and thats with decent conditions watching some of the contest videos online these guys are just flying through contacts and im wondering if its technique or what. do you use different cq messages for each radio? how do you handle the audio switching when someone calls on radio 2 while your cqing on radio 1? feel like im missing something fundamental here

this is making me think about whether I should even be in the ARES group yet honestly. im only about 8 months into my general class and reading about go-bags and ICS forms and winlink interfaces kind of makes my head spin a little. like I have a baofeng and a used ic-7300 and I barely know how to do a proper net check-in without fumbling the phonetics. is there a good way for newer people to participate in these drills without being a liability? i want to help but i also dont want to be the guy whose battery dies and messes up a relay chain or whatever

Most experienced hams try to stay at least a few kHz inside the band, just to be on the safe side. It's always better to err on the side of caution and keep your signals well within the authorized limits. Your radio might drift slightly, especially when first warming up, so that safety margin is important.

hey everyone, been having some weird power consumption problems with my little homebrew 20m rig. its supposed to draw like 250ma on receive but im seeing closer to 400ma even when im not touching anything. checked all my connections and they look fine but the battery pack just doesnt last as long as it should. anyone else run into this kind of thing? running it off a 4s lipo pack if that matters

Check your gamma match assembly carefully. Gamma matches can develop intermittent connections that affect one polarization more than the other. Also verify the driven element isn't bowed or twisted - even slight mechanical stress can cause polarization-dependent SWR issues.

so ive been playing around with online cluster spotting for maybe three weeks now and im a little confused about the workflow people actually use. like i have qrz open in one tab and dxwatch in another and sometimes the spots dont match up or theres like a 5-10 minute delay between them and i cant tell if thats normal or if im doing something wrong on my end. background: i just got my general in february and im trying to work some dx on 20m and 40m. got a modest station, ic-7300 into a wire dipole. nothing fancy. but i want to start chasing some dx and everyone says use the clusters so here i am. my main question is are these tools pulling from the same underlying network or are they completely separate? and is there a better app people are using on mobile because the browser versions are kind of clunky when im out in the shack and just want a quick look. thanks in advance

I made the mistake of buying a cheap Chinese 49:1 transformer and it was terrible - I cut open the sealed container to find – surprise – a small ferrite bar wound with fine wire. The kind used in old transistor radios. Learned my lesson and wound my own following the K1RF design. Quality components really do matter!

yeah the geomagnetic stuff has been pretty rough lately, couple of CMEs came through and really messed things up for a few days each time. the solar flux being high is great but it doesnt mean much when the Kp is sitting at 4 or 5 — that absorption just kills the higher bands especially for paths that go over or near the poles like anything to Japan from North America. for resources i really like the weekly propagation bulletin from ARRL, W1AW puts it out and its a good summary without being too technical. also OH8X has a page that shows real time band conditions and greyline which i check constantly. greyline is honestly the key thing for those JA openings you're talking about — that window can be pretty narrow and if you miss it by even 20-30 minutes sometimes the band just moves on without you. worth setting an alarm and just being there a little early rather than trying to catch it after the fact

honestly that ratio doesnt sound that far off from normal depending on band conditions and what time youre operating. 20m can get pretty crowded and a lot of stations running high power from europe or wherever just dont bother responding to weaker signals when they have a pile to work through. its kind of brutal that way. one thing worth checking though -- are you transmitting on an even or odd period and are you calling CQ on a frequency thats actually clear. sometimes i see guys park right on top of another signal and wonder why nobody calls back, the decoder handles it okay for receiving but you're just creating a mess for everyone trying to decode you. also double check your clock sync, if youre even a second or two off NTP your transmissions can bleed into the wrong timeslot and it tanks your decode rate on the other end. i use Meinberg for time sync and it made a noticeable difference. your power level is fine btw, 30w into a dipole is totally workable for FT8. i regularly work dx on 10w.

congrats on the first activation, 47 contacts is a solid start especially on a first go. and yeah you're right to be confused about the numbers, the 44 QSO minimum gets mentioned a lot because its the same as SOTA but for WWFF it's actually 44 as the baseline to have the activation count toward your own tally. unique callsigns is what matters for that count, so working the same person on 40 and 20 only counts once for your activation total. they still get the credit on their end for hunting the reference though so log everything the people calling with WWFF in the exchange were probably park to park contacts, sometimes called P2P in the logs. those are a nice bonus and yeah log them normally, there's a separate award track for those on both ends. the wwff.world site has all the upload info and the log format is pretty straightforward once you look at a sample. adif works fine, i just export straight from my logging software

yeah the ALC thing is real, that got me too. but also — which RMS gateways are you trying to hit? some of those stations on the map havent been active in months and the database doesnt always reflect that great. i'd sort by last heard time in the channel picker and only try ones that had a session in the last 24 hours or so. wasted a lot of time trying to hit a gateway that turned out to be offline for the winter. on the relay/RMS node question, its actually not that bad to set up if you already have a decent node running. the Winlink sysop documentation is pretty thorough and once you get your RMS Relay config sorted and get approved through the Winlink team it's mostly just leaving it running. good to have more coverage out in rural areas anyway.

RT Systems all the way! Yes, it costs more but their software is intuitive and their cables actually work. I program Yaesus, Icoms, and even some Baofengs with their packages. Worth every penny to avoid the frustration you're experiencing.

so i finally did my first WWFF activation last weekend at a state forest near me, been meaning to do one for ages and kept putting it off. ended up making 44 QSOs which i was pretty happy with for a first attempt, ran about 3 hours on a portable setup with my KX3 and a wire dipole hung between two trees. couple things i wasnt sure about though — i logged the park reference as the WWFF number i found on the directory but im not sure if i also needed to register the activation somewhere beforehand? i just showed up and started operating. i posted the log to wwff.us afterward but now im second guessing myself whether thats the right process or if i missed a step. also had a few people calling asking for the IOTA reference which threw me off, this area doesnt have one as far as i know, is that a common thing where people just ask hoping you might have it? and one guy asked me to move to 17m which i cant do with my current antenna setup so i just stayed on 20m the whole time. felt bad saying no but wasnt sure what else to do. overall really enjoyed it though, being out in the woods with the radio was honestly great, way more fun than operating from home somehow

i was in the exact same spot a few months ago lol. one thing that tripped me up was the repeater directory listing was wrong for my local one — the tone listed online was outdated and the club had changed it. worth double checking with whoever runs the repeater or finding a current copy of the local club newsletter or something. sometimes those listings on repeaterbook are months behind.

so ive been chasing 3Y0 and a few other rare ones for a while now and last weekend i actually had a decent run breaking into some pretty nasty pileups on 17m and 20m. figured id share what actually worked for me since theres a lot of advice out there that honestly doesnt do much in practice. the biggest thing i changed was stop calling on the dx's exact frequency when they're working split. sounds obvious but i used to just throw my call in with everyone else and wonder why i never got through. started really listening to where the dx operator was actually pulling calls from in his listening range and then picking a spot maybe 1-2 kHz away from where the bulk of callers were piling up. not sure if thats just luck but it worked twice in the same afternoon. also started using shorter calls. like just my suffix when the band seemed really crowded. i know some people hate that but when the op is clearly only copying partials anyway it seems to help. my antenna situation isnt great — just a trapped vertical on a small lot — so im not going to out-power anyone, have to be smarter about it. anyway curious what techniques others have had luck with, especially for those of us not running a kilowatt into a yagi

yeah what he said about the grounding is real, learned that the hard way. also worth throwing a ferrite clamp or two on the DC power leads going into the rig if you do run off the genny output — sometimes there's common mode junk even when the AC looks clean on a meter. i use a cheap kill-a-watt to check the genny output voltage before i plug anything sensitive in, probably overkill but it only takes a second. one thing i'll add — the 31ft jackite is great but in a parking lot situation if there's any wind at all that thing becomes a handful without good guying. had mine do a slow-motion fall onto a car hood once, nobody was happy about it. bring extra stakes and some paracord, seriously.

so ive been going back and forth on this for a while now and finally decided to just ask. i drive a 2019 tacoma and right now i have a mag mount diamond SG7900 sitting on the roof which works fine but i hate the cable running through the door seal, its starting to wear the jacket a bit and i dont love that. was thinking about doing a proper NMO mount through the roof but im kind of nervous about drilling a 3/4 inch hole in a truck i still owe money on lol my other option is doing the lip mount on the bed rail but ive heard mixed things about ground plane on those. mostly doing local repeater work on 146.520 and the local 70cm machine, not any serious weak signal stuff. anyone running a through-roof NMO on a newer tacoma or similar? and is the lip mount ground plane issue actually a real problem or are people just overthinking it

so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, my neighbor has a big antenna setup and it got me curious. i looked it up and apparently you have to take a test? i dont really know what the difference is between all the license types and which one i should go for first. is there like a standard way people study for this or do you just buy a book and hope for the best. i work full time so i dont have a ton of time to study but i want to actually understand the material not just memorize answers if that makes sense

oh man that feeling never really gets old honestly. i remember my first QRP contact was on a 49er kit back when i was still pretty new and the other guy was in Canada and i literally sat there staring at the radio for a minute before logging it. there's something about the efficiency aspect that makes every contact feel more earned i guess. as for antennas, the end fed works great portable if you have the right matchbox for it. a lot of guys swear by the EFHW transformers with a 49:1 ratio for multiband use. personally i've been running a linked dipole for my sota activations because i like being able to switch bands without retuning everything but it's more wire to deal with. for casual park use i'd say stick with what's working, maybe just experiment with the counterpoise length if you aren't using one already, made a noticeable difference for me on 40.

so ive been a tech for about 3 years and just upgraded to general last month, always wanted to try CW and figured now was the time. picked up a used Bencher BY-1 paddle off ebay and borrowed a friends old MFJ keyer to practice with. heres my problem — i cant seem to get the feel right at all. im practicing around 10-12 wpm with the Koch method using LCWO and that part is actually going okay, but when i sit down at the paddle everything feels wrong. my dits and dahs are coming out all mushy and i keep getting double characters. i messed with the keyer weight settings but honestly im not even sure what im adjusting half the time. is there like a good starting point for paddle tension and the gap between the contacts? i have no idea what im doing mechanically here and the manual for the MFJ is not helpful at all. also should i be practicing sending more or just focus on receiving first? i read both opinions online and now im more confused than when i started.

yeah the UDP thing between WSJT-X and N1MM has gotten a lot better, at least in my experience. i run them side by side during ARRL DX and the FT8 QSOs come through into N1MM pretty reliably now. you just have to make sure the multicast address and port match up in both configs, i think its 224.0.0.1 port 2237 by default but double check that. the main gotcha i ran into was N1MM wasnt accepting the packets because the contest template i had loaded didnt have digital modes enabled, took me like an hour to figure that out. the Log4OM award tracking thing is real though, i still keep it around just for that. i basically treat N1MM as my operating log and then do a bulk ADIF export after a contest and merge it into Log4OM. little clunky but it works and i havent lost a QSO yet doing it that way.