Ham Fan 24

Set your SSB TX bandwidth to 400-2600 Hz for DX work. You may find it easier to get talk power without distortion by using this narrower transmit bandwidth with slightly more mic gain rather than heavy processing. The HC-4 element is definitely worth it for the 991A.

Been using both modes extensively on 70cm EME. The development team encourages switching from JT65 to Q65 for good reasons. Q65's drift compensation handles drifts up to 25 Hz per transmission much better than JT65, crucial for libration fading.

60x100 lot is actually not terrible for radials, I run a 43ft vertical on a similar sized lot with about 24 radials and they're just kind of scattered wherever they fit under the grass. not textbook but SWR is solid and the antenna works fine. the ones near the base matter more than the long ones anyway from what i've read. one thing nobody mentions enough is the noise difference. my vertical picks up way more local QRM than my dipole does. if youre in a noisy suburb that might matter depending on what you're trying to do

arrow antennas have this issue sometimes with the boom clamps not being tight enough. also check that you didnt accidentally swap any of the element lengths during assembly - the uhf elements are pretty close in size to some of the 2m ones and its easy to mix them up if you took it apart for transport

our club usually does a group carpool from the fairgrounds parking lot around 6am if thats not too early for you. just shoot a message to the club secretary, i think there might still be spots. we also do breakfast at a diner nearby before which is honestly half the reason i go lol

For SOTA (Summits on the Air): Ultra-lightweight gear is essential. Consider the Elecraft KX2 or Mountain Topper for minimal weight. I'm torn between these two for upcoming activations. The IC-705 has all-mode capability and built-in battery, but the KX2 is lighter and has that legendary Elecraft receiver. Has anyone done back-to-back comparisons on actual summits? For some remote summits, it can be a challenge to get enough radio contacts (4) to qualify for the SOTA points. Using HF can be a big help in generating contacts. Which radio gives you better odds of making those crucial 4 contacts?

went through this myself about a year ago when i upgraded to extra. i grabbed a 2x2 at first just because it was available and i liked the letters, then waited a few months and snagged a 1x3 which is what i actually wanted. the AE7Q site the other guy mentioned is really the go-to, i basically lived on that thing for a few weeks lol. one thing that caught me off guard — when you file through the FCC's ULS system the interface looks like its from like 2003 and it kind of is, just gotta push through it. took maybe 2 weeks from application to getting the new call in the system

The General exam has 35 multiple-choice questions across ten categories. I recommend taking full practice exams under timed conditions rather than just studying by topic. The ARRL practice exams are solid, and don't forget you can take Extra the same day if you're feeling confident!

Wow, what a morning on 10 meters! We've been seeing SFI levels much higher than anticipated for this solar cycle peak, with recent readings well over 300 and today was no exception at 182. Worked JA, VK, and even caught some South Americans on 28.400 before the band closed around 1400Z. The higher HF bands like 10 and 12 meters are the first to be impacted during solar activity, but also the first to recover and provide amazing long-distance contacts as the ionosphere reconfigures itself. Even had some brief 6m activity with a JA station - absolutely incredible! Anyone else catch this opening? The band was wall-to-wall signals for about 3 hours.

chicken guy sounds like solid QSO material lol. im pretty new to all this still studying for my general but this is actually exactly why i want to get into HF, the ragchewing side of it. all the technical stuff is cool but i just want to talk to random strangers across the country about nothing important

I'm pretty new to HF, just got my general back in March, and I had no idea 10 meters could be like this. I set up a simple dipole in the attic and even with that I'm pulling in stations from all over the place on FT8. Kind of makes me wish I'd upgraded sooner honestly. Is this level of activity going to stick around for a while or is this like a temporary thing? I read a bit about solar cycles but I'm not totally clear on how long a solar maximum usually lasts.

so ive been on SSB for maybe 8 months now, mostly 40m and 20m, and i keep getting reports that my audio is either too bassy or sounds like im talking through a tin can. i upgraded from a Technician so the HF stuff is still kinda new to me and i dont really know where to start troubleshooting this. my rig is an IC-7300 and im using a Heil PR-40 which i thought was supposed to be like a gold standard mic for ham use but apparently im still doing something wrong. ive messed with the mic gain and the compression settings but every time i think i have it dialed in someone on a net tells me something different. one guy said my audio was peaking badly, next contact said it was too low and he had to crank his AF gain. i honestly dont know if its the mic, the settings, the way im talking into it, or what. anyone dealt with this? also not sure if my ALC is doing something weird, the meter swings around a lot when i talk.

so i finally did my first activation last weekend at a state park about 45 minutes from my house, been putting it off for months because i kept telling myself i needed more gear or a better antenna or whatever but i just packed up the KX2 and my end fed and drove out there got 12 QSOs in about 40 minutes which i know is just barely over the minimum but honestly i was pretty happy with it for a first time out. most of the contacts were on 40m SSB, tried 20 but conditions werent great or maybe my signal was just weak, not totally sure which. one guy gave me a 57 which felt pretty good anyway my questions are — when you're logging in the field do most people just use paper and transcribe later or is there an app people use? i was doing paper and it was fine but a bit messy. also is there a way to announce you're going out ahead of time so hunters know to look for you? i saw something about spotting but im not sure how that works exactly when youre the one activating

so ive been running a Diamond NR770HNMO on my F-150 for about two years now and it's been fine, but i recently moved it from the roof to the bed rail because i kept hitting a parking structure at work. ever since then my SWR on 2m is reading around 2.1 to 2.3 which it never did before. the antenna itself hasnt changed, same coax run too, just the location. im wondering if the bed rail is just a garbage ground plane compared to the roof. the truck has a plastic bed liner which i know insulates things a bit but the mag mount is sitting on the metal rail itself. i did the NMO mount wrong the first time and had to redo it but even after that the reading didnt really change. not sure if its the ground plane issue or if i maybe nicked the coax when i rerouted it. the run is a bit longer now too, went from like 8ft to maybe 14ft of LMR-240. anyone run into this with bed rail mounting? is it just fundamentally worse or am i missing something obvious

yeah what the other guy said about rx-only igates is the big one, thats almost certainly your problem. i ran into the exact same thing a while back. most igates people set up at home dont bother enabling the TX side because it requires more care about not flooding the channel. you basically need someone who specifically configured theirs for two-way operation. the D72A itself is solid for this stuff once you get the path and settings dialed in, i ran one for years. one thing id also check is your unproto path — some weird behavior can happen if the radio is set to send acks back on a slightly wrong path but honestly the igate thing is almost definitely your issue first.

same thing tripped me up when i first started checking in lol. what helped me was just listening to the net a few times without checking in and paying attention to how the experienced guys handled transitions. also some nets post their procedures on a club website or hand out a script at the meetings if your club does in-person stuff. the 'break' thing varies a lot by region too i think, i've heard it used totally normally on some nets and on others it really does seem reserved for urgent stuff

so i've only been licensed about four months and i finally worked up the nerve to check in to our local Tuesday night net. went okay i think but at one point i asked the net control if i could ask a general question and he said go ahead, and i asked something about... honestly it was kind of off topic for the net and you could just tell by the pause that it was the wrong time for it. nobody was rude or anything but i felt embarrassed after. i guess my question is how do you know what's appropriate to bring up on a net vs just waiting to ragchew with someone after? like is there some unwritten rulebook i'm missing or do you just pick it up over time. i've been listening to the net for a few weeks before i checked in and thought i had a feel for it but apparently not totally. also is it normal to feel this nervous about transmitting, even on a local repeater? im still kind of shaky every time i key up

I've tested both configurations with my nanoVNA. The stacked cores definitely show better bandwidth and slightly lower SWR across the amateur bands. Worth the extra weight for base station use but probably not for ultralight hiking.

Sounds like the antenna is a little long for 467MHz and just about right for 448MHz - you might trim it a little at a time to balance the SWR between the frequencies. But first, double-check all your connections and make sure the mount has solid electrical contact.

yeah the USB power thing will absolutely cause you grief, the 5v rail on those boards is pretty dirty especially if you have relays switching on the same supply. i did almost exactly this project last year with a G-650 and the first thing i did was put a small LC filter on the AREF pin and use an external 3.3v regulator as the reference — made a huge difference. also worth putting a 100nF cap right at the wiper of the pot to ground, that cleans up a lot of noise before it even hits the ADC. the pi idea isnt really scope creep if you think about it, because then you just run rotctld as a service and any software that speaks hamlib just works. i run mine headless with a little python script that polls the arduino over serial and translates to the rotctld protocol. took a weekend to get solid but its been running for like 8 months without a restart so

Traffic just means messages — like formal written messages being passed along through the network, leftover from the old radiogram days. Most local 2m nets dont do much actual traffic passing anymore but the NTS nets still do it seriously. Net control asks so anyone carrying a formal message knows when to pass it along in the right order. You'll probably never need to worry about it on a casual local net honestly. As for getting the hang of net procedure, you kind of nailed it — say your callsign when called for check ins, wait to be recognized before transmitting, and dont kerchunk the repeater mid-net just to see if youre making it in. That last one is what probably got that guy a talking-to. Some net controls run a tighter ship than others, nothing personal, they just want things to flow so everyone gets a turn. Stick with it, after a few weeks it'll feel totally natural.

Yeah this has been bugging me for weeks too! I ended up using some spare coax for the last few feet before the insulators - just stripped the outer jacket and used the center conductor. seems to handle the flexing better than solid wire. probably not the most elegant solution but it works and I havent had to climb back up there in 3 months now

As a newer contester, focus on consistency over rate optimization initially. Starting with smaller, less competitive contests and gradually moving to more challenging events is a good strategy. Work one band thoroughly before changing, and don't get discouraged by rate fluctuations - contest conditions change constantly throughout the weekend.

check how APRSdroid is formatting the coordinates before they go out. there was a bug in older versions where it would send the position in decimal degrees but the packet encoder was expecting degrees and decimal minutes which is the NMEA standard format. so like if your lat is 41.5432 it might be sending that literally instead of converting it to 4132.59N or whatever the proper format is. the igates will still pass the packet but aprs.fi will decode the position wrong and put you in the middle of nowhere. update the app if you havent already and also look at the raw packets on aprs.fi, theres a link on your station page to see the raw data. if the position string looks weird like its missing the degree symbol format or the N/W designator is off that'll tell you right there. also double check your symbol and SSID settings while youre in there, sometimes a misconfigured SSID on a mobile station causes weird display behavior too though thats probably not your issue here.

so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and yeah its great for working DX and filling out the log but honestly it feels more like a video game than actual radio sometimes. you click a callsign, the macros do everything, you get a contact logged and thats... it. no real exchange, nothing personal about it. started poking around JS8Call last week and the concept is interesting to me — like it uses the same underlying weak signal encoding but youre actually typing messages back and forth, almost like a very slow text conversation. latency is rough obviously and youre not gonna ragchew the way you would on SSB or even PSK31 but at least theres a human on the other end doing something. my question is does anyone actually use JS8Call regularly or is it kind of a ghost town on most bands. ive seen a few stations pop up on 40m around 14078 or wherever the usual spot is but activity seems sparse compared to the FT8 watering holes. wondering if its worth learning the software quirks or if im just gonna be calling CQ into the void most of the time. already run WSJT-X for the ft8/ft4 stuff and i know JS8Call is a separate install so not a huge deal just want to know if the activity is there before i dig in