David Thompson

that's really cool to hear, congrats on your first real one. i've been part of our county RACES group for about eight years and the waiting thing never really goes away lol. during a bad ice storm we had a few winters back i think i sat at a repeater site for almost four hours just monitoring before they needed anything from us. but that's kind of the job right, being there in case.
the jump kit thing is something our group actually does a whole session on now because everybody shows up with different stuff and half of it is wrong for the situation. we had a guy bring a massive linear amp to a deployment once, like what are you doing with that. we sort of landed on a standard list for our area which helps, though people still customize. whats in yours that you found you were missing if you dont mind me asking, always curious what gaps people find

I have not been able to get my RTL-SDR to work as a panadapter with my Kenwood TS-570DG or Yaesu FT-920. I have tapped the proper location for the 1st IF and inputted proper frequencies in HDSDR but display shows nothing but random lines. Can be frustrating to get working properly - make sure your tap point and IF frequency are correct.

so ive been chasing 3Y0 and a few other rare ones for a while now and always seemed to get buried in the pileup no matter what i tried. last weekend there was a small DXpedition on 17m and i finally broke through after maybe 20 minutes which for me is actually a record lol.
what seemed to make the difference was listening way more carefully to where the DX station was actually coming back — like not just the split frequency range they announced but exactly where in that range they kept fishing. there was a cluster of guys all piling on the bottom of the split and i just moved up about 3 kHz from where everyone else was and on my third call they came back to me. running about 400w into a 4el yagi at 40ft so nothing crazy.
also started using shorter calls instead of sending my full callsign twice every time. just one crisp send, then wait and listen. seemed like the DX op was getting frustrated with guys doubling on each other and was picking out single callers more often.
anyway curious if anyone else has found specific techniques that actually work consistently, especially on the low bands where it gets really chaotic. i know timing is huge but i cant ever seem to nail the rhythm when its a big pileup.

I'd recommend actually learning the theory if you have time - it really does make you a better operator and helps with troubleshooting. But that said, the exam is multiple choice so if you're short on time the memorization approach works. Focus on understanding the concepts behind smith charts rather than memorizing every formula, and definitely know your band plan changes. The extra segments fill up fast during contests so having access is great.

yeah the mars mod on yaesu stuff is pretty much a rite of passage lol. did mine day one honestly. the only thing id add is double check your power output on the expanded segments because sometimes it drops off noticeably outside the ham bands, mine was only doing like 60-65w at the edges which was fine for my purposes but worth knowing.

for a 6-8 hour activation with that kind of load i'd absolutely bring the generator. the math just doesn't work out with solar unless you have something like 200+ watts of panel and a 100ah battery minimum, and even then you're cutting it close if there's any cloud cover. a 20-22 amp transmit draw adds up fast and your battery will sag before you know it, then voltage starts dropping and the radio starts doing weird things.
the EU2200i is about as good as it gets for this kind of thing. runs clean power, the inverter type is fine for radios, and it's quiet enough that people wont be yelling at you all day. i'd run the genny as primary and keep a 50ah LiFePO4 as a buffer/backup. that way if you kill the genny for a lunch break or whatever the battery carries you for a while and also smooths out any load spikes.
on the antenna question, EFHW is almost always the right call if you have trees and a few extra minutes. the Buddipole is convenient but you'll be fiddling with it constantly trying to get the SWR down and explaining to bystanders what you're doing. throw the wire up and forget about it.

so the Tri-County hamfest is coming up Saturday and i havent been in a few years, last time i went i picked up a really solid Kenwood HF rig for way under what they go for on QRZ classifieds so im pretty excited to go back. wondering if anyone from the club is planning on showing up, would be cool to meet up and walk the tables together. also does anyone know if they still do the antenna building thing in the afternoon or did they drop that? i remember it being pretty fun but couldnt find anything about it on the flyer.