Maria Santos

so ive been messing around with an old Yaesu G-450A rotator that i picked up at a hamfest last spring and the controller is functional but kind of a pain to use especially when im trying to track satellites and also do other stuff at the same time. someone at the club mentioned that people have been using arduinos to automate rotators and interface them with software like PstRotator or even just write their own logic and honestly that got me down a rabbit hole for like two weekends straight. i ended up buying an Arduino Mega (probably overkill but i had a coupon) and a bunch of motor driver modules and ive been reading through other peoples projects online but a lot of them are half documented and you kind of have to guess at the wiring. what i really want is for the thing to be able to receive AZ/EL commands over serial from my computer and then drive the rotator to that position and report back. seems doable but the analog feedback from the rotator pot is giving me weird readings and im not sure if its a voltage divider issue or if my ADC just needs more averaging or what. anyone done something similar with this specific rotator or honestly any rotator, id love to know what approach worked for you. also curious if anyone has tied this into a Raspberry Pi instead, i have a Pi 4 sitting in a drawer doing nothing and wondered if thats a better approach for the serial interface side of things.

That math checks out perfectly. With RG-8X having about 3dB insertion loss on 80m for your run length, return loss becomes 6dB, which converts to exactly 3:1 SWR. Your true 8:1 antenna mismatch is being hidden by the lossy feedline - not good for efficiency!

so the short version is part 97 is the law, the ARRL band plan is just a gentlemans agreement that most people follow to keep things organized. you wont get your license revoked for ignoring the band plan but you might annoy a lot of people. for general on 40m you get phone privileges from 7.175 to 7.300 MHz. below that down to 7.025 is CW and digital modes for generals too. the band plan further divides that up into where people typically do SSB vs where the digital stuff hangs out but again thats not law. the band edge thing is about your signal splatter. if youre running SSB and you tune right to 7.175 your actual transmitted signal depending on your sideband and audio extends a few kHz, so you could actually be transmitting below your privileges without meaning to. most people say stay at least 3 kHz inside the edge to be safe. 7.125 is in the extra class segment so as a general you really cant be there on phone, your buddy was right to flag it.

same thing happened to me last year. i actually sat by the radio for like an hour before i keyed up the first time. and then after it was over i just sat there kind of stunned that it actually worked. the nervousness never fully goes away for me tbh, i still get a little jittery calling CQ on HF but its a different kind of nervous now, more excited i guess

the alternator whine thing on UHF but not VHF is actually pretty common and you're right that UHF tends to pick up more of that garbage. a few things worth checking — first, how is your coax routed? if it runs anywhere near the firewall or close to any of the engine harness wires that can cause problems, especially on the higher frequencies. LMR-400 is good stuff but it's only as good as the path it takes. second thing, and this is the one people overlook, is the antenna mount ground. even if your chassis ground for the radio itself is solid, if the NMO mount isn't making a really clean connection to the roof metal you can get all kinds of weird RF behavior. i'd pull the mount and clean everything up with some sandpaper if you haven't already, make sure you're getting bare metal contact. the other thing you could try is a cheap noise filter inline on the power leads, the little toroid choke types. sometimes that cleans it right up. had almost the exact same issue in my tacoma a few years back and it ended up being the power wire running too close to the HVAC blower motor wiring of all things.

Keep transmissions as short as possible with frequent breaks to listen for other signals. Split-channel operation is considered poor practice on 60 meters because it ties up two channels at once. Yes, Channel 5 has become the de facto international DX channel over the years. I use it mainly for working overseas stations and try to keep domestic ragchews on the other channels.

yeah the way Part 97 is written is genuinely rough to parse if you're not used to reading regulatory documents, so dont feel bad about that. basically as a tech you get CW privileges on 80, 40, 15, and 10 meters — but only in small segments near the bottom of those bands. for actual phone (voice) you only get a slice of 10 meters, i think it's 28.300 to 28.500 MHz, which is the tech phone allocation. power limit on HF for techs is 200 watts PEP on the bands where you have privileges, which is actually pretty reasonable to get started. honestly the easiest way to not screw up is just grab the ARRL band plan graphic and keep it somewhere handy. the FCC table of allocations is technically the authoritative source but the ARRL version translates it into something a human can actually read. once you upgrade to general youll open up a lot more and it starts making more sense as a whole system.

There's no legal requirement to use any specific phonetic alphabet. However, the ITU/NATO phonetics are the international standard and understood worldwide. For HF DX work, many use "DX phonetics" like America, Boston, Canada because they're easier for non-English speakers to understand. Start with NATO phonetics - they work everywhere.

yeah the hybrid network thing confuses a lot of people at first. basically Winlink Express will try RF first if you have a channel selected, but if the propagation is garbage or your timing is off it'll silently fall back to CMS over internet. if you want to force RF-only you need to go into the session settings and specifically choose "Vara HF" or "Pactor" or whatever modem you're using as a dedicated session type instead of the hybrid option. that way it wont fall back and if the connection fails it just fails, which is actually what you want for testing purposes. the attic dipole might honestly be fine depending on your band and time of day, 40m in the midwest you should be hitting something. pull up the RMS list on winlink.org and look at what stations are showing recent activity near your grid square, then manually enter that frequency rather than letting it scan. the auto channel scan takes forever and sometimes locks onto a station that's technically in range but has a horrible path. for your gateway question - technically yes you can run RMS Relay on the same machine but it's kind of a pain and they really do recommend a dedicated setup, especially if you want it to run 24/7. the sysop software (RMS Packet or RMS Trimode depending on what you're doing) needs the radio to itself basically. lots of people run it on a cheap mini PC or an old laptop they had lying around.

yeah what he said about the igate is probably it. also worth double checking that the destination address on your message packets is set right on the KPC-3+. i had a similar issue a while back and it turned out my TNC was somehow mangling the message format, took me forever to figure out because the beacons looked totally normal on the waterfall. ended up just reflashing the firmware and reconfiguring from scratch which was annoying but fixed it.

did the same mod on mine probably three years ago, no issues at all. i wouldnt worry about the RX thing, i think thats just you paying more attention to the radio after doing work on it. that said i did notice after i did a separate IF filter swap that 40m really opened up for me, the stock filters on the 857 are just okay, not great. if you havent looked into adding a 500hz or 300hz CW filter in there its worth it especially if you do any contesting or just crowded band operating. bit more involved than the MARS mod but still doable at home. the TX power mod — yeah i'd skip it honestly. heard of guys burning out the finals pushing those rigs harder than they were designed for and the 857 isnt exactly cheap to repair. the stock 100w is plenty for what most people need anyway.

yeah i went through exactly this maybe two years ago and eventually just committed to Log4OM full time. the contest module in Log4OM isnt as polished as N1MM, i'll be honest about that, N1MM is basically purpose-built for contesting and its hard to beat for that. but i got tired of the two-log juggle and the ADIF import headaches and just decided good enough was good enough for the handful of contests i actually do seriously. for the WSJT-X thing — what i do is set WSJT-X to log to Log4OM via UDP and just leave it. if im in a contest that N1MM supports and i actually care about my score i'll temporarily point WSJT-X at N1MM instead and then do a manual ADIF merge after. its not elegant but it works and ive stopped getting duplicates since i just do a careful dupe check before importing. the key is making sure your ADIF export from N1MM includes the contest-specific fields and then mapping them manually in Log4OM on import, theres a field mapping screen that most people skip past too fast.

so ive been putting this off for like two months and finally just did it saturday. cut a basic 40m dipole out of some 14awg stranded wire i had laying around from an old extension cord project, used a SO-239 chassis connector i pulled from a parts bin for the center insulator and just drilled it through a piece of scrap pvc. total cost was basically nothing which was the goal. anyway got it up in an inverted-v config, apex is around 28 feet off the ground which i know isnt ideal for 40 but its what the tree gave me. ran about 35 feet of RG-8X down to the shack. trimmed it according to the 468/f formula and ended up cutting each leg to roughly 33.2 feet and the SWR is sitting around 1.4:1 at 7.200 which honestly surprised me, figured id be way off. my question is the feedpoint impedance on an inverted-v is lower than a flat dipole right? ive read like 50-50 ohm vs closer to maybe 70 at the feedpoint for flat, but with the angle i have (legs are drooping pretty steeply, maybe 120 degrees included angle) does that mean im actually closer to a 50 ohm match naturally without any matching network? or am i just getting lucky with the SWR reading and the coax is eating the mismatch. been second guessing myself on this one.

so i finally did my first activation last weekend at a state park about 45 minutes from my house, K-2345 if anyone knows it, nice little place by a lake. ive been hunting for about 6 months and kept telling myself id do an activation eventually and i just finally did it. set up my end fed half wave with a 9:1 unun strung up between two trees, ran about 30 feet off the ground on one end maybe 10 on the other, honestly just eyeballed it. had my KX2 on the picnic table and started calling CQ POTA on 40m around 10am local time. it took maybe 15 minutes before i got my first contact and then it just kind of opened up, ended up with 24 qsos in a little under 2 hours which i know isnt blazing fast but it felt amazing. got spotted on the app after maybe my 5th or 6th contact and that definitely helped. someone told me to self-spot right away next time and not wait, is that actually the standard thing to do? i felt weird doing it like im announcing myself before ive done anything. also wondering about operating two bands to count for more parks, i only had the one reference there but i saw something about if you operate enough you can log it as two separate activations? i dont think thats right but someone mentioned it at the club and now im not sure what theyre even talking about. maybe they meant something else entirely.

ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and im starting to get into DXing a bit more seriously, or at least trying to. i keep hearing about DXCC and WAS and WAZ and honestly i didnt realize how different they all are until i started actually reading about them. like i thought DXCC was just the one awards program and everything else was under it but apparently theyre totally separate things? anyway right now i have maybe 40 something confirmed states on Logbook of the World and probably 60 or 70 entities in my log total but i dont know how many are actually confirmed. my question is basically which one of these is worth chasing as a newer ham or does it even matter, do people usually just work everything and let the credits pile up naturally. also is there a good way to check if an entity counts for DXCC that isnt just the ARRL list because that thing is kind of confusing to navigate

so ive been messing around with a cheap RTL-SDR v3 dongle for a few months now and honestly its been pretty impressive for the price, got it picking up ADS-B, some NOAA weather sats, even managed to decode some WSPR on 40m with the direct sampling mod enabled. but the HF performance is pretty underwhelming if im being honest — lots of noise, the dynamic range is just not there when there's a strong broadcast station nearby, and i keep reading that the SDRplay RSP1A or the RSPdx is supposedly a big step up for shortwave and ham bands. my question is whether its actually worth the jump to something like the RSP1A which is what, $110-$120 now? or should i just try to improve my antenna situation first and maybe add an upconverter. i already have SDR# and GQRX installed, tried SDRangel too but that thing is a beast to configure. mostly interested in HF listening, some 2m/70cm monitoring, and maybe getting into decoding digital modes with WSJT-X piped through virtual audio cable. anyone made that jump from RTL to SDRplay and felt like it was worth it

yeah the frequency spreading thing took me a while to figure out too. i used to just go like 5 up and wonder why nothing happened. some of these pileups on a real rare one the spread can be 15-20 khz wide on 20m and the bottom end is just completely unusable. i tend to go higher than feels comfortable now honestly. also not sure if this is controversial but i do think antenna matters more than people admit when they say its all technique. i put up a 2 element wire yagi last year and the difference in pileup results was pretty noticeable, like it wont make a bad operator good but all else equal more signal in the right direction does help. your tribander at 35 feet is probably doing ok though depending on your takeoff angle situation

haha yeah the throw bag thing gets everyone at least once. i used to use a tennis ball with fishing line and that worked ok until i lost like 6 of them in the trees. 7 contacts is definitely enough, 4 is the minimum for it to count as an activation so youre good. paper logging gets easier fast, most people just do a simple grid, callsign, time, band, mode and thats it. the KX2 is a great choice for that kind of thing by the way, runs forever on a small battery.

the doppler thing trips up pretty much everyone at first. short answer — yes you really want to correct both, but not for the reason most people think. the inverting transponder means your doppler corrections on uplink and downlink actually work in opposite directions, so if you only track one you end up with a larger net error than if you tracked neither. Gpredict can drive a rig via CAT if you set it up right, and it'll handle both simultaneously which takes a lot of the mental load off. as for practicing without stepping on people, just listen for a while first. a few passes of just receiving lets you get a feel for where signals sit in the passband and how fast things move. FO-29 has been a bit hit or miss lately but AO-73 is usually pretty active when its in sunlight. you'll hear guys making contacts and can get a sense of the pace before you transmit. nobody expects perfection on the first couple passes honestly, just keep your power low and youll be fine.

i just did this like four months ago so pretty fresh for me. i used hamstudy and also watched some youtube videos from a channel called Ham Radio Crash Course which helped a lot for the concepts i wasnt getting just from reading. the electronics stuff tripped me up at first, like the ohms law questions and antenna length calculations but once i saw someone actually explain it visually it clicked. the test itself was way less scary than i expected, the VE team at my session were super friendly. just do like a hundred practice questions a day for two weeks and you'll be fine probly

so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and yeah its great for getting contacts and watching the band conditions but honestly it feels like just clicking buttons and watching callsigns pop up. theres not really any operating going on, you know what i mean? someone mentioned JS8Call to me at the club meeting last month and i finally got around to installing it this weekend. first impression is that its way slower obviously, like you really notice the difference once youre used to FT8 snapping through a full exchange in 90 seconds. but i actually talked to a guy in colorado for like 20 minutes about his antenna setup and it felt like actual radio again. propagation was rough too, 40m was a mess saturday night, and we were still completing sentences at pretty terrible SNR, i think i was seeing him around -18 or so at points. my question is really whether people actually use JS8Call regularly or if its one of those things everyone installs and then forgets about. also curious if anyone runs PSK31 still. i have a feeling i know the answer but my elmers back in the day were big PSK31 guys and i have some nostalgia for it even though i never really got into it myself before FT8 kind of took over everything.

yeah the whole thing is a bit of a mess when you first look at it honestly. so the short version is LoTW is the gold standard if you ever want to go for DXCC or a lot of the bigger ARRL awards, eQSL is its own separate thing with its own award system and a lot of people use both. paper cards are kind of optional but some people love them and certain rare DX stations only confirm via bureau so you'll run into that eventually. the LoTW setup is the annoying part, you basically have to request a certificate from the ARRL and it involves a little back and forth with them verifying your license but once its done its pretty painless. if you're running WSJT-X for FT8 it actually has LoTW upload built right in which is nice. for your SSB contacts you'd be logging them in something like Log4OM or whatever you use and then exporting an ADIF file to upload to LoTW. i'd say start with LoTW just to get it out of the way, then sign up for eQSL too since its free and easy, and then decide if you want to mess with paper cards later. a lot of us do all three depending on who we're working. some DX expeditions are really good about uploading to LoTW quickly, others take months, it varies a lot.

ok so i finally got my technician license last month and ive been trying to get on the local 2m repeater but nobody seems to hear me when i key up. did some digging and apparently i need a CTCSS tone programmed in but honestly the whole thing is a bit confusing to me still. the repeater directory listing says the tone is 100.0 Hz and i thought i had that set in my radio (baofeng uv-5r, i know i know) but still nothing. like i can hear other people on there just fine having conversations, i can even hear the repeater ID when it times out, but when i transmit nobody responds and i dont hear any kind of courtesy tone after i drop. is it possible i have the tone set to transmit on the wrong frequency or something? im programming it through chirp if that helps. also sort of wondering if theres like... a proper way to break into a conversation or if i should just wait. dont want to step on anyone unintentionally

yeah the tone thing trips up a lot of new folks. so CTCSS is basically a subaudible tone your radio sends along with your transmission, and the repeater uses it to decide whether to open up or not — keeps it from keying up on random noise or signals from far away. the 100.0 in the listing means you need to program 100.0 Hz as your transmit tone (sometimes labeled CTCSS T or Tone or TX CTCSS depending on the radio or software). you dont necessarily need to set a receive tone unless you want to squelch out anything that comes through without it, but most people leave that off. in chirp there should be a Tone Mode column — set that to Tone, then set the CTCSS Freq to 100.0 and make sure youre saving it to the right channel. double check your offset direction too, most 2m repeaters are plus 600 kHz but some are minus, the directory should say. on the etiquette side — if theres a conversation going on, wait for a pause between transmissions, key up and just say your callsign and say youre monitoring or standing by. most people are pretty welcoming, especially to new hams. just dont step on someone mid-sentence and youll be fine.

So ive been a ham for about 8 months now (General class) and a buddy of mine keeps talking about POTA and finally convinced me to try an activation at a state park about 20 minutes from my house. I registered on the pota.app site and got the park reference sorted out, K-4823 for anyone curious, but im still fuzzy on a few things before i head out Saturday. First question is about logging — do I need to log in real time or can I just write contacts down on paper and upload later? I have HAMRS on my phone but last time i tried it the GPS was acting weird and it kept putting me at the wrong coordinates. Second thing is, how many contacts do i actually need for it to count as an activation? I heard 10 but someone else told me it depends on the park. And honestly do people actually call CQ POTA or do you just call CQ and people find you on the spots? Sorry for all the questions, just dont want to show up and fumble around for two hours with nothing to show for it. Planning to run my IC-705 with a random wire up in a tree if i can manage it.