Morse Coder

had something similar on an older 706 and it ended up being a cold solder joint on the filter board. not saying thats it but worth reflowing the connections around the LPF section before you go deep into the transistors. saved me a lot of headache once i finally found it, looked totally fine visually but under magnification there was a tiny crack around one of the relay pins.

You've got the question/statement concept exactly right! The most common usage for this Q-signal is to ask if a frequency is in use before beginning to call CQ or another station. Start with QRL? (is frequency busy?), QTH (location), QRT (going off air), and QSL (confirm/understood). These cover 90% of what you'll need for casual contacts.

Looking to upgrade from my cheap Chinese radio to something more reliable. I'm considering the Kenwood TM-281A, Icom IC-2300H, or Yaesu FTM-300DR for my daily driver. Budget is around $300-400 and I want something that will work when I need it most during emergencies.
Which brand has been most reliable in your mobile installations? I've heard mixed things about all three manufacturers' recent QC.

so ive been putting this off for a while but i finally went ahead and did the extended TX mod on my IC-7300. not the mars/cap thing specifically, just wanted a bit more flexibility on the low end of 160 and also wanted to mess around with some stuff outside the normal ham bands for testing purposes. pretty straightforward honestly, just a couple jumpers on the board once you get the bottom cover off.
while i had it open i also went ahead and replaced the stock cooling fan since mine was starting to get a little rattly at high duty cycle. threw in a Noctua NF-A4 which required some minor bracket fiddling but its dead silent now and seems to move at least as much air. ran it for a couple hours on FT8 at 80-90w and the finals barely got warm compared to before.
the thing im still debating is the audio mod. ive seen people swap out the stock mic element for something with a flatter response and supposedly it makes a noticeable difference on SSB. has anyone actually done that and thought it was worth it versus just using an external mic? feel like at some point youre just adding complexity for marginal gains but curious what others have found.

so ive been lurking here for a while and finally decided i want to actually get licensed instead of just reading about it. my neighbor has been into ham radio for years and makes it look really fun but honestly the whole process is kind of confusing to me. like i know theres a test but i dont really know what the test covers or how hard it is or anything like that. i found the ARRL website but theres so much stuff on there i dont know what to click first. is there like a specific study guide people actually use or do most people just do the question pool thing online? also how long did it take you guys to feel ready, i dont want to go in and fail and waste the money on the exam fee

congrats on the ZL9, thats not easy. i tried for one last year and gave up after an hour, my antenna situation is pretty compromised so i kind of knew it was a long shot but still.
the split listening thing took me a while to really get. i think i read about it in like three different places before it actually clicked what people meant by following the op. also didnt realize how much it matters to just not transmit when the pileup is at peak chaos — sometimes waiting like 10 minutes for things to thin out a bit works better than grinding away when everyones going nuts

ok so i just passed my technician exam last month and ive been reading through Part 97 trying to figure out exactly what privileges i have and honestly its kind of a mess to read through. like i understand i have certain HF privileges but i cant figure out if i can actually have a conversation on 10 meters or just CW. and then theres all this stuff about third party traffic and i dont even know when that applies to me. does that mean i cant let my friend who isnt licensed talk on my radio at all or is that something different? i asked someone at my local club and they kind of gave me a vague answer and i dont think they were totally sure either. just trying to understand what i can actually do without accidentally breaking a rule

so ive been putting together a go-kit for our county ARES group and the whole power question is killing me. we had a deployment last year where someone showed up with a cheap harbor freight 2000w generator and the noise floor on 40m was absolutely terrible, like S7 noise across the whole band. killed us for most of the night until we figured out what was going on.
now im trying to plan something better for the next exercise. thinking about running off a 100ah lifepo4 battery with a 40w solar panel for daytime and then a proper inverter generator for nighttime or heavy loads. the radios we're using are mostly IC-7300s and a couple D710s for the VHF side so it's not a massive power draw but still. anyone dealt with this for multi-day ops where you cant just run home and grab stuff if something goes wrong
also the antenna situation is a whole other headache. we've been using a mix of random end-feds with a 9:1 unun and one guy has a buddipole he swears by but honestly it takes him like 45 minutes to set up every single time. looking for something that can go up fast and still be actually useful on 40 and 20, not just technically resonant.

Planning to build the uSDX-RX Arduino Nano direct conversion receiver that's been making rounds lately. The design uses digital signal processing for AM, FM, SSB and CW reception across HF with surprisingly good performance.
Two questions for those who've built this:
Best source for the 74HC4053 analog switches? Seems like the critical component for I/Q mixing Anyone tried substituting the SI5351A module with a bare chip implementation for better phase noise? Also seeing conflicting info about whether the SRA-1 diode ring mixer version performs better than the 4053 switching approach. Circuit is simple enough for breadboard construction but want to get it right the first time.

yeah the activity question is the real issue with JS8. its there but its not like you can just spin up the software at 2pm on a tuesday and expect a pile of folks waiting. the 40m JS8 frequency gets more use than 20m in my experience, especially in the evenings. theres also a handful of nets — the winlink adjacent crowd sometimes uses it, and theres some emcomm groups that run JS8 drills but you'd have to dig around to find their schedules.
as for running both at once, i do it all the time with VAC routing into two instances. just make sure you're not keying both at the same time obviously, i use separate VOX timings and keep an eye on it. havent had a conflict yet but im also not running high power so if something went sideways the worst case is a stepped-on transmission not a blown finals situation. the bigger annoyance is keeping the audio levels sorted between the two apps because WSJT-X can be kind of grabby about the soundcard if you're not careful with the virtual cable config.

yeah 10m has been insane, i worked like 14 countries last Saturday in about two hours just running barefoot with a vertical. my neighbor actually came over and asked why i was on the radio so much haha. the flux being this high really does make you appreciate what the bands can do -- i remember back in the last solar minimum trying to squeeze anything useful out of 10m and it was just dead most days.
on the 7760, i handled one at the dayton hamvention display last year before they started shipping and the build quality felt really solid. the remote head cable setup is cleaner than i expected. that said i think youre right to wait, initial pricing is gonna be painful and the 7300 is still one of the best radios ever made for the money so there's no real rush unless you have a specific reason you need that form factor.

yeah 10m has been insane, i worked like 14 countries last Saturday in about two hours just running barefoot with a vertical. my neighbor actually came over and asked why i was on the radio so much haha. the flux being this high really does make you appreciate what the bands can do -- i remember back in the last solar minimum trying to squeeze anything useful out of 10m and it was just dead most days.
on the 7760, i handled one at the dayton hamvention display last year before they started shipping and the build quality felt really solid. the remote head cable setup is cleaner than i expected. that said i think youre right to wait, initial pricing is gonna be painful and the 7300 is still one of the best radios ever made for the money so there's no real rush unless you have a specific reason you need that form factor.

yeah the activity question is the real issue with JS8. its there but its not like you can just spin up the software at 2pm on a tuesday and expect a pile of folks waiting. the 40m JS8 frequency gets more use than 20m in my experience, especially in the evenings. theres also a handful of nets — the winlink adjacent crowd sometimes uses it, and theres some emcomm groups that run JS8 drills but you'd have to dig around to find their schedules.
as for running both at once, i do it all the time with VAC routing into two instances. just make sure you're not keying both at the same time obviously, i use separate VOX timings and keep an eye on it. havent had a conflict yet but im also not running high power so if something went sideways the worst case is a stepped-on transmission not a blown finals situation. the bigger annoyance is keeping the audio levels sorted between the two apps because WSJT-X can be kind of grabby about the soundcard if you're not careful with the virtual cable config.

Farnsworth timing sends characters at higher speeds with extra spacing between them - you get used to recognizing characters at speed, making it easier to increase overall speed later. Listen at 22-25 WPM character speed using Farnsworth method.

Maybe it's just my area, but I've been seeing more of gatekeeping and resistance to change holding the hobby back, with stories of grumpy old-timers, club snobbery, and unwelcoming attitudes on repeaters and forums. Had a new ham tell me yesterday they're thinking of giving up after getting lectured on our local 2m repeater for "not following proper protocol" when they were just trying to check in.
Are we really as welcoming as we think we are? Seeing stuff like this makes me wonder if we need to work harder on making the hobby more inclusive.