Mark Johnson

so ive been licensed about 8 months now and just starting to get into DX chasing which is way more addictive than i expected honestly. someone at my local club mentioned using cluster spotting to find who's on the air and i set up DXwatch on my browser but im also seeing QRZ has its own logbook and spot stuff built in and i dont really understand how they relate to each other or if theyre pulling from the same data. like i'll see a spot on DXwatch for some station in a rare zone and then i go to QRZ to look them up and sometimes theres a totally different spot showing there or nothing at all. are these separate networks or is it all the same telnet cluster data just displayed different? i tried reading about it but most of the stuff i found was pretty old and talked about connecting to clusters directly which sounds like it requires software i havent figured out yet. also is there a phone app anyone actually uses for this because i do a lot of operating from the car and pulling up websites while driving is obviously not happening

yeah this is kind of a known pain point honestly. what i do is just accept that N1MM is the contest logger and Log4OM is the main shack log and after each contest i clean up the ADIF export before importing. takes maybe 20 minutes but you get used to it. the trick with the dupe issue is to make sure youre exporting from N1MM with the full cabrillo fields mapped, sometimes the ADIF it spits out is missing stuff depending on which contest module you were running for WSJT-X i just have it point to a dedicated log file and i import that weekly, its not perfect but its manageable. the real problem is WSJT-X doesnt export some of the mode subtype stuff in a way Log4OM handles gracefully, FT8 sometimes shows up as just MFSK or something weird. i usually do a find and replace in the ADIF before importing honestly if youre doing a lot of contesting you might just end up living in N1MM more than you expect and Log4OM becomes the archive. thats basically where i landed after fighting it for two years

The official pronunciations may seem odd but they're designed to accommodate many native languages, not just American English. Lima should be pronounced 'LEE-ma' (correct) not 'Lee-mah' (incorrect). There are also specific number pronunciations like 'niner' for 9, though the official ITU number pronunciation is very odd and the common amateur versions are more practical.

ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and im finally starting to get into chasing dx a little bit. i set up an account on qrz a while back mostly just for the logbook but i noticed there's a cluster spotting thing on there too and i wasn't sure how it relates to dxwatch or if they're pulling from the same data or what. like right now i have both tabs open and sometimes the spots show up on one but not the other, or they show up at slightly different times. is one considered more reliable or is it just about what you're used to? i also saw people mention something called dxscape and now im even more confused about which one to actually use. also is there a way to filter by band on dxwatch because i mostly operate on 20m and 40m and scrolling through everything is a little overwhelming when there's a big pileup happening somewhere

Use pouches—radios in one, power in another—for quick deployment. Seal electronics in zip-lock bags; test for water resistance per IPX4 standards if applicable. Also learned the hard way to include a headlamp with red filters - you'll be working in the dark more than you think!

I had similar problems with my 7300 setup until I realized the USB audio was set to 48khz instead of 44.1. Winlink Express can be picky about sample rates. Also make sure youre not running any other audio programs at the same time because windows loves to mess with exclusive mode access to the sound card. Been rock solid since I fixed those two things.

Don't overthink it for your first kit! You can set up an antenna, establish power, and check into emergency nets within minutes with basic gear. Focus on reliability over fancy stuff. I keep two UV-5Rs, spare batteries, and a simple roll-up J-pole in a small backpack. Works great for ARES drills.

I'm curious about the technical details of how the FCC assigns sequential callsigns to new licensees. I know it's based on the alphabetized regional-group list for your license class and mailing address, but what happens when they run out of calls in a particular group? If there are no available Group C calls in your region, do you really get assigned a Group D call instead? Also, I read that currently all Techs and Generals get 2x3 calls beginning with "K" - is this still accurate in all call areas?

okay so first thing, the guy at the swap meet was right, technician is definitely where everyone starts. the test isnt bad at all honestly, its 35 questions and you only need to get 26 right so theres some room to mess up. what i did when i studied was just use HamStudy dot org, you make a free account and it kind of quizzes you and tracks which questions you keep getting wrong so you can focus on those. i think i studied for maybe three weeks doing like 20-30 minutes a night and passed with no problem. the question pool is public which is a huge thing people dont realize at first, like the actual questions on your test come directly from that pool so if you just go through all of them enough times youll be fine. for finding a test session near you just go to the ARRL website and they have a VE session search, some clubs do them pretty regularly and you usually dont need to schedule super far in advance but it depends on where you live. some places have sessions every month, others maybe every couple months. just find one and register, its like 15 bucks or something like that to take the test.

We've been piloting it in our county since August. The recommendation is to complete Level 1 and advance to Level 2 as soon as practical. The ICS-213 practice has really improved our message handling during nets - much more professional now.

Definitely go with the 1:1 current balun at the feedpoint. Loading coils create asymmetries that can worsen common mode issues. I built a similar 20m loaded dipole and saw significant improvement in noise floor after adding the balun.

I did my first activation about a year ago on a pretty easy summit in VE3 land and honestly the radio part was less stressful than I expected. The thing that caught me off guard was wind noise in the mic, i was on a ridge and it was really gusty and the chasers kept asking me to repeat. Worth thinking about if your summit is exposed. Also bring more battery than you think you need, the KX2 is efficient but when youre up there and the contacts are flowing you dont want to be watching the voltage meter the whole time.

they're all totally separate programs so no the credits dont mix between them. DXCC is through ARRL and counts confirmed entities (countries basically), WAS is all 50 states, WAZ is the 40 CQ zones — completely different things you chase independently. the good news is if you're already on LoTW and have confirmations sitting there, the DXCC and WAS applications through LoTW are actually pretty painless, you basically just log in and it counts what you have automatically. for mixing LoTW and paper QSLs on DXCC — yes you can do that, you just need to get your paper cards checked at a DXCC card checker event (a lot of hamfests have them) or mail them in. the LoTW confirmations count separately and they add together toward your total. i'd honestly just get on LoTW first and see where you stand, you might be closer to 100 entities than you think if you've been active for a year. and yeah do WAS if you have it, its a nice milestone and the certificate looks good on the wall. order doesnt matter at all.

honestly the hamstudy.org approach works really well for most people, you just do the practice tests over and over until you're consistently scoring like 80% or better and you'll be fine on the real thing. the question pool is public so theres no surprises. that said i'd at least skim the sections on like basic electrical theory and the regulations stuff because some of those questions are worded tricky and if you actually understand WHY the answer is what it is you wont second guess yourself. i did mine in about 3 weeks just doing 20-30 minutes a day on hamstudy during lunch breaks. yes its 35 questions and you need 26 to pass so theres some wiggle room

N1MM UI from 2003 lol fair point but i think thats kind of the point, its not trying to be pretty its trying to be fast. during a contest when youre running 200 contacts an hour you really dont want anything fancy getting in the way. that said for rag chewing and digital modes on a slow afternoon i totally get wanting something that doesnt feel like a tax software from the bush era. i havent used Log4OM much myself, tried it once and got confused by the module layout but that might just be me. one thing i will say is that if you do a lot of FT8 the WSJT-X to N1MM pipeline is really well documented at this point, theres a KB article on the N1MM site that walks through exactly which UDP settings to use and it finally made sense to me after i read that instead of just guessing at port numbers.

so I've been meaning to do this for like two years and last month's windstorm that knocked out power for three days was kind of the wake up call I needed. been a ham for about six years, mostly HF ragchewing and some local 2m stuff, but never really got serious about being actually prepared for anything. here's where I'm at right now — I grabbed a Pelican 1510 case and I've got my FT-891 in there along with a LiFePO4 battery (30ah), a cheap solar panel, some coax, my logbook, pens, the usual. also threw in a copy of the local ARES net frequencies and my NIMS certs. my question is more like... what do people actually reach for when things go sideways that they didnt think to pack ahead of time? I feel like I'm missing something obvious and I wont know until I actually need it and it's not there. been reading a lot of threads about go-kits but most of them feel like they were written to sell you something, you know? also not sure if I should have a separate VHF/UHF capability in the kit or just rely on the HF. the 891 covers 6m which helps a little. thoughts?

so ive been running APRS for about a year now mostly just tracking my car and occasionally sending messages to a buddy across town who also runs it. setup is a kenwood TM-D710G into a decent vertical on the roof, nothing fancy. the problem is there's this dead zone about 15 miles southeast of me where packets just disappear. i can watch the path on aprs.fi and it'll show my beacon hitting the digipeater on the ridge just fine but then when i drive into that valley it's like i stop existing on the network. i've tried bumping up my transmit power and messing with the WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 path settings but honestly i'm not even sure if that's the right approach or if im just causing more QRM on the frequency. thought about setting up a fill-in digi at my house since i'm on a hill but i dont really know if that would even reach into that valley or just create a mess. anyone dealt with something like this before, like is there a good way to figure out where the actual coverage holes are before just throwing hardware at it?

so ive been running my 7300 for about two years now and overall its been a solid radio, no real complaints. but ive been seeing people talk about swapping in a better TCXO for improved frequency stability and i finally pulled the trigger on it last month. got the oscillator from a parts supplier overseas, took me like three weekends to actually get around to doing it but its done now. honestly not sure if im just placebo-ing myself here but the rig does seem more stable on weak signal stuff, specifically when im doing JS8Call and watching frequencies drift. before the mod i felt like i was always nudging things a little, now it just kind of... sits there. hard to quantify though. didnt do any actual before/after measurements like a real person would. also while i had it open i reflowed a couple solder joints on the PA board that looked a little cold to me, not sure if that did anything either. anyone else gone down this rabbit hole with the 7300 specifically? curious if theres other internal mods worth doing while the warranty is already thoroughly destroyed

im in pretty much the same boat as you, been at it for about 3 months now. what helped me was just accepting that the first several passes are going to be garbage and treating it as practice for pointing the antenna rather than actually trying to make contacts. once the antenna tracking felt natural i had more mental bandwidth to deal with the tuning. still havent fully figured out the CAT control thing but just manually nudging the dial got easier over time, muscle memory i guess

Definitely bring cash - lots of vendors prefer it and you'll get better deals. Get there early for the best selection, especially on quality used gear. Don't be afraid to test equipment before buying!

Stuck at around 80 QSOs/hour average rate in major contests and looking to break into triple digits consistently. Station runs K3 + Expert 1.3K-FA, TH7DX at 60ft, and N1MM+. Rate seems to plateau during prime time hours when everyone's running. QSO rate - the number of QSOs per hour - is almost everything in contesting, but I'm struggling with the mechanics of maintaining momentum. Currently doing mostly S&P with occasional short CQ runs when I find clear frequencies. Specific questions: How do you maintain rate during slow periods? What's the optimal balance between running and S&P? Should I focus more on SO2R techniques, or are there single-radio strategies I'm missing? Even at 60 Q/hour you'd work 2,880 stations in 48 hours - at 30/hour that's still 1,440 stations.

so we finally got around to doing a proper tabletop sim with our local ARES group, been trying to organize this for like 8 months and it kept getting pushed back for various reasons. we had about 11 people show up which honestly was better than i expected. the scenario we ran was a prolonged power outage after a major ice storm, county EOC is up but commercial comms are degraded, and we're tasked with handling health and welfare traffic plus liaising with the Red Cross shelter on the other side of town. pretty realistic for our area honestly. what surprised me was how fast things fell apart when we introduced the wrinkle that two of our designated net control operators were "unavailable" (we just told people mid-exercise that they were out of the picture). nobody had really thought through succession. like we have a net control, and a backup net control, but what happens when BOTH are gone? there was a solid 10 minutes of people kind of looking at each other waiting for someone to step up. the other thing that caught us off guard was message handling. we all know how to fill out an ICS 213 or pass an ARRL radiogram but when you're actually doing it under simulated stress and someone's throwing 4 messages at you at once, it gets messy fast. a couple of our newer folks had clearly never actually PASSED formal traffic before, just studied it. anyway i think the exercise was worth every bit of the chaos it caused. already thinking about what to run next time. has anyone else done tabletops specifically focused on the EOC interface side of things? that felt like our weakest link honestly.

Switched to an EcoFlow Delta 2 setup this year specifically because of generator RFI problems. Dead quiet RF-wise, and the pure sine wave output is much cleaner for the radio's power supply. Can run my FT-991A for 6+ hours on a single charge with solar top-off during the day.

so i just passed my technician exam last week and im finally looking at getting my first radio. everyone keeps telling me to start with a handheld since its cheaper and easier to figure out but there are just SO many options and i honestly dont know where to start. ive been looking at the baofeng uv-5r because its like 25 bucks and seems popular but then other people are telling me to stay away from it and get something from yaesu or kenwood instead. my main thing is i just want to be able to hit the local repeaters and maybe do some simplex stuff at events eventually. i dont need anything crazy. but i also dont want to buy something that breaks in a month or is super frustrating to program. whats a reasonable budget for a decent starter HT and is the baofeng hate justified or is it just radio snobs being snobby about it lol

We went with EchoLink on our club repeater and love it! The software runs on Windows, has mobile apps for iPhone and Android, plus the new web-based version means our members can participate from anywhere. Just remember that callsign validation is required which takes a few days for new users.