Kiwi Operator

A 5/8 wave antenna radiates and receives more energy toward the horizon and can have up to a 2-3dB gain over a 1/4 wave. They're best used in the flatlands and suburban areas. For highway simplex and longer distance work, the 5/8 wave is hard to beat. Depends on your operating style really.

Just got my license and keep hearing mixed pronunciations of phonetic words. Some say Lima as 'Lee-mah' while others say 'LEE-ma', and I've noticed there are official pronunciations that may seem odd but accommodate many native languages. Even heard someone curl their tongue for Quebec when ITU recommends 'KEH-BECK'. What's the best practice for clear communication? Is there an official pronunciation guide?Should I stick to standard ITU sounds even if they sound different?Any other common mispronunciations to watch out for?

Agree 100% on bandwidth abuse. Was trying to work a net on 20m last week and couldn't find clear frequency due to massive DXpedition spread. The bands do not belong to DXers or DXpeditioners. Taking excessive band width for our pileup damages relations with non-DXers. Some expeditions need better operator training on pileup control techniques before they activate.

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now (general) and keep hearing people talk about CW and how great it is and i kind of want to learn but i have no idea where to start. like do people still use those paper charts or is there an app or something. i tried just looking at the dots and dashes on a chart and it made zero sense to me, felt like trying to memorize a random list of letters and numbers with no connection to anything also how long does this realistically take, i dont want to commit to something that takes years before you can even have a basic qso. someone at the club mentioned the Koch method but i couldnt really follow what they were explaining. is that better than just trying to memorize it off a chart? sorry if this is a dumb question

so i've been running a FT-7900R in my truck for about 3 weeks now and the install was kind of a mess at first — i had the power leads running too close to the ignition wires and was getting all kinds of garbage. finally rerouted everything direct to the battery with a fuse holder close to the battery like everyone says to do and that helped a ton. antenna is a Tram 1185 on a mag mount on the roof, coax goes through the door jamb. but now im getting this kind of pulsing noise on receive, sort of rhythmic, speeds up when i rev the engine. i think its alternator whine? ive read about those little ferrite filters and also something about a ground loop but honestly im not 100% sure what the actual fix is here. radio works fine, i can hit the local repeater no problem, its just annoying. anyone dealt with this before or know what to actually try first before i start buying random stuff

yeah im planning to go, went last two years and always find something worth buying even if its just some connectors and coax. the swap meet tables early saturday morning are the best, gotta get there before 7 if you want the good stuff cause the dealers pick through everything first. if your club does a carpool that sounds like a good deal, parking is always a mess

yeah the ctcss thing got me too my first few tries, wasnt in my notes and spent like two passes wondering why nobody could hear me. also 28 degrees isnt bad at all i've had good contacts on lower passes than that depending on where the footprint lands. just gotta be ready and have gpredict open on your phone or something so you can see roughly where youre pointing

yeah totally normal i think. i go through phases like that especially in winter. sometimes i'll just park on a frequency and do something else around the shack, half paying attention. its actually how i got more comfortable with CW before i felt confident enough to answer calls. there's something kind of meditative about it honestly

I'll add that Log4OM has gotten a lot better lately but if you're doing serious contesting N1MM is still kind of irreplaceable, the SO2R stuff and the bandmap integration and all the macro keying features just dont exist in Log4OM at the same level. for casual operating though Log4OM is genuinely nicer to use day to day, the statistics and award tracking are good and the UI doesnt feel like it was designed in 2003 (no offense to the N1MM devs, it does what it does very well). one thing worth mentioning is that if you're active on FT8 a lot, WSJT-X logging to an external logger has always been a little quirky regardless of which one you use. i'd test it thoroughly before you rely on it, make sure the band and mode are coming through correctly and that the signal reports arent getting garbled. had an issue once where all my FT8 QSOs were logging with the wrong mode string and didnt realize for like two weeks.

same boat here. last Tuesday I had a killer opening to JA on 17m, worked like 6 stations in 20 minutes, then poof gone. checked back an hour later and totally dead. propagation is just humbling sometimes lol. I use the Space Weather website almost every morning now before i even sit down at the radio, just makes it easier to set expectations for the day.

not a dumb question at all, the band plan stuff genuinely reads like legalese the first few times. so yeah, as a tech you do get some HF privileges but theyre pretty limited. on 10m you can operate phone between 28.300 and 28.500 MHz, that one is probably the most useful for you. you also get some CW privileges on 15m, 40m, 80m, and a couple other bands but theyre narrow slivers mostly down in the CW portions. honestly the easiest thing is to find the ARRL band plan chart, they lay it all out by license class and its way easier to read than part 97 directly. power limit for techs on HF is 200 watts PEP on the HF bands with those limited privileges, same as general on some bands i think, though for your VHF/UHF stuff youre allowed up to 1500w which almost nobody runs that high anyway. just get the general license, the question pool isnt that bad and it opens up a lot more of the spectrum

so ive been a tech for about two years now and honestly i mostly just use my HT on the local repeaters and do some APRS stuff but ive been wanting to get on HF for a while now and everyone keeps telling me to just go get my general already the thing is i dont really know where to start with studying. i tried looking at the question pool and it seems like a lot of it is stuff i dont recognize at all, like propagation and operating procedures for HF and some electrical stuff that i barely remember from the tech exam. is the general actually a big jump from tech or am i overthinking it also someone mentioned something about HamStudy and another guy in my club said to just get the gordon west book. does it matter which one i use or should i do both? i have maybe like 3-4 weeks before theres a test session nearby and i dont know if thats enough time

so i just passed my technician exam last week and im trying to figure out what handheld to get. ive been reading a bunch of stuff online but honestly it just makes me more confused because everyone has a different opinion and half the posts i find are like 10 years old so i dont know whats still relevant. my main thing is i want to be able to hit the local repeaters and maybe do some simplex stuff at some point. i live in a pretty flat area so i dont know if that changes anything. someone at the club meeting mentioned i should just grab a baofeng to start with and not overthink it but then someone else said i should save up for a yaesu or kenwood. budget is probably around 50-100 bucks to start, maybe a little more if theres a really good reason. also does the number of channels or memory slots matter much when youre just starting out? i have no idea how many repeaters are even in my area yet so i dont know if 128 channels is overkill or if ill fill it up eventually. any advice appreciated, trying not to make a dumb first purchase here

The world opens up! I was content on VHF/UHF for years until I upgraded. First time I worked Japan on 20m SSB with 100W, I was hooked. With General class you can explore HF communications, participate in international QSOs, join new nets, and experiment with different modes like digital, CW, and SSB. It's like discovering amateur radio all over again.

congrats on the first one, 15 contacts definitely counts, the minimum is 10 so you had some wiggle room there. the noise floor thing is super common, i've learned to just do a quick walk around when i arrive and find the quietest spot even if its not the most convenient. sometimes its worth dragging the gear an extra hundred yards. for HAMRS logging you really only need callsign, band, mode, and time to get it to upload properly to the POTA site. the state info some hunters give you is just them being chatty or logging it on their end. dont stress about capturing all of that, the upload format is pretty forgiving as long as the required fields are there. just export the ADIF when youre done and drop it into the activation log on the website. youll get the activation credit usually within a day or two once its processed.

you're doing fine, checking in with no traffic is completely normal and honestly expected most of the time. net control wants bodies in the net, thats kind of the whole point — especially for things like ARES or public service nets where they're tracking who's active and reachable. nobody's rolling their eyes when you say no traffic, i promise. for missing the check-in window, most nets do have a late check-in opportunity, usually net control will say something like "any late check-ins or mobiles" somewhere toward the end. just wait for that and jump in then. if the net doesnt do that and you really missed it just let it go and catch the next one, no big deal. the worst thing you can do is key up while someone else is talking trying to squeeze in — that'll get you a gentle correction from net control pretty quick and its a little embarassing. not the end of the world but yeah, just wait. you're asking the right questions though, a lot of newer hams just barrel in and figure it out the hard way

The center of a vehicle's roof is a very good place to mount a VHF/UHF antenna, though creating an optimal ground requires drilling a hole. You could use a mag mount instead, but the only ground path is through capacitive coupling, which is lossy. Trunk mounting is second best.

the WA7BNK net finder and the QRZ special event page are both worth bookmarking, i check them pretty often. also the ARRL special event list does get updated regularly, you just have to dig around a bit to find the current month. for nets specifically i got into the habit of checking the ARRL net directory — you can filter by band and mode which is handy. sunday nights i usually hit the 75m ragchew net around here, its pretty informal, people just chat for an hour or two. not everyone gives a signal report, some folks just talk about whats going on. if youre used to the structured check-in format it feels a little loose at first but i actually prefer it now. there's also the ARES net in our section on monday evenings if you ever want to try an emcomm-type net, those run a bit more formal with NCS and everything but good practice.

Don't forget about the HamLog app which has a DX Spots tool that lets you click a spot to add a new contact with the DX station and frequency, plus it can tune your radio if you have Pigtail/Piglet configured. It's great for portable logging too.

i got my first EME contact about two years ago with basically a minimal setup, single 17 element yagi homebrew on a TV rotator i modified for elevation control, definitely not ideal. took me a while to get a complete but it happened. the key for me was picking the right window when the moon was at perigee and finding a patient operator with a big station on the other end who was willing to go slow with Q65. one thing nobody told me that i wish i knew earlier — the az/el accuracy actually matters more than you'd think. like my rotator setup had some slop in it and i was probably losing a couple dB just from not being pointed exactly right. moon noise is a real thing you can use to verify you're actually peaked on the moon, if you have a way to measure system noise you can literally see it go up when you're pointed right at the moon vs a few degrees off. anyway dont let perfect be the enemy of getting started, something is better than nothing

Been using a simple T-match ATU for my POTA activations but wondering if I should switch to a Z-match design. A well designed Z-match tuner has a high Q and is more efficient (less lossy) than other types of tuners. With only 5 watts to work with, every dB matters. Has anyone done side-by-side comparisons? My current setup is FT-818 with random wire antennas, mostly 40m and 20m CW. Also curious about the ZM-2 vs building my own - is the convenience worth the cost for field use?

HamStudy.org is honestly the best thing for this, just make flashcards and drill them daily. The question pool for tech is valid until 2026 i think so you should be fine if you grabbed it recently. Dont stress too much about the math, there are only a handful of actual calculation questions and once you see the pattern for ohms law and the decibel stuff it clicks pretty fast. I used that site for maybe two weeks, like 20-30 minutes a day while eating breakfast, and passed with only a few wrong. The pool is like 400 something questions but the test only pulls 35 of them so if you can get your practice scores consistently above 80% you're pretty much ready to go.

so ive been going back and forth on this for a couple weeks now. i have a 2019 honda fit and im trying to get a decent 70cm setup going for some local linked repeater stuff, maybe some satellite passes if i ever get my act together on that. the roof is an option but honestly drilling a hole in a car i still owe money on feels real bad. the lip mount seems like the obvious no-drill answer but ive heard mixed things about ground plane with those and whether it actually matters on uhf. the antenna im looking at is a diamond x50a which i know is a collinear and not really optimized for 70cm satellite stuff but for now im just doing terrestrial repeaters so gain pattern doesnt bother me much. just want to know if people have actually had reception/audio quality issues with a lip mount setup at uhf vs a proper nmо on the roof. the car has a pretty flat roof so mounting position shouldnt be too bad if i go that route

okay so i upgraded to General a few weeks ago and got assigned one of those sequential calls that's like 7 characters long and kind of awkward to say on air. nothing against it, it works fine, but ive been reading about vanity calls and im honestly pretty confused about how the whole thing works. from what i can gather you go to the FCC ULS, file a 605 form, pick the calls you want, and then wait 18 days or something? but i keep seeing people say its a lottery and other people saying no its first come first served and i genuinely dont know which is right. like is there actually a period where everyone who applies in the first couple days is treated equally, or does it literally depend on who clicks submit at the exact right moment also does it cost anything now? i thought i read they started charging fees but im not sure if that applies to vanity or just new licenses. sorry if this is a super basic question, im still figuring out all the FCC stuff

so ive been a tech for about a year and a half and i keep reading about how cw is this whole other level of operating and i kind of want to try it but i have no idea where to begin. like do i just start memorizing letters one at a time? i downloaded a couple apps but they all seem different and i dont know which approach is actually worth the time. someone mentioned something called the koch method to me at a club meeting but the guy kind of wandered off before explaining what it actually is. is there like a standard way people learn this or is it just whatever works for you. also i have no idea what speed i should be practicing at, ive heard both really slow and then something about how you should learn at full speed from the start which sounds insane to me but what do i know