Radio Geek

warm is totally normal for the IRF510, that transistor runs hot even when everything is working right. as long as you have a small heatsink on it and its not too hot to touch after a few minutes of keying you're probably fine. if its burning your finger immediately then yeah something might be off in the bias or the matching network. the IRF510 is kind of notorious for being a little finicky but its also super common in homebrewed rigs for a reason - theyre cheap and forgiving enough that you can actually learn on them without destroying something expensive. for portable antenna i almost always just throw up a random wire and use a small tuner. i built a little L-network tuner that fits in an altoids tin and it handles pretty much anything i throw at it. some guys swear by end feds with a 9:1 unun for hiking since you only need one feedpoint and can just toss the wire over a tree branch. honestly for QRP portable the antenna matters way more than anything else so if you havent already i'd spend as much time thinking about that as you did on the rig itself

so i finally did my first activation last weekend, went up to a local summit that's only about a mile hike from the trailhead, nothing too crazy. brought my ft-818 and a wire dipole i threw together the night before, ran it up between two hiking poles which worked surprisingly well actually. managed to get 4 contacts on 20m SSB which i know is the minimum for a valid activation so that was a relief. but i have some questions because im still figuring out the whole SOTA thing. first, when people say theyre chasing you, do they already know youre going to be there or do they just happen to find you? i spotted myself on the SOTAwatch app but im not sure if anyone actually saw it before i called CQ. second, the summit reference for the one i did — W6/NC-something i think — do i need to log that exact reference or is the general area ok? just want to make sure i do it right when i submit the log. also my signal was getting eaten alive every time the wind picked up and was shaking the antenna, is that normal or did i do something wrong with the setup

i did almost exactly this last winter. the texting part is easier than you'd think, i used a python library called Apprise that can push to like a dozen different services. ended up going with ntfy.sh just because it was free and i didnt want to mess with twilio billing. the temp sensor integration with those DS18B20s is dead simple on the pi, theres a kernel module that just exposes them as files in /sys so you basically just open and read. SWR monitoring is where it gets trickier depending on how your bridge outputs the voltage but if its already giving you a clean DC level it should be fine through an ADS1115 like the other guy said.

im kind of in the same boat as you, been chasing DXCC for about a year now and just hit 112 confirmed on LoTW which still feels unreal. the LoTW setup really is worth the headache, i almost gave up on it twice but someone on here walked me through it and now i dont think about it at all it just works. one thing nobody told me early on — worked doesnt equal confirmed. i worked way more entities than i have confirmed because not everyone uploads or sends cards. so keep that in mind when you see your worked count vs confirmed count, they can be pretty different especially starting out.

ok so i got my general ticket about 8 months ago and ive been slowly figuring out HF. made a bunch of contacts and someone in my club mentioned i should be tracking my QSLs for awards. now im going down a rabbit hole and honestly its kind of overwhelming. so DXCC is countries basically, WAS is all 50 states, and WAZ is zones? are these completely separate programs you have to apply for separately or is there some overlap where one QSL counts toward multiple awards. also i keep seeing people talk about LoTW and how its important for credits but i still havent really set that up yet because the whole certificate process confused me the first time i tried. not even sure what my actual question is here lol. i guess just... how do people usually approach this. do you pick one and focus on it or just log everything and sort it out later. my logbook is a mess right now and im worried ive already missed confirming contacts that wouldve counted for something.

yeah a few things jump out at me. first off if you're on VARA HF you actually need the VARA HF modem software installed and licensed separately — its not built into Winlink Express, its a separate application from EA5HVK. a lot of people miss that. if you didn't buy the license VARA still works but its speed-limited, shouldnt stop you from connecting though. for the IC-7300 you want to make sure your USB audio levels are sane. in Winlink Express there's a built in level meter when you go to the session window — you want your TX audio driving around 40-50% in VARA, the 7300 can easily overdrive and cause all kinds of splatter that'll make the gateway reject you. also double check that compression is off on the radio, and the TX bandwidth is set wide enough for VARA — i usually run 2700hz or so. the other thing worth checking is whether the RMS gateway you're targeting is actually a VARA HF gateway. not all of them are, some only do Winmor or packet. look at the Winlink RMS list online and filter by mode, or just try a Telnet session first just to confirm your messages actually flow end to end before you troubleshoot the RF side.

so ive been a General for like three years now and honestly i kept putting off the Extra because everyone i talk to at the club says the theory section is really tough. i did fine on Tech and General without too much trouble but the Extra pool looks intimidating. mostly the stuff about filter design and transmission line theory and all the math around impedance matching. i dont even really know if i need those privileges right now but i figure why not just get it done. is there anything specific i really need to drill down on or is it more like just memorize the question pool and you'll be okay? i know some people say you can pass without really understanding the theory but that feels like cheating myself a little. anyway just wondering if anyone has gone through this recently and what the experience was like

so i just passed my general a few weeks ago and upgraded from tech, and my sequential call finally came through which is fine i guess but its kind of a mouthful. i started looking into the vanity call process and honestly the FCC website is not super helpful for someone who doesnt already know what theyre doing. from what i can gather you basically just apply through the ULS system, pick a call that fits your license class, and then wait 18 days or something? but i keep reading conflicting stuff about whether the 18 day window matters or if its first come first served or what. and do you actually get to pick multiple choices or just one at a time? i put in one application but now im second guessing whether i should have listed more options somehow. also can anyone tell me roughly how long this took for them? i know it probably varies but just trying to get a sense of whether im looking at weeks or months here. appreciate any help, still pretty new to all this

congrats on the first qso. honestly the nervousness never fully goes away for me even now when im trying to work a new DX station, totally different situation but same butterflies. stick with it, the nets are a good way to get comfortable before you just start calling CQ on your own which is a whole other level of terrifying the first time

congrats on the first one, that feeling when you realize you've qualified a summit never really gets old honestly. S2S contacts are one of my favorite parts of the whole thing, there's something cool about knowing both of you dragged radios up a mountain to talk to each other on the activation zone question - yeah it can be confusing especially on flatter summits. the 25 meter rule is vertical drop from the highest point so as long as your antenna is set up within that elevation band you're good, you dont have to be standing on the literal peak. i've had activations where the best tree for the antenna was 50 feet horizontally from the top but still well within the zone. just use your GPS elevation and compare to the listed summit height on sotadata and you'll be fine what band did most of your contacts come in on? i've found 40m is usually the workhorse for activations in the southeast but sometimes 20m surprises you with chasers from europe if you post your spot on SOTAwatch ahead of time

so i finally got called up for an actual ARES activation last weekend, county EOC needed radio support because the storm knocked out some repeaters and they had spotty comms with a couple of the shelter sites. ive been doing the monthly nets and the SET exercises for about a year and a half now so i figured id be reasonably prepared but man the real thing is just different. nobody tells you how much of it is just sitting and waiting and then suddenly everything happens at once. we had three operators in the EOC and the EC was trying to coordinate with the shelter operators at the same time as he was talking to the served agency liaison and i was handling the message traffic log and honestly i kept second guessing every entry. like is this the right format, did i get the time right, that kind of thing. the training covers ICS forms and whatnot but when youre actually doing it in a noisy room with someone talking over your shoulder its a completely different animal. the HF stuff ended up not being needed which was kind of a bummer because thats what i trained hardest on, it was mostly VHF simplex to the shelters and one NVIS link that the more experienced guy handled. but overall it went okay i think and the emergency manager seemed happy with us. just wanted to share i guess, curious if anyone else remembers their first activation being a bit of a blur

so we have a county ARES exercise coming up in about three weeks and im trying to figure out the best way to power everything without lugging our usual generator around. last time we ran a honda eu2200i and it was fine but honestly kind of overkill for what we were doing and the noise was annoying when trying to copy weak signals on 40m ssb. our typical load is an IC-7300 running maybe 50-60w most of the time, a small laptop for logging, a couple of HTs on charge, and a little LED work light. ive been looking at the bioenno 100ah lithium pack or maybe just daisy chaining a couple of the 50ah ones i already have. rough math says we should be fine for 6-8 hours without any recharging but im not 100% sure im accounting for the laptop correctly. antenna side is sorted i think — we're doing a linked dipole for 40/20 up on a 31ft spiderpole, feed with LMR-400 to keep losses down since the run is kinda long. maybe 40 feet from the mast to the operating position. just wondering if anyone's run a similar power setup and whether the lithium batteries handled the 7300's current draw okay on TX peaks.

ok so i passed my general a few months ago and ive been trying to figure out the 40m band but honestly the more i read about it the more confused i get. like there's the FCC allocation, then there's what the ARRL band plan says, and then people on the repeater club were talking about the 'gentleman's agreement' stuff and i dont even know what that means exactly my main question is basically — if i want to do some SSB on 40m where should i be tuning? i know the band edges are somewhere around 7.0 and 7.3 but i dont want to accidentally step on CW guys or go outside where im allowed or anything. is the band plan something i legally have to follow or is it more of a suggestion? genuinely cant tell

the path thing — yeah theres a real difference. WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 will hit fill-in digis (home stations that have WIDE1-1 enabled) before going to the full network digis. if youre already in a well-covered area that can actually cause more channel noise than anything because youre getting digipeated extra times when you dont need to be. WIDE2-2 in good coverage areas is usually cleaner, two hops max and you dont spam the local fill-ins. the position jumping is almost definitely not your GPS, its more likely packet collisions. APRS is uncoordinated so if two stations transmit at the same time the packets corrupt each other and sometimes a partial decode ends up with a garbled position. aprs.fi kinda interpolates sometimes too. try dropping your beacon rate a little if you havent already, especially if youre parked. no point hammering the channel every 30 seconds when nothing is changing.

yeah 40 has been rough here too, W5 land. though honestly i popped on around 9pm local last tuesday and it opened up pretty decent toward the east coast. might just be timing. i've mostly given up on evening 40m and shifted to 30m for digital stuff, way less crowded and propagation seems more predictable for me lately

The theory on the Extra isn't impossibly hard but it's definitely a step up. There's stuff on resonant circuits, reactance, some transmission line theory, filter types — like you you'll see questions about Butterworth vs Chebyshev filters and honestly if you've never touched that stuff it can look intimidating at first. But here's the thing, the question pool is finite. All the questions that can appear on the actual exam are published and a lot of people just grind through the pool with HamStudy or one of the apps and get through it without fully understanding every concept. That works for passing but if you actually want to understand what you're doing, the ARRL Extra Class License Manual isn't bad, or Gordon West's book if you want something a little more approachable. I'd say give yourself 6 to 8 weeks if you're studying casually and you should be fine. As for the privileges, depends what you do. The CW end of 40m and 20m can be nice, and on 75m the Extra portion is quieter sometimes. Whether that's worth it is up to you but finishing the license path has its own satisfaction I think.

welcome to the rabbit hole, you're never getting out haha. no seriously congrats on getting bit by the DX bug, its a great part of the hobby. to answer your questions — yes WAS and DXCC are completely separate awards, different organizations even. DXCC is ARRL, WAS is also ARRL actually but they track them independently. WAZ is CQ magazine's award and yeah its the 40 CQ zones, totally different system from DXCC entities. you can work the same station and it might count toward all three depending on where they are and what zone they're in, which is kind of the fun part when it all lines up. for DXCC you dont need to wait until you have 100 to apply. you can submit a batch whenever you feel like it, some people submit at like 50 or 75 just to get the ball rolling and make sure their log is in order. i'd honestly just keep logging everything carefully, make sure your LoTW account is set up right with the right TQSL certificates and callsign, and let the confirmations pile up. LoTW is really the way to go these days, paper QSLs are slow and expensive. one thing i'll mention — double check your log dates and times are in UTC. sounds basic but ive seen guys lose confirmations because their logging software was set to local time. just something to verify early on before you have hundreds of QSOs to fix.

so ive been on HF for about two years now and mostly do SSB on 40 and 20m, and im starting to get more conscious about how i sound on the other end. been getting reports anywhere from 'sounds great' to 'a bit muffled' on the same rig depending on conditions i guess but also i suspect some of it is just my setup. running an IC-7300 into a Heil PR-40 through the Heil adapter cable, and i keep going back and forth on the TX EQ settings in the radio. right now i have a slight boost around 2-3kHz and roll off a bit below 200Hz because i read somewhere that cutting the low end cleans up the audio and reduces splatter but honestly i dont know if im doing more harm than good at this point. also the compression — i see people saying run zero compression, and other people saying run 3-4 on the IC-7300's compressor for SSB DX. seems like total opposite advice. anyone have a feel for what actually moves the needle on SSB audio quality vs just placebo stuff people repeat on forums

yeah the menu system on icom stuff does take some getting used to. been running mine for like 8 months and still occasionally find something ive never touched. the manual is actually worth reading though which i know sounds obvious but i never read manuals and it saved me a few times with this one.

the Gordon West study book used to be the go-to thing and i still see people recommending it but honestly for tech you probably dont even need a physical book anymore. hamstudy or hamexam.org both work well and they track which questions youre getting wrong so you can focus on those. one thing id say is dont just memorize answers without understanding anything because when you actually get on the air and someone asks you why you're doing something a certain way you'll want to have at least a rough idea. but realistically the tech exam isnt that hard, most people i know passed it first try without a ton of prep. just do a few hundred practice questions and you should be good. what area are you in? sometimes clubs do free exam sessions and theyre usually pretty relaxed

yeah i was in the exact same boat when i upgraded, honestly the chart on the ARRL website makes it look way more complicated than it is once someone walks you through it once. one thing that tripped me up for a while was not realizing that LSB is standard below 10 MHz so on 40m youre always on lower sideband for phone, which means your signal actually extends downward from wherever you set the dial. so if youre at 7.178 your voice is kind of smeared from like 7.175 to 7.178 roughly. thats the main reason the band edge buffer matters practically speaking

oh wow a pixie on 40m is rough conditions to start with lol, good on you for pulling that contact out. i tried QRP for the first time last summer doing a SOTA activation and i was totally unprepared for how much antenna matters at low power. like more than anything else. i had a random wire thrown in a tree and it made a huge difference vs the little telescopic whip i tried first. dont sleep on just spending time on antenna for whatever you build next, it'll get you further than upgrading the rig honestly. thats what an old timer at my club keeps telling me and he's annoyingly right about it every time

Still learning digital modes myself, but noticed WSJT software suite including JT65 is widely used for its ability to decode extremely weak signals. Would love to hear more real-world comparisons between these modes from experienced EME operators.

congrats on the first contacts, AO-73 is a great starter bird. i'm pretty new to this too and went through the same doppler confusion a few months back. honestly what helped me was just doing a few passes as receive only first to get the feel for how fast the shift actually is before trying to work anyone. its not as dramatic as i thought it would be, you have a few seconds at least before it becomes a problem. one thing i do now is pre-program the start and end frequencies into memory channels and just step through them roughly during the pass instead of trying to tune smoothly. its janky but it kind of works lol. definitely want to try the gpredict CAT thing eventually but havent gotten there yet.

Six months into building a 7 MHz SSB transceiver from scratch using mostly through-hole components. Finally got the receiver section working reliably - using single conversion superhet design with 9 MHz IF and mechanical filter. Transmitter uses balanced modulator approach with MC1496 generating DSB, followed by crystal filter for sideband selection. Getting about 25W output with IRF840 in the final stage, class AB configuration. ALC circuit keeps things clean and prevents overdrive. Next challenge is integrating the synthesized VFO - building Si5351-based design that covers 7.000-7.300 with 1Hz resolution. Planning to use Arduino for band/mode switching and frequency display. Construction is modular approach with separate boards for each function connected via short coax jumpers. Keeps RF stages isolated and makes troubleshooting much easier.