Bob Williams

the ARRL Part 97 book is like $10 or something and honestly worth it just to have a physical copy you can flip through. also there's a free PDF floating around called "The FCC Rule Book" or something close to that, might be an older edition but the core stuff hasnt changed that dramatically. and yeah no music, no obscene content, no broadcasting to the general public — thats the stuff that trips people up most. you're supposed to be communicating not performing lol

wait so WWFF and POTA are totally different orgs? i thought they were connected somehow. i just activated my first POTA last month and had no idea WWFF was even a thing. might have to look into this, are there references near me that arent in POTA at all?

I did my first WWFF last summer at a national wildlife refuge and it was a great time. the contacts were slow at first but once i got spotted things picked up pretty fast. dont stress too much about the pre-announcement, some people do it days ahead on the WWFF facebook group and some just self-spot when they get on the air. either way works. the 40 meter dipole i threw up in a tree worked great, i imagine the KX3 with a wire will do just fine

Congrats on the first one, the hardest part really is just convincing yourself to go do it. Spots on the POTA app do expire after a while if nobody re-spots you or you dont re-spot yourself, i think its somewhere around 15-20 minutes but dont quote me on that. A lot of activators will just re-spot themselves if the pileup dies down and they want more contacts. Some guys set a reminder on their phone to re-spot every 15 min or so during an activation. As for going QRT, honestly most people just say "QRT 73" or something like that on frequency before they shut down, and a lot of activators will also post a comment in the POTA app spot or on their social media if they have followers watching. But really if you just say it on air before you go thats plenty, nobody expects more than that. The hunters who are really paying attention will see your spot drop off and figure it out anyway.

i just use the QRZ logbook page and keep DXwatch in another monitor if im being honest lol. never really thought about consolidating them. the QRZ spots do seem to lag a bit sometimes, noticed that during a pileup a few weeks ago where the spot on DXwatch was like 2-3 minutes ahead what ATNO are you going for if you dont mind me asking

made my first EME QSO about two years ago on 2m with a pair of 17el yagis and 800w, took me forever to get the sequencer and preamp switching sorted out but once it all clicked it was one of those moments where you just sit there kind of stunned. the signal levels are so far below the noise that watching a decode come up feels almost unreal. one thing nobody really warned me about is how much the az/el rotor setup matters, like tracking the moon accurately enough to stay on beam is more involved than i expected. i was using a cheap az rotor and a manual el setup at first and it was a mess, upgraded to a proper el rotor with feedback and it made a huge difference. also the moon noise — when you first swing your antenna onto the moon and see the noise floor rise slightly in your SDR thats a pretty good indicator your system is working, its called Y factor measurement and its a great sanity check before you start calling.

so i've been going back and forth on where to actually mount my FT-7900 in my truck for like three weeks now. right now i have it sitting on the seat next to me which is obviously not a real solution. the problem is my 2018 F-150 has that giant center console and basically nowhere obvious to put a radio without blocking the climate controls or the shifter area. i looked at the RAM mount stuff and the under-dash brackets but honestly i'm not sure i want to drill into the dash on a truck this new. has anyone done a clean install in one of these newer F series trucks? also not sure if i should run the control head separately or just do a remote mount setup. the radio itself would probably go under the seat or behind the seat if i do that. just want it to look clean and not make the wife upset lol also still figuring out the antenna situation but one problem at a time i guess

okay so i just got my license a few months ago and ive been making contacts here and there, mostly on 40m SSB and a little FT8. someone on the air told me i should be uploading to LoTW and also eQSL but then another guy said paper cards are still the way to go and now im just confused about the whole thing. like is there a reason to do all three or can i just pick one? i signed up for LoTW but the whole certificate process took me forever to figure out and i still dont totally understand if my uploads are actually working. i can see contacts in the log but i dont know how to tell if theyve been confirmed or not. eQSL seemed way easier to set up but people keep saying its not as accepted for awards. and paper cards, i mean i love the idea of them but i dont even know how to request them from someone or what the process is with the bureau vs direct. sorry for the wall of text, just trying to figure out what the normal workflow is for newer hams these days

so ive been licensed for about 4 months now and i notice pretty much everyone on HF uses the NATO phonetic alphabet when giving their callsign or spelling something out. my question is whether thats actually required or if its just kind of the accepted thing to do. like nobody ever told me i HAD to say Whiskey instead of just W but it feels like you're expected to. i tried using my own words once on a net and the net control asked me to repeat myself twice so maybe thats my answer lol. also is there like an official list or do people just know it from memory

so ive been doing morse code practice for about 3 months now and im stuck. like genuinely stuck. i started with the Koch method using LCWO and got through all the characters without too much trouble, was copying at around 5wpm pretty comfortably. but now trying to push it up to anything above 8 or 9wpm and my brain just kind of seizes up. i hear the character and i KNOW i know it but theres this delay where i have to think about it and by then ive missed the next two characters already. been doing about 20 minutes a day which i read is enough but maybe its not? or maybe im doing something wrong. i use the 20/10 farnsworth timing thing which helps but im not sure if i should be increasing character speed or spacing first or both at the same time or what. also i keep reading about people who say they got to 20wpm in like 6 months and honestly that sounds impossible to me right now. anyone been through this plateau and actually gotten through it? what worked for you

so ive been reading about WWFF for a few weeks now and i think i get the general concept, find a nature reference, set up, make contacts, log them and submit. but i feel like im missing something because every time i look at the actual process it seems like there's more to it than that. like do i need to register the activation ahead of time or can i just show up somewhere and start working? and how do i know if a park or nature area is actually a valid WWFF reference — is there a list somewhere? ive been doing POTA for about a year so i kind of understand the activation mindset but WWFF feels a little different and i dont want to mess it up on my first attempt. also is 10 contacts the minimum like in POTA or is it different for WWFF? sorry if these are dumb questions, just trying to figure this out before i head out this weekend

congrats on the ticket first of all. okay so the baofeng question comes up constantly and heres my honest take after years of watching new hams go through this -- the UV-5R will absolutely get you on the air and let you figure out if you like the hobby. the audio isnt great and programming it without chirp software is kind of a pain, but it works. ive seen people use them for years and been perfectly happy. that said if you think youre gonna stick around, a used Yaesu FT-60 or even a FT-65 is worth the stretch. the build quality is just in a different league and they hold their value way better if you ever decide to sell. i picked up a used FT-60 for like 80 bucks a few years back and that thing is a tank. honestly just depends how much uncertainty you have about sticking with the hobby

oh man I had the exact same problem when I first started lol. turned out I had the offset wrong too, not just the tone. like the repeater was on 147.255 but I had the offset going the wrong direction so I was transmitting on the wrong frequency entirely. worth double checking that your offset is set to +600 kHz for that frequency range if you're in the US. once I sorted all that out it just worked. repeater stuff felt really complicated at first but honestly once you get one figured out the rest kinda click into place

so i finally passed my technician exam after studying for about 3 weeks and i was so pumped to get on the air. borrowed my dad's old baofeng that he never used and programmed in the local repeater frequency i found on repeaterbook. pushed the button and just said my callsign and asked if anyone was monitoring and there was this long pause and then like 4 people came back at once and i had no idea what to do so i just kind of froze and said uh thanks and let go of the PTT. i could hear them laughing a little i think. anyway one of the guys was super nice and walked me through a proper exchange and we had like a 10 minute qso which was really cool. still embarrassed about the freeze up though. anyone else have a rough first contact or is it just me

yeah what he said, and also worth mentioning the ARRL band plan vs the actual FCC allocations are two different things which trips a lot of people up. the FCC part 97 rules are what you're legally required to follow, the ARRL band plan is more like a gentlemens agreement about where different modes tend to hang out. so like there might be a 'calling frequency' or a digital segment that isnt in the regulations but everyone just kind of respects it anyway. for a new general on 40m phone just hang around 7.200-7.300 and youll be fine, thats where most of the activity is and youre nowhere near any edges that would cause problems

so ive been a general for about two years now and i keep going back and forth on whether to bother with the extra. i mostly just do HF, some 40m and 20m casual ragchewing, and honestly i dont feel like i'm missing out on that much spectrum wise since the general portions have been fine for what i do. but something about just having it done and knowing i passed the hardest one kind of appeals to me. what i'm actually worried about is the theory on the exam. like i passed the general without too much trouble but i remember people saying the extra has actual circuit theory, filter design stuff, maybe some transmission line math? i took basic electronics in high school like 15 years ago so i remember some of it but definitely not all. is it realistic to self study this or do i need like a real structured course. also wondering if the privileges you gain are actually worth it in practice or if most of you barely use the extra portions of the bands day to day

yeah i do exactly this, N1MM for contests and Log4OM for everything else. the key is just being disciplined about ADIF exports after each contest and importing into Log4OM. its maybe a 2 minute thing after you're done. duplicates havent been a big problem for me because Log4OM is pretty good at catching them on import, just make sure you have the dupe checking set right in the import settings. the WSJT-X UDP thing works fine with Log4OM running as the primary logger, just point the UDP output at Log4OM's port and it logs automatically. i actually killed N1MM entirely on non-contest days after i got that workflow sorted out. Log4OM has a bit of a learning curve but once you get the layout customized the way you want it its genuinely nicer for casual operating, you can pull up a callsign and see all your previous QSOs with them, notes, lotw status, all of it right there.

FT8 abbreviations are a whole separate rabbit hole lol, like RRR and RR73 and 73 are all slightly different things and new people get them mixed up all the time. 73 just means best regards or kind of like goodbye, its not a Q code its just old telegraph shorthand that stuck around. RR73 in FT8 means received and goodbye basically, confirms the contact is done. i messed this up my first few weeks and kept sending wrong messages in sequences

yeah what he said. i went through the exact same thing when i first started checking into our wednesday night net. i actually called in my full name and grid square on the first transmission like i was reading from a script and net control kind of chuckled and said "copy just your call next time." wasnt embarassing or anything just one of those things you learn by doing. after a few weeks it just becomes automatic honestly.

yeah what he said. also worth mentioning that feedline is going to matter more than people expect at VHF. if you put up a nice collinear and run like 50ft of RG-58 youre going to wonder why it doesnt work as well as you hoped. LMR-400 or at least LMR-240 if the run isnt too long. i made that mistake when i first set up my station and spent way too long blaming the antenna before i figured out my coax was garbage

your buddy's RFI story is pretty much every first SO2R attempt lol. i spent about three contests just debugging before i ever got a clean run going. the bandpass filters are not optional, learned that the hard way when i was keying up on 15 and my 40m audio turned into a wall of hash one thing nobody told me early on is that SO2R isnt really about having two radios running flat out simultaneously, its more like... you have a radio thats running a pileup and a radio thats your scout, and you're listening to both but only ever transmitting on one at a time with a small guard time between them. N1MM plus has the alt+arrow key stuff built in for this and once it clicks it really does click. took me a full season to feel natural with it though if youre not regularly putting up top 10 scores in your category on single radio i wouldnt bother yet honestly. get the rate discipline first like you said

the 7300 receiver difference is real, not just paper specs. i went from an older Yaesu to a 7300 a couple years back and the first time i sat down with it on a busy 40m evening i was genuinely surprised how much cleaner everything sounded. the waterfall alone changes how you operate — you actually start to see propagation patterns and spot openings you'd have just tuned past before. that said, the 991A is a solid radio and if you're brand new to HF the receiver difference isn't going to matter as much as just getting on the air and learning. and having 2m/70cm built in is genuinely handy for a home shack, one less thing to clutter the desk. if the guy selling it is someone you trust in your club and you can maybe put it on a dummy load and poke around the menus before buying, $750 for a working 991A is reasonable. for FT8 and JS8Call either radio will work fine, both have USB audio built in. for POTA the 7300 is heavier and needs more power management thinking if youre running off battery, the 991A is similar but it does have a 5w low power mode which helps a bit. honestly either choice is a massive upgrade from a baofeng so you're not gonna go wrong, it really does come down to whether you want VHF/UHF integration or the nicer receiver.

so ive been running a diamond x50 on a mast at my hilltop QTH for a couple years now and its been fine for local repeater stuff but im starting to get into weak signal work on 2m and 70cm and i'm wondering if its worth swapping over to a yagi setup or maybe a stacked pair of collinears the site is pretty exposed, around 1200ft asl and i can already hit a bunch of repeaters 80-100 miles out without much trouble which tells me the location is doing most of the heavy lifting. but when i try working SSB simplex on 144.200 its kinda hit or miss and i'm pretty sure its my antenna holding me back more than the radio (ft-817 running about 4w) i've been looking at the innovantennas ltb series and also an old cushcraft 13b2 that someone local has for sale. the cushcraft is long like almost 12ft i think and i dont really have a way to rotate it right now so that's a complication. honestly not sure if a fixed yagi pointing northeast would even make sense given where most of the activity seems to be, at least on the days i've been monitoring anyone running yagis fixed at a hilltop site or does it basically require an azimuth rotator to be useful

That's the beauty of Solar Cycle 25! Elevated solar activity is providing a window of enhanced radio propagation, and at this point in the cycle, we are enjoying frequent bursts of DX opportunities. Conditions are already very favourable, and should continue to improve until we reach the peak. Keep those high band antennas ready!

im in a similar boat, been eyeing the 7300 for months and keep going back and forth between that and the FT-991A mainly because i also do some VHF/UHF and the 991A covers all that in one box. but everyone seems to say the HF performance on the 7300 is just better so maybe i should stop trying to do everything with one radio. does yours handle digital modes okay, like wsjt-x and stuff? thats kind of important for me too