Bob Williams

ive been wanting to do basically this exact same setup, been on the fence about the 7900 vs the Kenwood TM-V71A for a few weeks now. how do you find the UI on the Yaesu? i've heard some people say the menu system is kind of buried but also some people dont care at all once its programmed. mostly gonna use it for local repeaters and maybe some simplex during commute so nothing crazy.

yeah that's almost definitely alternator whine. the rpm-dependent noise is the giveaway. few things to check — first make sure your radio chassis has a solid short ground directly to the vehicle body, like a bolt on the firewall or somewhere close, not just relying on the power cable ground. sometimes people run a long ground wire back to the battery thinking thats better but it can actually pick up more noise. if your grounding is solid and its still there, a ferrite choke on the power leads close to the radio can help, or sometimes one on the coax feedline right at the radio. I've also seen a small inline noise filter on the power line do the trick. they're only a few bucks. but ground the radio properly first before anything else, thats usually the culprit in my experience.

so ive been licensed for about 12 years and mostly do HF stuff, some 2m weak signal when conditions are good, but ive always wanted to try moonbounce and i think im finally at a point where i could actually put something together for it. problem is every time i start reading about it i get overwhelmed pretty fast. right now i have a pair of M2 2M5WL yagis that i use for terrestrial weak signal and occasional aurora stuff. from what i understand thats nowhere near enough gain for EME on 2m, most people seem to be running arrays of 4 or even 8 yagis plus running legal limit. is that pretty much the minimum or are there guys making contacts with smaller setups these days? i know JT65 changed everything but im not sure exactly how much it changed the antenna requirements. also the preamp situation confuses me a bit, i know you want the lowest possible noise figure right at the feedpoint but im not sure what people are actually using. ive seen references to MGF1302 based preamps and also some of the newer PHEMT stuff. any thoughts on what actually works well here would be appreciated, im not in a huge rush just trying to understand what a realistic entry level EME setup looks like in 2024

yeah what he said, and also worth knowing some people make up their own phonetics which is technically fine but can confuse people lol. heard a guy once use "Wisconsin" for W and it just threw me off for a second. stick with NATO and youll be understood everywhere, even by foreign stations which is kind of the whole point of standardizing it in the first place

Wanted to share my recent success story for anyone struggling with code speed. Four months ago I was copying maybe 5 WPM on a good day, and yesterday I had a solid 20 WPM ragchew with a station in Colorado! For little more investment of time than it takes to pass the 5-wpm test, you can gain real, higher-speed code proficiency. The key for me was avoiding all the traditional "slow code" methods and jumping right to Farnsworth 18 WPM Character Spaced Morse Code - at 18 WPM character speed, most people can still 'count' the patterns and the mind starts to concentrate on the 'entire character sound'. Tools that made the difference: LCWO.net for daily practice sessions, Morse News for real text comprehension, and most importantly - CW Academy for structured learning with an actual instructor. My advice: Change the speeds up and down, don't just sit at 20wpm, 5wpm effective. I did notice some improvement at slower and faster character speeds. Push yourself outside your comfort zone!

yeah i had almost the exact same issue last year. turned out one of the igates i thought was nearby was actually dead and hadnt been updated on aprs.fi in like 8 months, it just still showed up on the map. checked the last-heard timestamp and it was ancient. so i was basically digipeating into nothing for weeks. aprsdirect.com sometimes gives you a better picture of whats actually active near you vs aprs.fi. anyway once i found a real live igate and aimed a yagi roughly that direction for testing it started working. obviously not a permanent solution but it confirmed the path was fine and the igate was the problem.

so this has been bugging me for about two weeks now. was having a perfectly normal qso on 40m and the guy i was talking to said my audio suddenly went kind of muffled and distorted, like i was talking through a blanket. nothing changed on my end that i could tell, same mic, same settings, hadnt touched anything in the menu. i went through the usual stuff, checked the mic gain, the compression settings, swapped the mic cable, even borrowed a different mic from a buddy to rule that out. still sounds bad according to anyone i work. did a quick recording using the monitor function and yeah it definitely sounds off compared to what it used to be. kind of a low boxy sound with some fuzz on voice peaks. my question is whether this sounds like it could be the DSP doing something weird or if maybe somethings going on with the TX audio path hardware side. the radio is about 4 years old and hasnt had any issues up till now. havent cracked it open yet, not sure i want to go digging around without some direction first. anyone seen this with a 7300 or similar?

so ive been chasing 3Y0 for literally years and obviously missed the Bouvet expedition a while back, but last week there was a semi-rare one on — not gonna say which entity cause it doesnt really matter — and the pileup was absolutely brutal. like 3-4 khz wide on 17m, everybody and their dog calling. what finally worked for me after probably 45 minutes of frustration was a combination of things. first i stopped calling on the DX's exact frequency (i was split but i was landing right in the middle of the pileup) and started listening for where the DX was actually coming back and adjusted my TX freq to be slightly above the pack, like 1.5-2 khz higher than where everyone else was piling in. second thing was timing — i watched the rhythm of the QSO rate for a few exchanges and started calling just as he was finishing a callsign, not waiting for him to say QRZ or whatever. third thing was, and this might sound dumb, i turned my power down a little. i was running about 700w and backed off to maybe 400. the logic being that when everyone cranks up you just get a wall of noise and sometimes a cleaner signal cuts through better than a louder one. also i was running a yagi so i had some directivity going for me, but the station worked by the DX right before me was running a vertical on the beach so who knows. anyway curious what techniques other people actually use that work, not just the theory stuff you read on the cluster comments.

Station builders should avoid "RF ground" in favor of "bonding" - keeping all equipment at the same RF voltage. You can bond equipment by connecting each piece to a copper strap with short pieces of strap or wire. Your computer speaker issue suggests RF on the DC power lines - try a common mode choke on the power cable.

Center roof is genuinely the best you can do for a ground plane on a vehicle, you made the right call. The radiation pattern stays pretty symmetrical all the way around which matters more than people think when youre mobile and turning through different headings trying to hit a repeater. Lip mounts and hatch mounts work but you'll notice the pattern gets messed up on one side because the roof isn't there to balance it out. Doesn't mean they're useless, plenty of people run them fine, but if you already drilled the hole you're in good shape. On the fan thing, yeah the 7900 fan does run pretty readily, i dont think thats unusual for that radio. If it was completely silent and the radio was getting hot that'd be more worrying. What power level are you normally running?

so ive been licensed for about 3 years now and mostly just ragchewed on 40m and did some local nets but lately ive been getting into actually working DX and someone at the club mentioned DXCC and now im kind of obsessed with the idea of chasing it properly. i worked a guy in Japan last week on 20m which felt incredible but i have no idea if that contact is going to count for anything or if i needed to do something special beforehand to make it count. my main confusion is around how you actually submit credits. like do you need paper QSL cards for everything or is LOTW the way to go now. i heard some guys saying they wont upload to LOTW and only do paper cards which sounds like a nightmare honestly. also whats the deal with WAS and WAZ — are those totally separate awards from different organizations or does the ARRL handle all of them. sorry if these are dumb questions im just trying to figure out the whole ecosystem before i get too deep into this

Setting up a new shack and getting conflicting advice on grounding strategy. I understand there are two major aspects - electrical safety grounding and RF grounding for RFI suppression. Some guys swear by connecting all equipment chassis to a copper buss bar with short copper braid, then one heavy conductor to an 8-foot rod outside. Others say this creates ground loops and just use the safety ground from AC mains. Currently experiencing: Slight hum on 40m, computer speakers buzz when transmitting on 80m, occasional mic bite on the old D-104. Running 100W to a dipole about 75 feet from the shack. I've heard flat strap or copper braid has much lower impedance at RF frequencies vs regular wire - is this necessary?

congrats on the first activation, 15 contacts is definitely enough, you only need 10 to count so you had plenty of cushion. the ADIF upload on the pota website is pretty straightforward, just export from log4om and drag it into the upload page, it pulls the fields it needs automatically. the main thing to double check is that your park reference number is in there somewhere, either in a notes field or your logging program might have a spot for it depending on how you set things up. i had one upload get flagged early on because i had the wrong park ref format, it should be like US-1234 not just the number. and yeah self-spotting is totally fine and honestly expected especially when youre just starting out. use the pota.app spot page or there are apps like hamrs and activator that let you self spot right from your phone. most activators do it, nobody thinks anything of it. the pile up thing is real once you get spotted, it gets easier to manage with practice, just slow down and work through them one at a time

this is exactly the kind of post that made me finally try QRP last fall, so thanks for sharing. i was nervous mine wouldnt work at all and then i made 6 contacts in like an hour on a hillside somewhere in new hampshire. the pixie is a good starting point but yeah you outgrow it fast just because the receiver is pretty rough to use for any length of time. i went straight to a youkits HB1B which i got used and that was maybe a bigger jump than necessary but no regrets. though i keep hearing people rave about the QCX too so probably either way youre gonna be happy

CHIRP works great for supported radios, but you're right that DMR support is still catching up. For the DM-1701, try the OpenGD77 firmware - completely transforms the radio and has much better programming options. The stock firmware is pretty awful.

so ive been running ft8 for about a year and a half now and i really enjoy the weak signal aspect of it, like working stations with a -20 or worse is still kind of magical to me even after all this time. anyway someone at the club meeting last week was talking up js8call pretty hard and said it fills a niche that ft8 doesnt really cover because you can actually have a conversation instead of just exchanging signal reports and grid squares. i get that, ft8 is basically automated at this point and yeah i use it for dxcc hunting but there isnt really any rag chewing happening. my question is whether js8call is worth the time to learn properly or if its one of those modes that sounds great in theory but the band activity just isnt there. i tried tuning around 40m last night around the js8call frequencies and heard maybe two or three stations in like 45 minutes which was a bit discouraging. is that typical or was i just unlucky with timing? also curious how it compares decode-wise to ft8, like is the sensitivity in the same ballpark or does it need stronger signals to work? running a ic-7300 into a g5rv so nothing exotic here.

yeah the 400 questions thing looks scary but you only get 35 on the actual test and need like 26 to pass so the margin is more forgiving than it seems. i'd say do the practice exams on hamstudy.org too, slightly different interface than hamexam and sometimes one clicks better than the other depending on the person. the section on operating procedures and regulations is pretty easy points, dont neglect it just because it sounds boring. the antenna and propagation stuff tripped me up more than i expected honestly, seemed straightforward but a few of those questions are weirdly specific about frequencies and band privileges

QSB drove me crazy when I first started because I kept thinking people were saying something was broken when they mentioned it but really they just meant the signal was fading out. one thing that helped me was just keeping a little cheat sheet next to the radio for the first few months. also QRZ means whos calling me or sometimes you'll see it as the name of that card confirming website which is a bit confusing. 73 is definitely not a Q code but its everywhere, some people even say 88 which means love and kisses, mostly used between certain operators. the Q codes actually came from maritime and aviation use way before ham radio so theres a ton of obscure ones nobody ever uses

your ah estimate might be a bit high depending on how the actual net operates — if youre mostly listening and only transmitting in short bursts the 7300 at 50w isnt pulling that continuously. worth actually measuring your setup with a watt meter or one of those battery monitors before the exercise so you have real numbers instead of worst case guesses. i was surprised how low my actual consumption was once i measured it properly vs what i calculated on paper. the MPAS is fine but yeah if 40m is the plan just cut a dipole, seriously takes like 20 minutes and some wire and you'll have zero regrets. i've used the chameleon stuff and its convienient but i always feel like i'm fighting the tuner more than i want to during an actual activation.

I'm an Extra looking at some 1x2 calls that will be available soon. Competition for these callsigns is usually strong, so you'll want to apply on the day they first become available after the 2 year grace period expires. Found two calls I really like that become available three days apart. Thinking about applying for both since vanity applications with the same receipt date are processed in random order - basically a lottery system. You can list up to twenty-five call signs in order of preference but these are on different availability dates. Anyone had success with this approach or should I just pick my favorite and focus on that one?

yeah the asphalt radial thing is annoying, ive just laid them on top and taped down the ends so nobody trips, works fine electrically even if it looks janky. for a parking lot i usually do like 8 radials minimum just fanning out from the base, you dont get the same performance as buried radials but its not as bad as people make it sound for local net work. one thing i'll say about the buddipole as a vertical on 40 — watch your feedpoint impedance, at 25 feet youre going to want to play with the coil settings more than the manual suggests depending on what the SWR looks like. ive had better luck on 40 with it slightly detuned and letting the tuner in the 7300 sort it out than trying to nail resonance exactly. the 80m setup is where it gets fiddly, takes me a few tries every time.

went through this exact process last year. the 31 day window thing is real and the waiting is kind of brutal lol. i used a site called AE7Q to track available calls and see how many applicants were going for the same one, super useful for figuring out your odds before you commit. one thing i'd add — make sure your application on the ULS actually went through and shows as pending, sometimes people think they submitted and it didnt actually go. just double check the status in the system.

so i finally got activated for real last weekend, not just a drill. county emergency management called us in because of the flooding over on the east side of the county and they needed some extra comms support at the shelter they set up at the high school. ive been in ARES for about 8 months now and done maybe 3 or 4 SET exercises but nothing real, and i have to say it felt completely different than i expected. the drills always felt a little fake to me, like everyone kind of knew it wasnt real so the urgency wasnt there. but when you're actually at a shelter at 11pm with 200 displaced people around and the EOC is asking for resource status updates every 30 minutes it clicks in a way it just doesnt during practice. my net control was K8 something, older guy, really calm and kept everything moving. i was on HF backup mostly just monitoring but also relaying a few messages when their repeater was getting flaky. anyway my main takeaway is if you're in ARES and you haven't gone through ICS training yet, do it. the EOC people were using ICS terminology constantly and a couple of our guys were a little lost. i took the IS-100 and IS-700 online before joining and it made such a difference just being able to understand what was being asked of us. also bring food and water for yourself, don't assume they'll have stuff at the shelter for volunteers, we were there 9 hours and i only had a granola bar i found in my go bag.

your club guy is absolutely right, do not learn the visual patterns. that way leads to pain, trust me, i spent like 3 months doing it wrong and had to basically restart. your brain needs to hear E and just know its E, not go dot... dot means E. that middle step kills your speed forever. the method that worked for me and honestly most people ive talked to is the Koch method, basically you start with just two characters at full speed, like 20wpm, and you only add a new character when you can copy the existing ones at 90% accuracy. sounds counterintuitive to start fast but it really does train your ear differently than starting slow. LCWO dot net is a free website that does this automatically, you just work through the lessons and it tracks your progress. i also used the Just Learn Morse Code software for a while which does the same thing. dont expect it to feel natural for a while. it took me probably 6 months of 15 minutes a day before i could have even a slow QSO, but it does eventually click and when it does its kind of amazing honestly

Great question! QRL is most commonly used to ask if a frequency is in use before beginning to call CQ - you'd send "QRL?" and wait for a response. For QSY, use it as "I will change frequency" or ask "Shall I change frequency?" So you could say "QSY to 14.205" or ask "QSY?". The key is the question mark makes it interrogative!