James Holloway

so i passed my tech exam about three weeks ago and ive been lurking on a few local repeaters with a borrowed baofeng just to listen in and get a feel for things. the guy who lent it to me said i should probably get my own radio before giving his back and now im going down a rabbit hole trying to figure out what to actually buy. theres so much stuff out there and everyone seems to have strong opinions. ive seen people say the cheap chinese radios are fine for starting out and other people act like theyre basically dangerous garbage. then theres yaesu and kenwood and icom all with their own versions and the prices jump way up fast. im not made of money but i also dont want to buy something twice if i can help it. mostly gonna be using it for local repeaters and maybe some simplex when im hiking. not sure about aprs yet, might be cool. what would you guys actually recommend for someone just starting out, like what do you wish you had known before buying your first HT

the memorize the pool approach definitely works and plenty of people pass that way, but honestly for the tech exam specifically the pool isnt that huge so you can do both — get a rough understanding AND just drill the questions. HamStudy.org is what most people recommend now, its free and it tracks which questions you keep getting wrong so you can focus on those. the question pool thing is worth double checking, the current tech pool runs through mid 2026 i think, just look it up on the ARRL site to confirm. the electrical theory questions look scary but for tech level you really only need like a surface understanding, ohms law and a few basic concepts and youre mostly fine. give yourself two weeks of like 20-30 min a day on hamstudy and you should be in pretty good shape.

totally understand the overwhelm, been there myself not too long ago. honestly for your use case i'd say dont overthink the baofeng debate too much — the UV-5R works fine for what you're describing, hits repeaters no problem, and if you drop it or something weird happens you're not out a ton of money. the menus ARE annoying at first but once you program it with CHIRP it becomes pretty much set and forget. that said, if you can stretch to around $90-100 the Yaesu FT-60 your club guy mentioned is genuinely a step up in terms of receive quality and the build just feels more solid in your hand. i had a UV-5R for my first year and then got an FT-60 and the difference in how it picks up weaker signals on the input is noticeable. for SOTA down the road that matters more than you'd think. either way get CHIRP set up before you do anything else, programming these things by hand through the keypad will make you want to throw it across the room

one thing i'll add that tripped me up early on — not every country or territory is a separate DXCC entity. like the US has several entities (mainland, Hawaii, Alaska, various territories) but you'd never know that just looking at a regular map. the ARRL has a list of current entities on their site and it's worth bookmarking it so you know what you're actually hunting. I wasted a bunch of time excited about a contact that i thought was a new one and it turned out to be the same entity as something i'd already worked lol. also for WAS dont forget you need all 50 states including Hawaii and Alaska which sounds obvious but some people forget those can be harder to catch depending on where you live and what band you're on

this is actually something i've been trying to learn more about as a relatively new tech who just upgraded to general a few months ago. i downloaded the HamSphere app and also check prop.kc2g.com sometimes but honestly i dont totally understand everything im looking at yet. like i get that higher solar flux = more ionization = better propagation on higher bands but the actual numbers and what counts as good vs bad is still kinda fuzzy to me. did you use any specific tool to predict that 17m opening or did you just kind of get lucky and tune around? asking because i feel like half the time i get on i just hear nothing and give up too fast probably

bias drift is actually pretty common on those older 897s especially if the previous owner ran it hard. the idle current on the PA stage can creep up over time and yeah it'll run hot even at modest power levels while still showing normal output. worth checking the PA bias adjustment — there's a trimmer for it and the service manual has the procedure, you basically need a current meter inline and adjust it down to spec. its finicky but not that hard if you take your time. also worth scoping the drive signal if you can, sometimes a driver transistor that's going soft will cause the PA to spend more time in a weird operating region. but honestly start with bias, thats the most likely culprit on a rig that age. seen it a bunch of times on the 857 too which shares a lot of the same PA design.

yeah the mars cap mod is pretty standard stuff, i did mine years ago on a 897D which is basically the same guts. the diode thing takes like two seconds once you actually find the right spot on the board, the hard part is just not getting nervous and slipping with the iron near other components. one thing i'll throw out there — if you're doing emcomm work and want to actually be useful on non-ham freqs, make sure you understand what your region's ARES/RACES protocols actually say about it because in some areas they're pretty strict about documented authorization even in a declared emergency. your EC should know but ive seen some confusion on this at exercises. anyway not trying to be the fun police just something to keep in mind before you start calling on 151 MHz at a drill and somebody asks questions

Classic problem with high-gain IF strips. Add ferrite beads on the power leads to each IF stage - FB43-101 or similar. Also check your shield compartments between stages. I had the exact same issue and ferrites solved it completely.

not weird at all. thats kind of how i learned what the bands actually do, just sitting and listening for weeks before i even tried to transmit anything

At 70cm you're seeing both effects but Faraday rotation is more pronounced at lower VHF frequencies. Your 10-15dB swings sound typical - libration gives you the faster QSB while Faraday causes the slower polarization changes. Try logging signal strength vs moon elevation to separate the two effects.

so i've been running a little handheld clipped to my visor for like the past 8 months since i got my technician and honestly it worked fine but i always knew i wanted a proper mobile setup. finally pulled the trigger on a Yaesu FT-7900R and spent last saturday getting it all sorted out in my truck. the head unit is mounted on a RAM mount on the dash which i'm pretty happy with, ran the cable through the firewall which was honestly the most annoying part of the whole thing, took me like an hour just to find a decent grommet spot. power goes straight to the battery with an inline fuse which i know is the right way to do it but crimping those ring terminals in the engine bay was not fun. antenna is a Tram 1185 on a mag mount for now, eventually want to do a proper lip mount or maybe NMO through the roof but not ready to drill holes yet. and i gotta say the difference between this and the HT is just night and day, i can hit repeaters i could barely scratch before and the audio is so much clearer. anyway if anyones about to do a similar install and has questions feel free to ask, i made plenty of mistakes so i can at least warn you what not to do lol

Been analyzing signal degradation on my 70cm EME setup and trying to understand the relative impact of libration fading versus Faraday rotation. Faraday rotation and libration fading come into play during EME contacts, with full 360 degree rotation possible at 432 MHz. The libration fading is due to multiple wavefronts being received from different parts of the moon summing up, changing with relative movements of earth and moon. Running dual-pol circular arrays (4x28el) but still seeing 10-15dB signal swings that seem too large for just libration. Polarization rotation effect is more pronounced at lower VHF frequencies and becomes less significant at 1296 MHz and above. Anyone have experience quantifying these effects separately? Setup: IC-9700, 500W SSPA, 0.4dB NF preamp, EME144 software for tracking.

honestly the best advice i ever got was start simple and build from there. when i first joined our ARES group i overthought it completely and almost bought a $400 pelican case setup before ever even going to a drill. what you actually need for most deployments is pretty basic — a radio that can do at least VHF/UHF, some way to power it that isnt just a wall outlet, a decent antenna that isnt a rubber duck, and a way to log contacts. thats kind of the floor. everything else is gravy depending on what your EC wants you to be able to do. for power i started with a small sealed lead acid battery from a UPS, ran it with an anderson powerpole setup, and that got me through plenty of exercises. later i moved to a lithium iron phosphate battery and yeah its better but it wasnt necessary at first. the biggest thing is just showing up and being reliable, nobody cares if your case isnt a pelican as long as you can operate when the time comes

congrats on the ticket. honestly this comes up a lot and theres no single right answer but ill tell you what i usually tell new hams -- the Baofeng will work and you can definitely hit repeaters with it, but the programming is kind of a pain and the receive is pretty noisy compared to the Japanese radios. if budget is tight its fine to start with, just get CHIRP and dont try to program it manually or youll lose your mind. that said if you can stretch to an FT-60 i think most people dont regret it. its built like a tank, the audio is noticeably better, and it just works the way a radio should work. ive had mine for maybe 8 years and dropped it more times than i want to admit. still going strong. the VX-6R is also waterproof which is nice if youre ever operating outdoors in sketchy weather. Kenwood TH-D74 is amazing if you want APRS built in but thats probably overkill for where you are right now. start simple, get on the repeaters, and youll figure out pretty quick what features actually matter to you

sounds like you got the hardware part down so probably technique. biggest thing is having your function keys mapped right and practicing the audio switching. i use different cq messages on each radio - radio 1 gets the full callsign but radio 2 just gets the suffix most of the time. also make sure your running spots to radio 2 and not trying to tune around manually while cqing on 1. takes months to get the muscle memory down dont worry

the latency thing is real but honestly it depends way more on your hotel's upload than anything else. i ran RCForb for about two years controling my 7610 remotely and SSB is totally workable as long as both ends have decent connections. the trick is you kind of have to unlearn the habit of jumping in right when a pause happens — you need to wait just a beat longer than normal or youll step on people constantly. takes maybe a session or two to get used to it. the RemoteHams SDR remote side is interesting but i mostly used it for accessing other peoples WebSDR-style setups when i just wanted to listen around and see what was happening on a band i couldnt work from wherever i was. the actual remote control of your own rig is the more useful part imo. one thing i will say — get the audio codec settings dialed in before you leave home. there's nothing worse than being in a hotel at midnight trying to figure out why your mic audio sounds like a tin can over the remote link. opus at a reasonable bitrate worked best for me, YMMV with your specific setup

one thing worth mentioning that took me forever to figure out -- make sure your Winlink Express is actually connecting to an RMS gateway and not trying to do a telnet session when you think you're doing RF. sounds dumb but i spent like two sessions thinking i was testing my radio link and the software had defaulted back to internet telnet. check the session type dropdown every time before you start a session, its easy to miss.

yeah those cheap amazon relay boards are fine for low current DC stuff but honestly i wouldnt trust them on the RF side at all, the contacts arent rated for anything meaningful and youll get all kinds of intermod garbage especially if youre running more than like 50 watts through them. the latency thing is probably just flask being flask, you could try using something lighter or just do the gpio writes more directly without the web layer involved but thats a rabbit hole what most people do is exactly what you mentioned at the end — use a real coax relay like the ones from tohtsu or even the DX Engineering ones and then just use the pi to trigger the control voltage on those. the tohtsu CX-2N or similar can handle a kilowatt and you just need 12v to actuate them, so your relay board is only switching the control line not the RF. that way your pi can be garbage and it doesnt matter because the RF path is handled by something actually designed for it the web latency thing — honestly for antenna switching i dont think itll ever bother you in practice, how fast are you really switching between antennas mid-qso

Self spotting is totally fine, dont let anyone tell you otherwise. Thats literally what SOTAwatch is there for. Just put your frequency and mode in the comment so chasers know where to find you. A lot of activators spot themselves first thing before they even get a contact in the log. For S2S just keep an eye on the spots while youre up there, if another activator pops up on 20m or 40m just work them like any other contact, just make sure you log their summit reference too. The other activator will usually mention their reference in their CQ or in the exchange so listen for it. Good luck tomorrow, post how it went.

the AGC thing on the 7300 is more noticeable on SSB than anything else in my experience — stock AGC is a bit aggressive and if you slow it down a hair you do get better copy on fast fading signals, it's not just placebo but it's also not gonna blow your mind. the front end mod you're describing sounds like the one that's been floating around for a couple years now, i think k9yc wrote something up about it at one point? or maybe it was a different author i don't remember. my main mod i've done is external bandpass filters on the input, not really a hardware mod but makes a bigger difference than anything inside the radio for me. live about 4 miles from a 50kw AM station and without the filters the front end just gets hammered on 160. with the ICE bandpass set it's like a completely different radio on that band. also threw in a better ref oscillator to tighten up the stability but tbh on a radio that's used daily and stays warm it probably wasnt necessary

Classic TS-590 issue - the 25amp fuse holders and other connectors on the power cable oxidize over time and can cause significant power loss, causing the rig to reduce power output. Remove power cable, inspect, wipe all connectors clean, pull out and clean fuse contacts, or simply reseat the fuses - also inspect Johnson power pole connectors.

DXWatch provides a modern web-based DX cluster service with real-time spot filtering, customizable views, and an external widget option, while DX Summit by OH2AQ offers real-time and historical DX spots across numerous amateur radio bands, including HF, VHF, and UHF. I've been using QRZ's cluster but curious about the differences. The DX cluster updates every 10 seconds and analysis of multiple DX cluster messages can be used as an indicator of propagation conditions. Which web cluster do you prefer and why?

yeah im planning on going, went last year and it was pretty decent size. lots of the usual stuff, old coax and connectors and a few guys selling complete stations. didnt end up buying anything but it was worth the trip just to poke around and talk to people. the club breakfast they do is actually pretty good too if you get there early enough before the line gets long

i went through the exact same thing like 8 months ago lol. ended up just getting the Baofeng to start because i didnt want to spend a lot on something i might not stick with, and honestly for just banging around on the local 2m repeater it does the job fine. the menu system is kind of a pain but you figure it out. that said now that i actually use it regularly i kind of wish i had spent a bit more upfront because i can tell the audio isn't as clean as my buddy's Yaesu. still works though. i think the main thing is just get something and get on the air, you can always upgrade later once you know what you actually want out of it

the glitching thing you're describing is pretty common with that kind of setup, ive seen guys use a small RC filter on the input lines too before the arduino reads them, smooths out the transients a bit. might be worth trying alongside the software debounce. also not to derail but if youre going to have an amp in line at any point i'd seriously look at adding some logic to inhibit the relay switching unless ptt is unkeyed. had a buddy who fried a relay doing hot switching under power, wasnt pretty. just a thought