Mike Johnson

DXPocket is solid! I've been using it for about a year now. Great filtering options and you can post spots directly to DX Summit. The interface is clean and loads fast even on poor cell coverage.

honestly same boat as you were a few months ago lol. what helped me was just downloading the actual ARRL band plan as a pdf and keeping it next to the radio. after a few weeks of checking it before every QSO i just kind of memorized it without trying. the part 97 document itself is kind of a beast to read straight through

honestly the extra sub-bands matter a lot more during contests than casual operating. if you ever get into contesting seriously youll notice real fast that the extra portion of 20m or 40m is where everyone is running stations and calling CQ, generals are kind of stuck listening to a pile of activity they cant transmit in. that alone was enough reason for me. as for the theory stuff, yeah some of it is genuinely hard, the filter stuff and the transmission line calculations took me a few weeks of actual studying to wrap my head around. but i will say knowing that material made me a better troubleshooter when weird things started happening with my antenna setup. so its not totally useless knowledge even if you never design a bandpass filter from scratch in your life. just depends how deep into the hobby you want to go i guess.

yeah this sounds super familiar, had basically the same thing happening last winter. for me it turned out to be the ALC on the 7300 was creeping up mid-transmission and causing the signal to get sloppy enough that the gateway couldnt decode it cleanly anymore. vara would start the session fine because power was stable at first but then as things warmed up or whatever the ALC would kick in and mess up the waveform. worth checking your RF power setting in the 7300 menu — for vara HF most people run it pretty conservatively, like 30-40 watts max, and you really dont want any ALC action at all. zero ALC is the goal. if your ALC meter is moving even a little during a vara transmission thats probably your culprit. also double check the USB send/recv levels in the radio's connectors menu, those can interact weirdly with winlink express's audio settings. the timeout thing you mentioned is possible too but i'd rule out the RF quality issue first before digging into config files

congrats on the first one. honestly the battery thing gets everyone, i now carry a spare 3ah lipo just in case even though its extra weight. what antenna were you running up there?

so i just upgraded from Tech to General last month and im trying to figure out what frequencies i can actually use now. ive been reading Part 97 but honestly its kind of confusing the way its written. like i know i have more privileges now but the band plan chart i have doesnt always match up with what im seeing in the actual FCC rules document and i dont know which one to trust. also someone at my club mentioned something about phone vs data vs CW segments and how you can only run certain emissions in certain parts of the band? i kind of understood it but not really. and then theres the power limits, i thought General was 1500 watts on HF but someone said theres exceptions on certain bands or near certain frequencies. anyway just looking for someone to explain it in plain english because the actual Part 97 text makes my head spin a little

yeah i was in the same spot about 8 months ago and just got the UV-5R. chirp was surprisingly easy, dont stress about it. the radio itself feels a little cheap but it works. only thing i'd say is make sure you get the genuine one from a real seller not some weird knockoff version, apparently theres a lot of those floating around.

I started with a UV-5R and honestly, the programming frustration nearly killed my enthusiasm for the hobby. Went with an FT-60R afterward and wished I'd started there. Spend a bit more upfront and get something user-friendly - the FT-65R is perfect for this.

so ive been interested in ham radio for a while now, mostly because a friend of mine has been into it and it seems really cool but also kind of overwhelming? i dont even really know what the difference is between the license levels or whatever. i looked up some stuff online and saw there was a technician and general and extra but i dont understand if you need to do them in order or if i can just skip to the one that lets me talk farther distances or whatever also is the test hard? im not super technical, i passed basic electronics in school like 10 years ago but i definitely dont remember most of it. does anyone have good study resources? i saw the arrl has a book but i also saw some websites. just not sure where to start honestly

congrats on the first QRP contact, that ohio from illinois on 3w is solid especially if conditions werent great. and yeah the antenna absolutely matters more at QRP, thats not just something people say — when you're already giving up 15dB compared to a kilowatt station the last thing you want is another 3dB disappearing into a compromised antenna or lossy feedline for portable stuff i've been using an EFHW for a few years now and it's hard to beat for simplicity. you can wind a 49:1 transformer on a toroid, solder it into an altoids tin basically, and the whole thing with the wire rolled up weighs almost nothing. the tradeoff versus a random wire and tuner is that the EFHW is cut for specific bands so you lose some flexibility, but for a day hike where you know you're going to work 40m it's kind of a no-brainer. random wire plus a Z-match or similar is more flexible but that's another thing to carry and another thing to fiddle with when you just want to set up and operate also the QCX mini is a great little rig. i built the 20m version and the receiver is surprisingly good for what it is

Hey everyone! I just got my Technician license last week (WB2XYZ) and I've been listening to the local Monday evening net on the 146.94 repeater. I know I should listen before transmitting to make sure the frequency is clear, but I'm still nervous about jumping in for my first check-in. The net control station seems very professional, but I'm worried I'll mess up the procedure or forget my call sign when it's my turn. Any advice for a new ham on net etiquette? Should I mention it's my first time? Thanks for any guidance - this community has been so welcoming!

okay so i just passed my technician exam last week and im trying to figure out what handheld to get as my first radio. ive been reading threads here for like two weeks and honestly im more confused now than when i started. everyone seems to have a strong opinion and half of them contradict each other the main thing im seeing is the whole baofeng vs yaesu vs kenwood debate and i genuinely dont know where to land. my main use case would be local repeaters, maybe some simplex with a neighbor who just got his license too, and eventually i want to try some APRS stuff if thats even possible on an HT. i dont have a huge budget, probably $100-150 range to start i know everyone says the baofengs are fine to learn on and the programming is a pain but whatever. but then other people say just save up for a yaesu ft-65 or something and youll be happier long term. is the audio quality really that noticeably different or is that just audiophile stuff also does dual band actually matter for a new ham or should i not worry about that yet. sorry if this is a well-worn topic around here

welcome welcome. yeah the first time keying up is lowkey terrifying for no real reason lol. i did the same thing, just listened forever. Ron sounds like good people, theres always someone on the repeaters willing to chat with a new ham. have you thought about HF at all or just sticking with 2m for now

So ive been chasing SOTA for about 8 months now and finally decided to stop being lazy and actually get up on a summit myself. Planning to activate W6/SC-305 this Saturday, nothing crazy difficult but its a decent hike with the gear. My setup is gonna be a KX2 with a 40m EFHW thrown over a branch or trekking pole, and im bringing a 3Ah lipo since the full 6Ah feels like too much weight for the climb. Hoping to get on 40 and maybe 20 if conditions cooperate. My actual question is about the reference logging on SOTA watch. Do I need to post an alert before the activation or can I just self-spot once im up there? I know alerts are kind of a curtesy thing but wasnt sure if they're required for the activation to count. Also curious if 4 QSOs is still the minimum to qualify or if that changed at any point. I feel like I read conflicting things. Any tips from people who've done a bunch of these would be appreciated, especially around pacing yourself when you're carrying radio gear cause I tend to overpack.

so i was just messing around on 10 meters tuesday afternoon, wasnt really expecting much, and all of a sudden it just opened up like i havent seen in probably two years. i was running maybe 50 watts into a vertical and i was getting into europe no problem, worked a couple spanish stations and even heard what sounded like a JA coming through but couldnt quite pull him out of the noise. been a long time since ive had a session like that on 10m honestly. also saw someone on the club email list mention there was a new firmware update for the IC-7300 that fixes some issue with the waterfall display, hasnt been an issue for me personally but figured id pass it along in case anyone else has been noticing something weird with theirs. i havent installed it yet, kind of nervous about updating firmware on a radio thats working fine you know how it is. anyway just wanted to share, if youre not checking 10m right now during this part of the solar cycle you might be missing out. conditions have been surprisingly good lately and with the cycle ramping up it seems like its only going to get better for a while.

this is really helpful to read, im still pretty new to ARES and havent been through a full drill yet. quick question — what are ICS-213 forms exactly? i keep seeing that mentioned and i looked it up but im not totally clear on how you actually use them during radio ops. do you fill them out and then read them over the air or what?

welcome to the hobby, dont stress too much about it honestly. nets are generally pretty forgiving especially for new hams. most net controls have heard it all and they're not going to be rude to someone who's clearly just learning. for checking in, saying your callsign once clearly is usually fine, some people say it twice just to make sure they were heard through any noise or whatever but its not required. the format really does vary by net — some nets are pretty formal and they want callsign, name, location, and maybe traffic status, and some are super casual and just want to know youre there. honestly the best thing you can do is just listen to a few more sessions and pick up on what that specific net does. they usually have a format they follow. on the Baofeng delay thing — yeah that squelch tail and VOX stuff can catch people out. just wait a beat or two after you hear the last transmission before you key up, give it maybe a second and a half. if you have the roger beep turned on, turn it off, net controls hate that thing. you'll be fine, just jump in and check in one of these tuesdays, worst case you fumble your callsign and have a laugh about it

cant say ive seen exactly that but my first instinct would be the ALC feedback loop before i go digging into the PA itself. if the ALC circuit is sending a weird signal the radio will throttle output to nothing without the finals actually being bad. might be worth scoping the ALC line if you can get a probe on it during one of the dropout events. also what firmware version are you on? there were some weird TX issues reported on older firmware, i dont remember the specifics but it might be worth a search on the icom users group reflector before you crack it open further.

maybe its just me but 40m feels like a ghost town most evenings now. i used to sit down after dinner, tune around and always find something going on — nets, ragchews, whatever. lately its just a wall of noise or nothing at all. checked my antenna and everything looks fine so its not that. just wondering if other people are noticing the same thing or if im in some weird dead spot

Had identical issues with my EU2200i. Solution was a Corcom 20VR1 power line filter installed right at the generator outlet, plus moving the genny 100+ feet from my antenna. The switching frequency harmonics were coupling into everything. Night and day difference with proper filtering.

so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i keep seeing people talk about QSL cards and LoTW and eQSL and honestly im not totally sure which ones i should be bothering with. like do i need all three or is one of them good enough for most purposes right now i just log everything in WSJT-X and it syncs to QRZ logbook automatically which i thought was fine but then someone at my club meeting mentioned that QRZ confirmations dont count for DXCC and i kind of panicked a little. ive worked about 140 countries so far mostly FT8 and i havent been uploading to LoTW at all... i didnt even set it up yet because the whole certificate process looked really confusing when i tried to read the instructions also is anyone still actually sending physical cards? feels kind of old fashioned but a few people have mailed me cards out of the blue and they're honestly really cool to get. just not sure if theres any point in sending them out myself unless someone specifically asks

so ive been going back and forth on this for like two months now and i cant decide. currently running a 40m dipole up about 25 feet which i know isnt ideal, its more like an NVIS antenna at that height but its what i can do in my yard. been thinking about putting up a vertical instead, maybe a trap vertical or just a simple quarter wave with some radials. the thing is everybodys got a different opinion. some guys at the club swear by their verticals for DX and the dipole guys say the vertical just picks up more noise. my noise floor on 40m is already pretty rough, im in a suburban neighborhood so that probably matters. i think i read somewhere that a dipole at low height actually has lower angle radiation which would be good for DX but then someone told me thats backwards. so which is it not trying to start a war just genuinely confused and want to make a decision and stop overthinking this

New General seeing conflicting advice on mic gain settings. Some say crank it up to see 100W on the meter, others suggest much lower settings. Most rigs show only 30W average with proper mic gain configuration. The mistake is trying to see 100W average reading, maxing mic gain and processor, resulting in horrible audio and dirty signal. Currently running FT-991A with stock MH-31 at gain=20. Average power shows 35W, peaks hit 85-90W. Is this correct for SSB? Should I be concerned about low average power readings?

so ive been trying to get Winlink running for a few weeks now and i finally got Winlink Express installed and connected to a couple of gateways but the connection keeps dropping mid-transfer and i cant figure out if its my setup or the gateway itself. im running a IC-7300 into a Signalink USB, using Vara HF which i bought the license for. the connection will start fine, ill see the handshake go through and start pulling down messages then somewhere around 60-70% of the transfer it just dies. the gateway shows busy or drops off the list entirely. ive tried a few different gateways, some closer some further away, and same thing happens on most of them. one gateway i connected to in texas (im in the midwest) actually completed a full session which was great, but then i tried it again the next day and it dropped again. im wondering if my audio levels are off or if theres something wrong with how im configuring the soundcard. the Signalink tuning is something i never fully understood honestly. also not sure if i should be running Vara FM instead for local stuff since theres a few VHF gateways maybe 40 miles away. any ideas would be helpful, this has been bugging me for a while and i want to get it reliable before our ARES group starts using it for emcomm exercises

oh man 10m has been so good lately, youre not imagining it. SFI in the 170s-180s is legitimately excellent for the high bands. for tracking i use the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center site, they have a 45-day solar flux plot that gives you a decent sense of the trend. also DXMaps.com is great for seeing real-time spots and you can actually watch openings happen as people log contacts — its kind of addicting honestly. the thing about solar flux is it doesnt directly cause the ionization, its more of an indicator of overall solar activity. the F2 layer is what youre riding on those long paths and it can shift pretty quickly, like conditions in the morning can be completely different by afternoon depending on where the sun is relative to the path. your Japan contact was probably a long path since youre in North America — that would route over the South Pole basically, peak time is usually right around your sunrise give or take. dont chase it too hard, just keep the radio on and let it happen. some of the best DX i ever worked was because i happened to have the rig on and wasnt even really trying.