Bob Martinez

your club guy isnt wrong but context matters a lot. a 5el yagi on 2m is going to give you somewhere around 10 dBd depending on design, compared to maybe 5-6 dBd for a GP-9 type collinear - so yeah on a fixed path the yagi wins pretty handily. but you already said it yourself, you use 2m for general stuff so pointing a yagi at one repeater kind of defeats the purpose unless you motorize it or just accept you're giving up coverage everywhere else. honestly for your situation i'd try the GP-9 or something similar first. going from 3dBd to 5-6dBd is still a real improvement especially if your current antenna has any feedline loss eating into things. what coax are you running and how long is the run? because 30 feet of RG-58 at 2m will kill more than you think and sometimes that's the actual problem before you even get to antenna gain.

one thing nobody really talks about with SO2R is the keyer and audio routing setup being half the battle honestly. if you dont have your audio sorted so you can actually hear what radio 2 is doing without blowing out your ear or missing your own exchange on radio 1, the whole thing falls apart. i run a headphone mixer and it took me longer to dial that in than it did to set up the bandpass filters. N1MM has decent SO2R support built in now so that part at least isnt as painful as it used to be but you still gotta configure it properly or it'll fight you the whole contest.

ok so ive been listening on 40m mostly and people throw around all these short codes and i can only figure out like half of them from context. like i know QSO is a contact and QSL is confirming it but then someone said something about QRM and QRN and i wasnt sure which was which. and whats the deal with 73 at the end of every conversation, is that just like goodbye or does it mean something specific also saw someone write "de" before their callsign in a cw exchange i think and i get thats probably "from" but im not 100 percent sure. is there like a master list somewhere or do you just pick this stuff up over time. feels like learning a whole second language on top of the actual radio stuff

congrats on the first one, that feeling when the chasers start calling before you're even ready is pretty special. to answer your questions — yes use the reference exactly as it appears in the database, W6/SC-042 is the format and you've got it right. the association/region/summit-number format is standardized so the log checking software can parse it correctly when you submit through SOTAdata. on the marginal contact question, the rule is basically that both stations need to have made a legitimate contact, meaning you both know you worked each other. if he logged you and you logged him and both of you genuinely believe the contact was made, it counts. there's no signal report minimum or anything like that, just a real two-way contact. the SOTA rules are actually pretty relaxed about this compared to what some people think. for self-spotting without cell service, yeah APRS is the main way, you can set up an APRS message to SOTAwatch through the radio network, or some people use the Garmin inReach to text a spot. theres also SOTA Goat and a few other apps that have offline spotting via SMS on some networks. worth looking into before you do a remote summit for sure.

so ive been at this for about three months now, started with a cheap single lever paddle i picked up used and been running it into an old MFJ keyer. my dits are coming out okay but my dahs feel rushed somehow, like the ratio is off even though the keyer is set to 3:1. i've watched probably a dozen youtube videos on technique and they all say different things about thumb position and squeeze pressure. im currently sending around 12-13 wpm which feels comfortable reading but when i actually try to transmit a full exchange in a pileup or even just a basic QSO my brain freezes and the sending falls apart. dont know if this is a paddle issue or just me needing more practice. been doing the lcwo lessons every morning but im not sure if that's helping with actual sending or just copying. anyone been through this and come out the other side? feels like im plateauing and its a little discouraging

so ive been using a cheap RTL-SDR v3 dongle for about a year now mostly for monitoring local repeaters, some aircraft stuff with dump1090, and just general band scanning. works fine honestly but ive been reading about the SDRplay RSPdx and people seem to really love it. the noise floor difference is apparently pretty significant especially down in the lower HF bands which is where i want to spend more time. my current setup is the dongle into SDR# on a windows laptop, nothing fancy. ive got a decent end fed half wave outside which helps a lot vs the whip that came with it. the thing is the RSPdx is like $200 and i keep second guessing whether ill actually notice that much difference for casual listening or if im just falling into the gear acquisition trap again. anyone made this jump and regret it or not regret it? also curious if SDRuno is actually usable or if most people just run it through SDR# or HDSDR anyway

yeah i did the tx mod on mine ages ago, pretty much same experience you described. clip the diode, button it back up, done. the only thing i'd add is make sure you go through the alignment procedure afterwards if you're gonna operate much outside the normal bands, the PA is optimized at the factory for the ham allocations and you can lose a few watts if you dont touch it up. not a huge deal for most people but worth knowing. one thing i did that was more involved was replacing the display backlighting with higher brightness LEDs, the stock ones get dim and washed out in sunlight and i do a lot of portable operating from the truck. pain in the neck to do but i can actually read the frequency now in direct sun which was not possible before

yeah the band edge thing trips up a lot of new generals. so the FCC allocations are the legal hard limits, you absolutely cannot transmit outside those. for 40m phone as a general you can operate from 7.175 up to 7.300 MHz. the reason people say avoid the band edge is because your signal has sidebands, so if youre running SSB and you set your VFO to exactly 7.300 you could actually have audio components going above that and technically be out of band. most people just stay a few kHz inside the edge to be safe, like dial up to 7.295 or so and youre fine. the ARRL band plan is a little different from the FCC allocations btw, the band plan stuff like where CW vs phone vs digital goes is more of a gentleman's agreement than law, but people get pretty grumpy if you ignore it. worth downloading the ARRL band plan PDF and just keeping it handy for a while til it becomes second nature.

so I've been licensed about 8 months now and a couple guys at my club keep telling me I should jump into CQ WW this fall. I honestly didn't even know what it was until like two weeks ago when one of the elmers at our club meeting explained it. apparently it's one of the biggest HF contests in the world? like hundreds of thousands of contacts or something over a weekend. I'm running a Yaesu FT-891 into a dipole up about 25 feet and I know that's nothing special but they said even modest stations can make a pile of contacts during a big contest like this. my question is more like... where do I even start. do I just tune around and call CQ or try to find stations calling and answer them? I've heard the terms S&P and running but I'm not totally sure which makes more sense for a beginner. also is it worth setting up N1MM or should I just use paper logging for my first time. any advice from people who've done it before would be really appreciated. I'm kinda nervous honestly but also excited to try something new

I did the internal mod on mine, specifically the one where you adjust the mic bias resistor to better match a dynamic element, was using an SM-30 desk mic and the impedance matching was a bit off. Made a noticeable difference to me at least. That said I already had another 7300 as a backup so I wasnt sweating if I bricked it. Probably wouldnt have done it on my only radio.

inverted V off 35 feet sounds about like my setup, works fine on 40m. one thing i'd add is dont stress too much about the angle of the legs as long as theyre not basically horizontal. you lose some of the pattern advantages but for general use and getting on the air it doesnt really matter. i ran mine at like 25 degrees for two years before i got a taller support and worked plenty of DX. also the 14awg stranded is totally fine, some guys swear by solid for less stretch but stranded has been working for me for years outdoors. just make sure whatever you use at the ends to terminate the wire and attach to your rope insulators is secure - thats usually where failures happen in my experience, not the wire itself.

dude same thing happened to me on my first activation lol, i spotted myself and then just stared at the radio for like 10 seconds because i didnt expect anyone to actually call. got flustered and gave my callsign wrong twice in a row. the hunter on the other end was really cool about it though. which state forest was K-4562? im always looking for parks in driving distance to hunt from home, sometimes i can work activators from my attic antenna setup if theyre not too far out.

i just take both lol. collinear goes up first, if i need more punch in a direction i swap. the Arrow 2m/70cm yagi fits in my pack no problem, its not that heavy. the setup time is like 2 minutes once you do it a few times. with an HT youre gonna be noise-limited more than anything else anyway so the extra gain from even a modest yagi makes a real difference compared to obsessing over which collinear to buy

so ive had my tech license for about 8 months now and honestly i use it mostly for 2m and some packet stuff but i keep hearing people talk about HF and it sounds like thats where most of the interesting stuff is happening. been lurking on 40m with my buddies HT just to get a feel for it and yeah i think i want in on that my question is how different is the general exam from tech, like is it a whole different level of studying or is it more of the same kind of questions just more of them. i looked at a practice test on one of the sites and some of it went over my head pretty quick, the propagation stuff and the operating procedures for HF seemed like a lot. also i dont really understand all the privileges, like which bands do i actually get access to and is there a good chart or something that explains it without being super confusing any tips from people who went through this recently would be helpful, thanks

im kind of in the same boat as you so take this with a grain of salt but what helped me click was youtube videos where someone just sends random letters slowly and you try to write them down. less pressure than an actual net. also i read somewhere that writing out what you hear works better than typing it at first because typing makes you think about the keyboard instead of the sound. no idea if thats actually true but it seemed to help me a little. still only on like 8 letters after 3 weeks so im not exactly flying lol

I went two years ago and it was great for finding older gear but last year felt kinda thin on the tables. hopefully more vendors show up this time. also if you're driving far just double check the date because I definitely showed up a week early once at a different hamfest and felt like a complete idiot standing in an empty parking lot

so i finally did my first summit activation last weekend, W4T/SU-001 up near the smokies. been planning it for like 3 months and i still managed to forget half my stuff. brought the KX2 and a end fed but forgot the counterpoise so i was just kind of hoping the feedline would do something useful. got 4 contacts which i guess counts but the SWR was ugly the whole time. also the hike up was way harder than i expected with all the radio gear on top of the normal hiking stuff. my pack was probably 30 lbs and thats too much. anybody have suggestions for cutting weight on a SOTA kit because im starting to think the KX2 might not even be the problem, its everything else that adds up

so i've been licensed for about two years now and every time there's a weather event or something going on in the area i feel completely unprepared. like i have my radio and that's about it. no real plan, no kit, nothing organized. my local ARES group keeps talking about go-kits and i showed up to a meeting last month where a guy had this really impressive setup in a pelican case and i kind of just nodded along like i knew what i was doing but honestly i had no idea where to even begin. so i guess my question is, for someone who doesnt have a huge budget and is mostly set up for VHF/UHF right now, whats the minimum i should be putting together? like what do people actually use when they deploy? i keep seeing lists online but they all seem either way too basic or way over the top for where im at. mostly just want something that would work if i had to grab it and go in like 5 minutes.

yeah that's classic alternator whine, the RPM-dependent pitch is the dead giveaway. even with a direct battery connection you can still get it coming in through the coax shield or a bad ground somewhere. the first thing i'd check is your coax grounding at the mount — if the NMO mount isn't making solid contact with the roof or your ground braid to the chassis is iffy, that's usually where it sneaks in. try this: get a ferrite choke and put it on the DC power leads right at the radio, wrap them through a few times. also put one on the coax feed line close to the radio. that kills most of it in my experience. i had almost the exact same setup in a silverado years back and a couple of type 31 toroids sorted it right out. also double check your coax isn't running parallel to any power wiring under the carpet for a long stretch, that can couple noise in too.

our club is doing a group thing, renting a van lol. if you want details shoot me a message, pretty sure we have one or two spots open still

went to dayton back in 2019 and honestly it was a little overwhelming but in a good way. the flea market alone takes like half a day if you actually stop and look at stuff. picked up a barely used 706 for way less than i expected. its a long haul but if you can find someone to split gas with i'd say do it at least once. the forums usually have ride share threads popping up around march or april so keep an eye out

dont stress about it at all, everyone fumbles check-ins when they're new and honestly even some folks whove been licensed for years still do it a little differently depending on the net. the general idea for most informal nets is you just give your callsign during the check-in window — just your call — and then wait for net control to come back to you before giving your name, location, whether you have traffic, all that. net control is basically juggling a list so they want to log you first and then bring you back in order. traffic nets like NTS stuff are a bit more structured and you'd want to say if you have traffic to pass when you check in, something like your call and then "with traffic" so net control knows to work you in the right spot. but for a regular tuesday social net just tossing your callsign out there and waiting is totally fine. the pause you noticed was probably just net control writing you down, not anything you did wrong. stick with it, you'll get the rhythm pretty quick.

Don't forget a cigarette lighter adapter for your HT! Saved my bacon during the last ice storm when I could charge from the truck. Also get some spare fuses, cables, and connectors - having a "go box first aid kit" may seem obvious but few hams have one.

I've found that MAP65 with coherent signal channels for two orthogonal polarizations can yield automatic polarization-matched reception really helps on 70cm. Some polarization mismatch loss can be reduced by using a larger antenna array. Your 4x28el should have enough aperture to minimize both effects compared to smaller arrays.

so i passed my general last year and decided i really wanted to learn morse code properly, not just the minimum to pass or whatever. started with just convert, learn the alphabet stuff and got up to about 5wpm pretty quick. felt good. then over like 3 months got myself to 13wpm and now i am just absolutely stuck. been at 13 for probably 4 months now. im doing about 20 minutes a day with the LCWO site, sending with my straight key, copying on paper. i can hear the letters fine when i know what word is coming but in actual QSOs or even just random code practice i fall apart above 13. like my brain just stops processing and i start trying to count dits and dahs again which obviously makes everything worse. anybody been through this wall? is there something specific that finally clicked for it? ive heard people say just listen to faster code even if you cant copy it all but that seems kind of pointless to me. open to anything at this point because 20wpm feels like another planet from here