Tom Bradley

yeah what he said about the self spot. also -- and this tripped me up my first time -- make sure your callsign is listed as the activator on pota.app before you go out, not just as a hunter account. i think you have to go into your profile settings or something. i drove 45 mins to my park and realized i had no idea how to log it properly lol. ended up fine but was stressful. also write down the park number on paper just in case your phone dies or you lose signal at the park

okay so i finally got my general last spring and ive been doing a lot of HF since then, mostly 40m and 20m, and people keep talking about DXCC and WAS and WAZ and honestly i kind of just nodded along like i knew what they were talking about but i dont really have a clear picture of how any of this works or which one is even realistic for a newer guy like me to go after. from what i gather DXCC is working 100 countries or entities or whatever they call them, WAS is all 50 states, and WAZ is zones? but i dont really understand the zone thing. is there a map or something that explains what counts as a zone. also do you have to use a specific mode or can you mix contacts from different modes together. i have an IC-7300 and a wire dipole in the attic so im not exactly running kilowatts here but ive already worked like 30 something states just messing around and maybe 20-25 countries if my log is right. anyway just looking for some direction i guess. like which award actually makes sense to focus on when youre still kinda learning the ropes and dont have a big antenna setup.

okay so ive been licensed for about 3 months now and i finally got my first HT, a Baofeng UV-5R, and i've been trying to get on the local 2m repeater that's listed in the repeater directory. the offset is listed as -600 and there's a tone listed as 100.0 Hz. i programmed it in but when i key up nobody seems to hear me, or at least i never get any response. i did hear a couple guys talking on there yesterday so i know its active. my question is does that 100.0 Hz tone go in as the transmit tone or do i need it on receive too? i just set up the CTCSS on transmit and left receive squelch as carrier. i dunno if thats right or if im doing something else completely wrong. also is there like a standard way to call CQ on a repeater or do you just say your callsign and say youre monitoring? i dont want to step on anyone or be rude about it.

dont stress too much about getting a notice from the FCC, they're not exactly out there monitoring every qso waiting to nail new generals lol. the more practical thing to worry about is just knowing your band edges and not wandering into extra-only territory by accident. i did that once when i was new, was tuning around and called CQ about 3 khz below where i should have been on 75m. nobody said anything to me on air but i felt bad when i realized it later. just keep the band plan somewhere near your rig for a while til it becomes second nature

so im getting into contesting for the first time this fall and honestly i dont even know where to begin. ive been licensed about 8 months, general class, got a modest HF setup — kenwood ts-590sg into a dipole about 30 feet up in the backyard. nothing fancy but it works ok for casual operating. ive been reading about CQ WW coming up in october and it sounds massive, like the whole world just lights up the bands for a weekend. i also saw ARRL Field Day was a thing but i think i missed that one, its in june right? anyway a buddy at the club mentioned SOTA but thats more of a portable activations thing i think, not sure if that counts as contesting or just a separate activity entirely. my main question is — for someone totally new to contesting, is CQ WW too overwhelming to jump into first? should i just try to work as many stations as i can for fun or is there a better contest to start with that isnt quite so intense. also how do people keep track of everything in real time, do i need logging software right away or can i just do paper for a small effort

ok so i just passed my general last month (finally) and ive been reading about vanity callsigns and honestly the FCC website is not helping me understand this at all. like i get that you can apply for a specific call but i dont really understand the sequential process vs the vanity process and whether i even need to wait or what. right now i have a KD9 call which is fine but my dad was a ham back in the day and i was hoping maybe i could get his old call or something close to it. is that even a thing? i saw something about close relatives being able to apply for a deceased licensees call but i wasnt sure if that was still the case or if there were restrictions on it. also how long does the whole thing take, the FCC website says something about 18 days but i saw people on reddit saying it went faster for them. just trying to figure out if its worth doing

ok so i just upgraded to general like two weeks ago and im trying to figure out where i can actually transmit on 40 meters. i keep reading about band edges and how you shouldnt operate right on the edge but i dont fully understand where my privileges actually start and stop. like the band is 7.000 to 7.300 MHz but i know thats not the whole picture for phone vs cw vs digital modes. i was listening around 7.125 and heard some ssb conversations and tried to jump in but then someone told me i wasnt supposed to be there? or maybe i misunderstood what they said. anyway i pulled up the arrl band plan but its honestly a bit confusing with all the footnotes. is there a simpler way to think about this or is there like a chart that actually makes sense for a new general

honest answer — SO2R at 500 QSO casual levels is probably more distraction than its worth unless you genuinely enjoy the technical challenge of setting it up. the filtering problem is real and if you have a yagi and a dipole on the same tower youre going to have coupling issues that band pass filters alone might not fully solve depending on how close they are physically. i spent a whole contest weekend chasing RF feedback issues before i got my station properly sorted and it was miserable. where i think you'd get more actual rate improvement faster is just working on your CQing discipline. a lot of casual ops dont hold a frequency aggressively enough — you give up too fast when its slow and then youre back to SandP which is always slower for rate. the rule i use is if im above maybe 80-90 an hour running ill stay on freq and if i drop below that for more than a few minutes ill go hunting for a bit. also just getting your exchange down cold so theres no hesitation — that alone probably saves 3-4 seconds per QSO which adds up badly over a full contest period. the second radio thing does pay off but really its most valuable for finding mults while youre running. if youre not running a freq consistently the second radio doesnt help as much as people think

yeah im going, our club is actually setting up a table there. mostly selling off some old gear from the shack cleanout we did last month, bunch of coax, a couple handhelds, random connectors and stuff. if you come find the Ridgeline ARC table and say hi. also i think there's a VE session in the morning if you know anyone trying to get licensed

so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and i get it, its incredible for weak signal work, i regularly work stuff ive got no business working with 10 watts into a compromised antenna. but its not really a conversation is it. you exchange signal reports and grid squares and thats kind of it. felt like i was playing a video game more than operating. somebody at the club mentioned JS8Call and i installed it last weekend. i like the idea, its basically built on the same WSJT-X engine as FT8 but the sequences are longer and you can actually type messages back and forth. the latency is brutal though, like youre waiting 15 seconds between each exchange and by the time you get a reply the band has shifted and the signal is half gone. maybe thats just the nature of operating that close to the noise floor i dunno. PSK31 i used to run a lot on 20m and honestly that felt more like a real QSO, you could type in real time basically and the decoding was pretty solid down to maybe -15 or so on a good day. but JS8Call is supposed to go way deeper than that right? like into the -20s? anyway im not really asking anything specific just curious if other people use JS8Call for actual ragchewing or if its mostly used for messaging relay stuff and store-and-forward. seems like a cool concept that maybe doesnt quite deliver in practice but i could be wrong, havent given it a fair shake yet

so ive been putting together a go-kit for emcomm and just general portable stuff and i keep going back and forth on the power situation. right now im running a 100ah lifepo4 with a 30a victron mppt and a couple 100w panels but the problem is when i need to run my IC-7300 plus the laptop plus maybe a signalink for digital modes for extended periods like 8-10 hours straight the math just doesnt work out great especially if its overcast the obvious answer is a generator but man i really dont want to deal with fuel and noise especially at something like a served agency event where were literally inside a community center. a friend suggested i look at the honda eu2200i for the quiet factor but even that feels overkill and expensive just to charge batteries. the other option ive been mulling over is just adding another battery and calling it a day also on the antenna side im currently using a buddistick for HF which works okay but ive had mixed results on 40m specifically. thinking about building a simple linked dipole for the NVIS work we do at our county ARES group but havent pulled the trigger. anyone running something similar and does it actually make a difference vs the buddistick for close-in comms

so ive been a tech for about a year and just upgraded to general last month, and everybody keeps telling me i should learn cw even though its not required anymore. i get it, i get why people like it, but i have absolutely no idea where to even begin. like do i learn the alphabet first as a whole thing or just start with a few letters? i downloaded like three different apps and they all seem to do it different ways and now im more confused than when i started. one of them just throws random letters at you and another one does the whole koch method thing which i read about but i dont fully understand how that works either. i guess my main question is just... is there one way that actually works better than the others or does it just depend on the person. also how long did it take you to get to a point where you could actually have a real qso on the air, not just copying practice sessions

FO-29 has been pretty hit or miss honestly, the transponder goes in and out and theres been stretches of weeks where its just not on. worth checking amsat's status page before you spend a whole pass hunting for your own signal. that said your doppler situation is probably killing you even if the bird is active. on a linear transponder the uplink and downlink are shifting in opposite directions relative to each other because of the inverting nature, so you really do need to be correcting both at the same time or youre chasing your tail. gpredict can do split doppler if you set it up right with two radio profiles, one for uplink one for downlink, but getting that working with the 847's CAT takes a little fiddling. i was in the same boat for a while and once i got the doppler sorted i found my signal pretty quick. start with low power too, like 5 watts, you dont need much if the link is closed and itll save you from accidentally stomping on someone else in the passband

oh also bring more battery than you think you need, i forgot to charge mine fully my first time out and was rationing power by the end which was stressful. and maybe download the POTA app on your phone before you go so you can log in the field, way easier than paper logging if your hands are cold or whatever

yeah i did a similar mod on mine based on some writeup that was going around a couple years back. honestly couldnt tell a difference either way lol. 40m is still 40m when the eu stations are all piled up at 7.074 and everyone's running 500 watts. the radio is probably not your limiting factor most of the time anyway. what antenna you running?

so ive been running FT8 pretty heavily for the past year or so, got a decent log going, worked a bunch of DX on 40 and 20m with pretty modest power (running about 25w into a dipole up maybe 30 feet). its been great for propagation monitoring and just racking up contacts but honestly after a while it starts to feel a little... hollow? like youre not really talking to anyone, just exchanging grid squares and signal reports and thats it. anyway i started poking around with JS8Call and the concept is really interesting to me — using the same WSJT-style weak signal encoding but actually being able to type messages back and forth. the latency is kind of brutal though, like a full exchange can take a few minutes and if the band shifts mid-QSO you just lose it. has anyone stuck with it long enough to find a regular group or net to work with? feels like the activity level is pretty sparse compared to FT8 on a busy evening. also curious how it compares to just running PSK31 which i used to do a lot back in the day. PSK31 you could actually have a real chat but you needed maybe 10-15dB more signal to make it work reliably. is JS8Call actually filling that middle ground or am i just romanticizing it

I've got both but honestly, nothing beats the simplicity of good old FM for emergency work. When the power's out and repeaters are down, my 2m analog rig with spare batteries still works perfectly.

so ive been going back and forth on this for a while now and wanted to get some real opinions from people who actually operate a lot of SSB. lately ive been doing more HF phone stuff, mostly 40 and 20m, and getting varying feedback on my audio from different operators. some say it sounds great, others say it sounds thin or like im in a tunnel, and i cant figure out if its my mic, the processing settings in the radio, or something i'm doing with mic gain and compression. right now running an IC-7300 with the stock HM-219 mic. i know i know, everyone says upgrade the mic, but ive also heard the 7300 has pretty capable built-in processing and EQ if you actually set it up correctly. i've played with the TX tone settings a bit but honestly haven't gone deep into it. mostly running mid-range compression, maybe 3-4 bars on the ALC. what i'm really wondering is — how much of the SSB audio quality stuff is genuinely useful technique versus gear snob territory. like does a $150 aftermarket mic actually sound that much better or is it more about getting the radio settings dialed in properly first. and is there a good way to actually monitor your own transmitted audio without just relying on random reports from the other end

Most rigs show around 30W average when mic gain is properly configured. The mistake people make is trying to see 100W average output and they crank up mic gain and processing, resulting in horrible audio and dirty signals that interfere with adjacent frequencies. Start conservative and get signal reports before pushing harder.

so ive been messing around with LEO satellite work for the past few months and finally got my doppler correction working reasonably well with gpredict tied into my ft-817. mostly been trying FO-29 but its schedule has been all over the place and half the time i tune in during what should be a pass and get nothing. heard AO-73 has a linear transponder too but i cant find consistent info on whether its in amateur mode or not on any given pass. my current setup is just a pair of handheld yagis, az/el is all manual which honestly isnt as bad as i thought it would be once you get used to anticipating the movement. the doppler on the downlink is the part that still trips me up — im running split mode and trying to correct on the fly but im definitely missing contacts because im slow on the VFO. anyone have a workflow for this that actually works without a full automated station

The stable geomagnetic conditions have been a blessing for contest work. Focus on 20m, 17m, 15m during the day and 40m, 80m at night - classic band plan but working beautifully right now with these solar numbers.

ok so i just got my technician license a couple months ago and ive been getting on the local repeater here and there. my elmer told me to use phonetics when giving my callsign but honestly i see people on there who just say their call normally without spelling it out and nobody seems to care. so when are you actually supposed to use phonetics? like is it every single time or just when its noisy or the other person asks you to repeat? i dont want to sound like im overthinking it but i also dont want to be that guy who does it wrong on air. my call has a couple letters that sound similar so maybe thats why he told me to use them but idk

Log4OM has significant lag issues - double-clicking callsigns takes 3-5 seconds, opening QSOs for editing takes 5-10 seconds. This delay becomes really problematic during contests. I tried upgrading hardware but the performance issues persist. For contesting, N1MM+ is much more responsive.

yeah what he said. i'll add that in contest operating people barely use phonetics half the time because exchanges are so short and fast, but if conditions are rough or someones call has letters that sound alike like B and D or M and N then phonetics actually save a lot of back and forth. i once spent like three QSOs trying to sort out whether a suffix was BD or VD before we both just switched to spelling it out properly. cost me probably 2 minutes in a rate contest which is annoying lol

so ive been running a remote station for about two years now using a combination of hamachi, some custom scripts, and a flrig/fldigi setup over rdp and honestly its gotten pretty janky. works most of the time but theres always something weird happening with latency or the audio sync falls apart when my upstream bandwidth does anything funny. a buddy at the club keeps pushing me toward RemoteHams and the SDR remote client and i finally sat down and watched some videos on it last weekend. the SDR remote piece actually looks pretty slick for just listening and monitoring but im not totally sure how it handles actual transmit control — like does it just pass the CAT commands through or is there more going on under the hood there. also curious if anyone has tried combining this with some kind of internet linking setup, like using it as a gateway into an echolink node or IRLP reflector from the remote end. i have a 2m rig at the remote site too and the idea of being able to key that up remotely and hit a repeater from across the country seems like it should work but im not sure if the audio routing gets complicated when youre also running HF through the same interface. anyone gone down this road? is RemoteHams actually worth the subscription or is it one of those things that looks better in demos than real life