Rick Anderson

so i've been licensed for about 8 months now and i've been checking into the local Tuesday night net pretty regularly. last night i checked in and when the net control asked if anyone had traffic or announcements i jumped in and started asking about whether anyone knew a good place to buy a used HF rig locally. the net control guy was really polite about it but he kind of steered me off and said we could talk after the net closed, and i could tell i'd done something wrong but i didn't fully understand what. went home and looked it up and i think i get it now — nets have a specific flow and you're not supposed to just turn it into a ragchew or classifieds board, especially if it's a directed net with actual traffic to pass. but i guess my question is, is there like a good resource somewhere that explains net procedures in plain english? not the super formal ARRL stuff (i've tried reading that and my eyes glaze over) but something that actually walks through what you're supposed to say and when. also what's the right way to handle it when you genuinely dont know the protocol for something — is it ok to just ask the net control directly?

so i passed my technician last spring and ive been on 2m and 70cm for a few months now mostly just doing local repeaters and some simplex. its fine but honestly i want to get on HF and actually work some DX, talk to people further than 50 miles away lol. everyone keeps telling me to just go ahead and get my general already. my question is like how much harder is the general exam compared to technician? i studied for tech using the hamstudy.org thing for about 2 weeks and passed no problem. is general similar or is it way more involved? i dont really have a background in electronics or math or anything like that. also is it worth just trying to cram both general and extra at the same time or is that crazy any advice would be helpful, i dont even know what i dont know at this point if that makes sense

so ive been studying for the Amateur Extra for about 3 months now and i feel pretty solid on most of it but there are definitely some sections where im just kind of memorizing without really understanding whats going on. like the filter theory and the transmission line stuff makes sense to me but some of the op-amp questions and the more advanced propagation stuff i honestly just feel like im pattern matching the answers at this point. anyone remember what actually caught them off guard on the real exam? i know the question pool is public so theoretically you can just memorize everything but i'd rather actually understand it. also curious if getting the Extra actually changes how you operate day to day or if its mostly just for the extra HF privileges in the sub bands. i already have my General so i can get on most of HF anyway, just not the cw portions or the very low end of some of the phone bands. taking it at a club session in like 6 weeks if everything lines up right

honestly i went through almost the exact same decision and ended up going vertical, partly because my yard just doesnt give me clean dipole angles in any useful direction. ended up with a trap vertical that covers 40 and 20 and threw down like 16 radials at about 10 feet each which i know isnt ideal but its what i had room for. works okay, not amazing. 40m ssb contacts up to maybe 800 miles on a typical afternoon, nothing crazy but it gets out. one thing i wish id done differently is spend more time on the feedpoint and make sure everything was weatherproofed right from the start, had some intermittent issues last winter that turned out to be water intrusion at the coax connector and it took me forever to track down

not a 7300 specifically but i had basically this same situation with an older 746 Pro a few years back. turned out one of the two finals was completely dead and the other was limping along at reduced efficiency. output was low and inconsistent, ALC looked okay, no smoke no drama. radio just quietly gave up half its power and kept on trucking. point being dont assume both finals are okay just because theres no obvious failure — one dead one can hide behind the other working one depending on how theyre configured.

so i've been licensed about two years now and mostly just used my Baofeng and then eventually got a used Icom for HF but i kept seeing people talk about QRP and building kits and honestly i thought it sounded kind of nerdy and niche but then i got bored over a long weekend and ordered one of those QCX mini kits from QRP Labs and oh man i completely understand the obsession now took me probably 4 hours to build it, which is longer than i expected but i was being really careful with the soldering and double checking everything. first power-up it worked which honestly shocked me because i was sure id mess something up. got it tuned to 40m and within like 20 minutes had a contact with a guy in Kentucky, im in Ohio so not huge distance but i was running 5 watts and using just a wire antenna i threw up in the backyard and it felt like magic compared to my 100w radio somehow anyway now im looking at portable operating and wondering what people use for antennas when they go out in the field with these things. i have a crappy telescoping whip i got somewhere but i suspect theres way better options. also what do people use for battery power when doing SOTA or just parks stuff

yeah this sounds really familiar actually. our group did something similar a couple years back and the power situation is almost always where things fall apart first. we started requiring everyone to actually log their battery voltage at the start and every hour during exercises just so people get in the habit of monitoring it. sounds basic but you'd be surprised how many operators just assume the power is fine until it isn't. the simplex dead zone thing is a real issue and honestly one of the most valuable things any group can discover during an exercise rather than during an actual event. after we found similar gaps we actually drove every major road in the county with a handheld just mapping where we lost contact with the repeater and where we didn't. took a couple saturday afternoons but now we have a pretty solid picture of where we need a portable linked node or at least a relay operator. might be worth doing something like that for your area if you havent already. for the after action report i'd really emphasize putting specific names or positions next to every lesson learned otherwise it tends to just become a list of abstract problems that nobody actually fixes before the next exercise

so ive been trying to study for the technician exam for the past couple weeks and honestly its a little overwhelming. im using the ARRL technician manual but im not sure if im even studying the right way. like do i need to memorize every single question in the pool or is there a smarter way to do this? someone at work told me to just use HamStudy but i dont know if thats enough on its own or if i should also be reading the book. the math questions especially are stressing me out, the ones about ohms law and decibels and stuff. i passed high school physics like 15 years ago so that part of my brain is basically gone lol any advice would be really appreciated, i want to take the exam sometime next month if possible

so ive been meaning to do this for like two years and kept putting it off but after the storms we had last month and our local ARES group got activated i realized i was completely unprepared. like embarrassingly so. showed up with a HT and basically nothing else useful. so now im actually doing it. got a Pelican-style case from harbor freight, picked up an FT-891 for HF portable work, and i have a little 20ah LiFePO4 battery that should keep me going for a while. also grabbed some coax and a couple different connectors, a basic dipole kit i can string up, and a notebook and pens because apparently power outages mean paper logs again lol. my question is what do people usually forget or wish they had included. i feel like im probably overlooking something obvious. i know i need better antenna options, thinking maybe a buddipole or just build a few linked dipoles. also not sure how much power cable and adapters to include, anderson powerpole stuff seems like the way to go but i feel like i need to learn more about that whole ecosystem before i commit. also curious how people handle digital modes in a go-kit. is it worth lugging a laptop or do people use like a raspberry pi setup or something like that. just trying to get a realistic picture of what a functional kit actually looks like vs the fantasy version i have in my head

so ive been doing contests more seriously the last couple years, mostly phone but getting into CW now, and i keep reading about SO2R and wondering if theres a point where it actually makes sense to set it up vs just running a clean single radio setup. right now i'm using an IC-7300 and getting maybe 400-500 QSOs in a typical 24 hour contest which i know isnt spectacular but its decent for a part timer who sleeps. the rate optimization stuff i've been reading about is interesting though -- like working the mult on one radio while running a frequency on the other, that makes obvious sense on paper but i can only imagine how confusing it gets in practice when you're already tired at hour 18 and trying to copy calls through QRM. does anyone actually do SO2R with modest antennas or is it really only worth it if you've got a serious station? i feel like my attic dipoles would just eat each other alive with the second radio keying up also curious if people have thoughts on when during a contest you should shift your strategy -- like i tend to S&P the whole first hour to log easy mults then try to find a run frequency but i'm not sure that's optimal or if i'm just doing what feels comfortable

congrats on the build, chirp on VXO rigs is super common and usually comes down to a few things. most of the time its the keying — if youre hard keying the PA stage directly the supply voltage is drooping for a split second when the key goes down and that pulls the oscillator frequency with it. try decoupling the oscillator stage more aggressively, like a separate RC filter or even a small 78L05 just feeding the osc. also check your key waveform if you have a scope, really fast rise times make chirp worse and adding a little shaping network helps a lot. the other thing is physical stability, even small vibrations from a fan or bumping the bench can make a crystal VXO wander around. but honestly 500mW to ohio on a homebrew rig is solid, dont let the chirp discourage you

headlamp is the first thing that comes to mind honestly. sounds dumb but when you're trying to find a BNC connector at 2am in a shelter or whatever, you really dont want to be holding your phone flashlight in your teeth. i also keep a small roll of electrical tape and a multimeter in mine, not a fancy one just a cheap $12 harbor freight thing. the other thing i'd say is dont forget about your own comfort — protein bars, water, that kind of stuff. i know its a radio kit but if you're deployed for 8 hours you'll be glad you threw a few granola bars in there. also maybe a spare battery for whatever HT you carry as a backup. the 857 is great but having an HT means you can still move around the served agency site and talk to people. sounds like you're way further along than most people who show up to our ARES meetings tbh

linked dipole on a 31ft pole is what i use too, works great. one thing i'd double check is your feedline run, if you end up having to park the generator far away from the op position to deal with noise that becomes a whole other headache with coax lengths and all that, another reason battery just makes life simpler for a 6 hour thing. also just make sure whoever is doing the eoc liaison has a VHF backup because ive seen HF comms go sideways at these exercises when propagation just doesnt cooperate and then everyone is scrambling

omg yes 10m has been so fun lately im still pretty new to HF like only had my general for about 4 months and i finally feel like i know what im doing enough to actually chase some DX. made my first ever contact to Europe last weekend which was just a random Thursday afternoon, wasnt even a contest or anything. guy in Spain came back to my call on the second try which felt pretty amazing honestly. dont know much about the new Icom stuff but ill keep an eye out, im still using a borrowed radio so im starting to think about what i might actually buy eventually and all these rumors make it hard to know if i should wait or just pull the trigger on something thats already out there

passed my tech last spring after about 10 days of studying so it definitely doesnt take months or anything like that. i used the HamStudy app on my phone mostly just during lunch breaks at work. one thing i'd say is dont just memorize answers without understanding anything, like for the electrical stuff and the basic antenna theory it actually helps to get the concept a little because some of the questions are worded differently than what you might have memorized. but even if you just grind the flash cards you'll probably be fine honestly

144.990 is right for Vara FM around most of the country so that part checks out. The dropping connection thing though — first thing id look at is whether your PTT is releasing too early or your TX audio is cutting out. The SignaLink is usually solid but sometimes the VOX delay needs tweaking. If Vara drops the link mid-transfer theres a good chance the gateway is seeing a gap in your signal and timing out. Also worth checking if youre running any power saving or USB selective suspend stuff in Windows because that kills the SignaLink connection in a way that isnt obvious until youre watching it fail. Device manager, USB settings, disable selective suspend on the hub the SignaLink is on. Had that exact issue on my own setup and it took me forever to figure out what was happening. The RMS status map updates like every 15-20 minutes i think so green usually means its actually up. Try a different gateway if you can hit one, just to rule out it being a node problem on their end.

yeah people definitely still use it, 40 meters especially is crawling with CW activity late evenings. im still learning myself honestly, been at it about a year and im maybe at 12 wpm on a good day which feels slow but whatever. i use the morse code ninja videos on youtube and just have them on in the background sometimes while im doing other stuff, not sure if thats actually helping or not but it feels like it is lol. the main thing i noticed is you really cant rush it, some letters just take forever to click and then one day it just does. Q was the last one i got and now i hear it immediately without thinking which is kind of a weird feeling

im in a similar boat, got a dipole on 40 at about 30 feet and the west coast is always a struggle from the midwest. what helped me more than anything was just getting on the band at the right time honestly, like the greyline stuff is real. but antenna wise i did put up an inverted-v configuration and i think the lower angle helped slightly, or maybe i just got lucky who knows. one thing i did read somewhere is that a fan dipole or adding a loading coil to tilt it more broadside toward where you want to work can help, not sure how practical that is in your yard though.

im in the same boat as you actually, been at it for like 6 weeks now and just wanted to say lcwo is what everyone told me to use and i think its working but some days i feel like im going backwards lol. the letters i learned first are solid but when new ones get added my brain just freezes up mid character. i think thats normal? anyway you're not alone in feeling lost at the start

oh man the first pile up is such a rush isnt it, even at 5 watts i had the same experience. i was completely flustered and i think i just kept saying QRZ over and over without actually working anyone for like two minutes lol. you'll get the hang of it. 10 contacts qualifies and thats what matters for your first one

so i got my technician last year and ive been thinking about eventually upgrading but honestly the thing that keeps pulling me back to ham radio in general is morse code, like i find it fascinating but i have no idea how people actually go about learning it from scratch i downloaded a couple apps but i cant tell if im doing it right or if theres like a wrong way to go about it. one app has me memorizing the dots and dashes on paper and another one just plays sounds at me. is one method better than the other? i feel like im just fumbling around with no direction. someone at my club mentioned the koch method but i dont really know what that means or if its the thing i should be doing also how long did it take you to get to a point where you could actually use it on the air, not looking for an exact answer just a rough idea so i know what im getting into

so ive had my 7300 for about 3 years now and honestly its a fantastic radio, no complaints really, but ive been doing more serious contesting lately and starting to mess around with SO2R ideas and i keep running into the walls of what a single mid-range radio can do. not saying the 7300 is bad, its just... i dunno, i feel like ive kind of maxed out what im gonna learn from it. been looking pretty hard at the IC-7610 mostly because of the dual watch and the two independent receivers on the same band which would help a lot when im trying to work split or monitor a second frequency without a second radio. but the 7610 is a pretty significant jump in price and i keep second guessing myself. the other option ive been kicking around is just grabbing a used TS-990 because you can find them at reasonable prices now and the filtering on that thing is supposedly incredible for contest environments with a lot of QRM. anyone been through this decision or gone from a 7300 to either of these? curious what actually changed day to day in the shack and not just spec sheet stuff

I'm pretty new to HF so take this for what its worth but I had the same thing happen last Thursday. Was tuning around 28.4 or so and suddenly heard a pile of Europeans clear as a bell, worked three of them in like ten minutes and then nothing. My elmer told me that's pretty normal for 10 near the peak, something about sporadic-E layering on top of F2 propagation but I honestly didn't follow all of it. he said the DX cluster is your friend for knowing when a path is actually open vs just teasing you.

Start with the big five: QTH (location), QRL (frequency busy?), QSY (change frequency), QRZ (who's calling?), and QRT (stop transmitting). For QRL? - if you're using the frequency, just reply "QRL" or simply "C" for "correct, it's busy." These will cover 90% of what you'll hear on the bands!

the drifting you heard was probably a mix of both honestly. a lot of guys on the linear birds especially newer ones dont correct properly and it makes the whole passband sound like a mess. you kind of learn to identify your own signal by its audio characteristics and then just follow it. takes a few passes before it clicks. i went through the same thing last year. what helped me was doing a few passes just listening, not even trying to transmit, just to get a feel for how the passband sounds and how fast things drift. then started transmitting and could at least recognize when i was off. the 817 with CAT is a pretty common setup for this stuff so theres a lot of info out there for it.