Anna Petrov

For EmComm work, I always use fixed intervals. Recommend 10 minutes for home stations, can back off to 20-30 minutes in dense areas. Reliability trumps efficiency when lives might depend on knowing where assets are located.

New ham here - what's the advantage of NMO over magnetic mount? I've been using a mag mount Diamond but wondering if I should upgrade to something permanent.

so ive been messing around with a raspberry pi zero w for the past few weeks trying to get it to automatically pull my wsjtx log and push it to qrz and lotw without me having to babysit it. got it mostly working but the timing is all screwed up, like it'll push the same qso twice sometimes or just miss a batch entirely. im running a little python script that watches the adif file for changes using watchdog library and then parses the new entries. feels like the file locking is the issue but i honestly dont know enough about how wsjtx writes to that file to know if im racing it or what. also totally unrelated but while i was at it i wired up a little 128x64 oled to show my current band and mode pulled from flrig via xmlrpc. that part actually works great, the pi talks to my linux box over the local network and updates every 5 seconds. whole thing runs off a usb port on the back of my radio desk. anyway if anyone has done something similar with the log syncing piece id love to know how you handled it. i feel like im reinventing the wheel here

yeah absolutely, 40m in the evening is kind of its own thing. i do the same, especially when propagation is being weird and i dont feel like chasing anything. theres something about just hearing random conversations that reminds me of shortwave listening before i ever got my ticket. half the time i fall asleep in the chair with the rig still on which my wife is not thrilled about

i ran a 590sg for years and just picked up a 7300 last spring and tbh i use the waterfall constantly. like way more than i expected to. the touchscreen takes maybe a week to feel natural and then its fine. only thing that bugs me is the knob feel isnt quite as solid as the kenwood but thats pretty subjective

so the short version is -- the FCC allocation is the law, the band plan is basically a gentlemens agreement that most people follow. you wont get your license revoked for operating at say 7.178 but youre gonna get some grumpy comments from people who treat the band plan like scripture lol the band edge thing is real practical advice though. if youre running SSB and you set your dial to 7.300 your signal is actually gonna splash above that depending on your rig and your audio, and thats where you get into trouble with the FCC. most people say stay at least 3 khz inside the edge just to be safe, so like 7.297 or lower for upper sideband. same idea on the bottom end of your privileges. the DX window thing on 40 is just tradition, nobody can legally stop you from operating in that range if you have the allocation, but if you jump on 7.190 calling CQ domestic ragchew youre gonna hear about it from the DX crowd. its one of those unwritten rules that new generals trip over all the time, no big deal just good to know.

man i remember that exact wall, sat at like 10-11wpm for almost a year before something clicked. what finally helped me was honestly just listening to a lot of CW without trying to copy it perfectly — like putting on W1AW code practice at speeds faster than i could actually follow and just letting it wash over me. sounds weird but after a few weeks of that my brain started picking out words instead of letters. the other thing that made a huge difference was learning common words and abbreviations as chunks rather than individual characters. like 73 and 599 and CQ and TU — if you can hear those as single units instead of seven three and five nine nine you free up a lot of mental bandwidth. took me a while to buy into that but its real. also dont be embarrassed about asking for repeats on air, every elmer ive ever talked to says thats completely normal and most guys are happy to slow down if you just tell them youre still learning. most CW operators are genuinely friendly about it.

i was in the exact same spot maybe 8 months ago and ended up going with a baofeng UV-5R just to have something to learn on while i figured things out. programming it with chirp was kind of a pain at first but once i got it i had all the local repeaters loaded in like 20 minutes honestly it does the job and im glad i didnt spend more right away because after a few months i knew way better what i actually wanted in an HT. just my experience anyway

yeah i run exactly this setup, N1MM for contests and Log4OM for everything else. the ADIF import after the fact is a bit tedious but once you figure out the duplicate handling settings in Log4OM it mostly behaves. i think theres a checkbox somewhere in the import wizard for ignoring dupes by callsign and date, took me a while to find it. the WSJT-X and N1MM integration is actually pretty solid once its configured, you basically point WSJT-X at N1MM via the UDP reporting settings, port 2333 by default i think, and N1MM picks up the QSOs automatically. main thing to watch is making sure youre in the right contest in N1MM before you start or the exchanges get logged wrong and then youre fixing things manually which is no fun during a run. took me one bad contest experience to learn that lesson.

made basically the same move about a year ago, went from the RTL-SDR v3 direct sampling to an RSP1A (the 1B wasnt out yet) and yeah the difference on HF is not subtle. the dynamic range improvement is real and noticeable especially if you're anywhere near medium wave broadcast. i used to get complete desensitization on 40m at night from the AM stations and that basically went away. the noise floor dropped enough that weak utility stuff i was missing just showed up. SDRuno has its quirks honestly, the interface took me a while to not hate but once you get used to where everything is its fine. some people run the RSP hardware with SDR++ instead which i actually prefer now, way cleaner interface and the RSP drivers work fine with it. worth trying both if youre doing MW DX specifically the RSP is pretty much a no-brainer upgrade, the selectivity and dynamic range handling near strong signals is just in a different league from the dongle. not knocking the RTL-SDR for what it costs but yeah its night and day on HF

yeah the handheld yagi thing totally works, i did my first AO-73 qso with a cheap arrow antenna and the ft-817 just holding it up by hand, it was a mess but it worked lol. the key for me was just accepting the first couple passes are going to be chaotic and using them to listen only, get a feel for where signals actually sit in the passband before you try to put your own in there. one thing nobody told me — the transponder is inverting so if you tune your uplink higher your downlink signal goes lower in frequency, that messed with my head for a long time. once that clicked the manual doppler chasing started making more sense even if its still a workout

Hey welcome to the qsl world! so basically lotw is the arrl's digital system - its free to upload and most serious operators use it. eqsl is another digital one but not as widely accepted for awards. paper cards are the traditional way and some old timers still prefer them if youre just starting out id say get on lotw first since its free and widely used. you can always add paper cards later. the bureau is cheap like 7 cents per card through your qsl manager but yeah it takes months sometimes. direct mail is faster but costs more with international postage being crazy expensive these days for was you can do it all through lotw now which is nice. save yourself some money and start there

nah thats totally normal, i do it all the time. half the reason i got my ticket was to listen honestly. 40m at night is one of those things that just kind of pulls you in, especially when the band is cooperating. had a similar thing last week where i just left it on while i was doing dishes and ended up standing there for like 45 minutes just listening to some guy in tennessee tell stories about his old tube rigs. good stuff.

HamStudy.org already has all the 2026 pool questions available with full explanations, even the new ones. I'd recommend starting there since it's free and comprehensive. The interface makes it easy to track your weak areas too.

im in a similar boat actually, been meaning to sort this out before sweepstakes. one thing i noticed with Log4OM is if you set the duplicate check to look at date range instead of all-time it can let stuff through from the same contest, so worth double checking that setting before you import anything. took me an embarassing amount of time to figure out why i kept seeing the same calls twice in my log after field day last year lol. honestly for straight up FT8 outside of contests i just let WSJT-X log to its own file and then import periodically, works fine. never tried wiring it into N1MM mid-contest though so cant help you there.

I just got my Technician license and I'm having trouble with the local repeater. I can hear conversations perfectly clear on 146.94 MHz, but when I transmit, nothing happens - the repeater doesn't repeat my signal. The repeater directory shows a CTCSS tone of 131.8 Hz. I've programmed this into my Baofeng UV-5R but I'm still not getting through. What am I missing? I've double-checked the frequency and offset (+600 kHz) multiple times. Could there be something wrong with how I'm programming the tone?

so ive been wanting to try satellite work for a while and finally got around to setting up for it last weekend. running a FT-818 and a pair of arrow antennas, the II/III cross yagi one that everybody seems to use. got gpredict running on the laptop and it's tracking fine, passes look right compared to what heavens-above shows so i think that part is good. my problem is with the linear transponders. i understand the concept of doppler correction at least in theory — uplink goes up in frequency as the bird approaches and down as it recedes, and the downlink does the opposite since its inverting. but when im actually on the pass i feel like im spending the whole time twisting knobs and never actually making a contact. tried AO-73 a couple times and i can hear signals on the downlink passband, sometimes pretty clearly, but by the time i think i found my own downlink and corrected back to where i should be transmitting, the pass is half over. is there a trick to this that im missing or is it just a practice thing. do most people set the doppler correction to automatic somehow or are you really just manually tweaking the whole time. feels like im fighting the radio more than using it.

the fox hunt got moved to sunday morning i think, saw something on the club facebook page about it. also the swap meet tables fill up fast so get there early, like before 8 if you can. last time i showed up at 9 and half the good stuff was already gone

Welcome to emergency communications! I'd definitely recommend LiFePO4 - yes they cost more upfront, but the weight savings and cycle life make them worth it for go-kits. For antennas, look at the Chameleon MPAS or consider a simple wire dipole with a good tuner like the LDG Z11Pro.

LotW QSLs count towards ARRL awards like DXCC and are significantly cheaper than mailing cards. For my basic DXCC I ended up with about 80 LotW confirmations and 20 paper cards. The paper route gets expensive fast with international postage, but sometimes it's the only way to get that rare one you need.

Running a TS-590SG with external audio processing (compressor and EQ). I've been experimenting with wider transmit bandwidth settings but getting mixed reports. Is 3kHz really the practical limit for SSB, or are there benefits to extending beyond that? Most contesters use 2.4kHz to 1.8kHz wide filtering for SSB reception, so energy outside that bandwidth doesn't add to readability. What's the sweet spot for both DX and ragchew contacts?

so ive been wanting to get into ham radio for a while now, my neighbor is licensed and keeps telling me to just take the test already. i downloaded the question pool from the arrl website or at least i think thats where it was, and honestly its kind of overwhelming. like theres 426 questions in the pool and i have no idea how to approach it. some of the electrical stuff i kind of remember from high school physics but the regulations and band stuff is completely foreign to me. is there a study guide or app or something that people actually use? i looked at the arrl technician manual but it seemed pretty dense. somebody at a club meeting mentioned hamstudy.org but i dont know if thats enough on its own or if i should be doing something else too. i have maybe 3-4 weeks before theres an exam session near me.

so ive been at this for about 8 months now and im kind of stuck in this weird limbo around 12-13wpm where i can copy most of it but then i lose a word and then i fall behind and suddenly im totally lost. its frustrating because i feel like i was making good progress up until a couple months ago and now it just feels like a wall. my current routine is about 20 minutes a day with the LCWO site doing the Koch method lessons and then i try to listen to some slow CW on 40m in the evenings but a lot of times i cant find anyone slow enough that isnt a net i dont want to interrupt. been doing this since i passed my general last spring. curious what actually made the difference for people who got through this plateau. ive heard some people say to just jump up the speed and let your brain catch up, others say dont rush it. i genuinely dont know what to do at this point

yeah what he said. i was a tech for almost two years before i upgraded and 10m phone was basically my whole HF life lol. the band was pretty dead for a while there but its been real good lately with the solar cycle picking up. just double check the current part 97 table, the FCC website has it and its way less confusing than the version people copy paste around on forums which sometimes has old info in it

ok so ive been licensed as a general for about 3 months now and i keep second guessing myself every time i want to get on 40 meters. like i know theres the actual FCC allocation and then theres the band plan which is kind of a gentlemans agreement thing? but im not sure which one i legally have to follow vs which one is just like... suggested. specifically i wanted to call CQ around 7.250 and someone in my club told me to be careful near the band edges but didnt really explain why. also is 7.125 to 7.175 really just for phone or can i go lower than that if im doing SSB. i feel like every time i look this up i get a slightly different answer depending on the website