Michael Stevens

dont overthink the HF vs VHF thing too much, for most ARES activations around here its 90% VHF/UHF work on repeaters and simplex. the HF capability is nice if you need to link to a section net or something but day to day local emcomm is almost all 2m and 70cm in my experience. that said having the 891 available is never a bad thing. one thing i didnt see mentioned -- make sure somebody besides you knows where the kit is and roughly how to power it up. had a situation a couple years back where the designated operator got sick right before an activation and we scrambled because his kit was in his truck and nobody else was familiar with it. basic stuff but easy to overlook.

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and just recently started getting into DX chasing and i kept hearing people mention cluster spots and DXwatch and i honestly had no idea what any of it meant for the longest time. i thought it was some kind of separate radio network you had to subscribe to or something lol anyway i finally sat down and figured it out and now i feel kind of dumb because its actually really straightforward. you go to DXwatch or dx.qsl.net or even just look at the cluster tab on QRZ and you can see spots that other hams are posting in real time when they hear a DX station. so if somebodys working ZL or whatever youll see it pop up with the frequency and the callsign and usually a comment. then you can just spin your radio to that freq and hopefully catch them before the pileup dies down my question is though — does anyone use a specific app for this on their phone? ive been just using the browser which is kind of clunky when im trying to do this quickly. i saw something called DX Toolkit and also Ham Radio Deluxe has some kind of cluster integration but i dont really want to pay for HRD just for that one feature. curious what other people are actually using day to day

yeah the ribbon cable thing is no joke, i nicked one on an 817 a few years back and it was a bad time. had intermittent audio issues for weeks before i figured out that was the culprit. ended up having to order a replacement from a parts supplier in Japan which took forever. good reminder to just be patient with those connectors, they are not made to be reconnected fifty times. on the diode placement thing, i think Yaesu made a running change somewhere in the production run but nobody really documented it cleanly. ive seen a couple threads on eham where people were confused by the same thing. once you find it its obvious but finding it is the annoying part. glad it worked out, the 857D is a solid rig to have opened up TX on, pretty useful for the go-kit stuff.

so ive been running our local ARES net on wednesday nights for about 8 months now and turnout has been kind of inconsistent lately. we usually get maybe 6-8 check-ins on a good night but last week we only had 3 and one of them was my buddy dave who lives next door and basically feels obligated lol i know its summer and people are busy doing outdoor stuff but i was wondering if anyone has had luck getting more operators to participate regularly. we do announce it on the club facebook page and i post the schedule to the repeater trustee but i feel like thats not reaching people who are newer to the hobby or maybe just dont know the net exists also curious if anyone here participates in any regular HF nets too — i caught part of the 40m traffic net the other night just browsing around and it seemed pretty active, way more than our local 2m stuff. wondering if thats just because HF has more range obviously or if those communities are just more organized about it any ideas welcome, really dont want to see the net fold because its actually good practice for emcomm stuff and i feel like thats kind of the whole point of having it

ive been doing qrp portable stuff for a few years and the chirp thing drove me nuts on my first build too. what worked for me was a small regulator on the oscillator stage even if the rest of the rig runs straight off battery. like a 78L05 or similar just for that part of the circuit. keeps the voltage rock steady when you key down and the current draw spikes. total overkill maybe but my signal cleaned right up. also the park operating thing is so underrated, theres something about sitting outside with a tiny rig and a wire in a tree that just feels like what ham radio is supposed to be. keep at it

ha dont even worry about it, my first qso i forgot to let go of the PTT button so nobody could respond and i just sat there in silence for like 30 seconds wondering why no one was talking back. took me embarrassingly long to figure out what i did wrong. the guys on my local repeater still give me a hard time about it and that was like 3 years ago

so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and mostly just been doing local repeater stuff and some simplex. honestly its been fun but i keep hearing people talk about HF and working DX and i kind of want to get into that. problem is i look at the general class pool and some of it looks pretty intimidating, like the electrical theory stuff and the operating procedures for HF bands. my question is how much time did you guys spend studying before you felt ready to take the general exam and is there like a specific resource that actually helped. ive been looking at hamstudy.org and it seems decent but i dont know if thats enough or if i need to actually buy a book. also is the 40m and 20m stuff pretty accessible once you get the ticket or do you need like a big fancy antenna setup to actually make contacts

dont stress it too much, i was in the same boat when i started. one that got me for a while was QSY which means change frequency, so if someones saying "let's QSY up a bit" they want to move. and QRP means low power which you see all over the place, there's whole groups dedicated to it the BK thing in digital is just "back to you" basically, like handing the conversation over. PSE is please, OM is old man which sounds rude but it's just how guys refer to each other, YL is young lady. 73 means best regards and 88 is hugs and kisses technically but you mostly just see 73 to sign off

yeah the pattern thing is huge and you're right that not enough people talk about it. ive worked enough DXpeditions now that i can usually tell within the first few minutes whether the op is a seasoned pileup handler or someone who's just kinda winging it. the good ones are incredibly systematic and once you lock onto their rhythm its almost like you can predict exactly when your window is. one thing i'd add — listening to where the op is NOT coming back is just as useful as listening to where they are. if you hear them pick somebody out of the upper end of the spread a few times in a row, that's your cue to drop down a bit. the pile tends to chase the DX station's last QSO frequency like a herd, so being slightly contrarian about placement actually pays off more often than not. also the zero beat thing is real. i've seen guys on pskreporter or whatever call like 3 kHz above the top of the pile and occasionally sneak through just because the op swept their VFO wider than usual. its messy and chaotic but DXing kind of rewards chaos sometimes honestly

so ive been trying to figure out if its worth the drive this year, last time i went was like 3 years ago and honestly had a blast just walking the flea market tables even tho i didnt buy much. thinking about going again but gas prices and all that. anyone else from the midwest planning to make the trip? would be cool to meetup if a few of us are going from around the same area

yeah that 13-15 range is where a lot of people get stuck, you're definitely not alone. what helped me more than anything was just stopping the head copying entirely and forcing myself to write nothing down for a while. sounds backwards but when you're trying to write every letter you end up in this loop where your hand is still busy with the last character while your ears are already two ahead. i spent a few weeks just listening at 16-17wpm without trying to copy anything at all, just absorbing the rhythm, and when i went back to actually copying it clicked way faster than i expected. also honestly the jump from 15 to 18 felt easier than 13 to 15 did so there's that to look forward to i guess.

okay so ive been checking into the local 2m net every tuesday for about a year now and i still feel like im guessing half the time. like last week the net control called for any stations with traffic and i had a quick question i wanted to ask but i wasnt sure if that counted as traffic or if i was supposed to wait for general check-ins. ended up just saying my callsign at the regular check-in time and then felt awkward trying to bring up my question afterward. also theres this thing where sometimes net control will say QNI and sometimes they say something else i cant quite catch and i just kinda key up and hope for the best. is there like an unwritten rulebook for this stuff that nobody told me about or do most people just figure it out by listening long enough dont want to step on anyone or come across as rude, everyone on the net seems to know exactly what theyre doing and im still over here second guessing myself every single week

so i finally got activated for a real event last weekend, been doing ARES training for about 8 months now and honestly the nets and tabletop exercises only prepare you so much. we got called out to support the county EOC during the flooding situation up near the northern part of the county and it was... a lot different than i expected. like the training nets we do every tuesday are pretty structured and calm obviously, but when youre actually sitting in the EOC and the served agency folks are stressed out and asking for traffic to get passed and you have marginal conditions on the 2m repeater it just feels different. my hands were actually a little shaky the first hour or so which was embarrassing. ended up being fine but i kept second-guessing myself on net control stuff. for anyone whos been doing ARES a while — does that nervousness ever really go away? i felt pretty solid in the exercises but the real thing just had a different energy to it. also we had a couple operators who showed up without their go-bags basically ready and the EC had to scramble a bit which was kind of a mess. anyway glad i did it, just processing it all i guess.

so i passed my technician exam like three weeks ago and just got my callsign last week and i've been terrified to actually key up and say anything. been listening on the local 2m repeater for days just trying to figure out how it all works. yesterday i finally just did it, called out on the repeater during what sounded like a quiet moment and this guy came back to me right away. i blanked completely on my callsign for like a full second which was embarrassing but he was super patient and we had a solid 10 minute ragchew about nothing really, just signal reports and weather and what radio i was using. i was shaking the whole time which is ridiculous because its just talking on the radio but still. anyway just wanted to share because it felt like a big deal

yeah WAZ confused me too when i first started, its the CQ Zones — the world is divided into 40 zones and you need to confirm a contact from each one. some zones are pretty tough to get because they cover mostly ocean or places that dont have many active hams so thats part of the fun i guess. DXCC is run by the ARRL and you need 100 confirmed entities to get the basic award, then you can keep adding on from there. WAS is also ARRL, straightforward enough though Alaska and Hawaii trip people up sometimes if youre mostly on HF and not catching the right openings. as for mixing LoTW and paper QSLs — yes you absolutely can mix them for DXCC credit, the ARRL accepts both. LoTW confirmations are just way faster and cheaper than waiting on cards. i'd say start logging everything carefully right now because there's nothing worse than realizing six months later you had a contact with some rare entity and you didn't get it confirmed. your instinct about using awards as a goal is a good one honestly, gave me a lot of direction when i was starting out