Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Quote from: NCGunDude on September 29, 2014, 07:06:04 AM
Who is John Galt?

You called?

Quote from: madball13 on September 04, 2014, 04:45:25 PM
Solid combo. I have the 857. May want to pick up the programming/cat cable for the 450 so you can use your computer to change stations/freqs if you choose.

Agreed!  I'm already starting to eyeball those so if you have any suggestions on the details I'd appreciate them.

I got the SignaLink/FLDigi combo working much faster than anticipated.  I'm receiving PSK31 well and starting to look at RTTY a little.  Although I think I'm ready to xmit hardwarewise, I need to watch and learn for awhile.  One area I need to strengthen is my grasp of the terminology.  Apparently, a lot of the lingo comes from a past epoch and those CWers talk real funny.   ;)

No iPad, iPhone or Android.   :(    I'm still using a Blackberry.  At least it's free.   ;D

Thanks for the help, y'all.  I'm going to do some more research this weekend but it sounds like the SignalLink/FLDigi might be the combination I need.  I can save ten bucks if I order the SignalLink today so I guess that part's good as done.

I use a spotbot when I'm messing with the radio anyhow so I've got a Win7 laptop and a Yaesu FT-450D in front of me.  I guess I've got most of what I need to do digital modes but I'm not sure what's missing.
I'm thinking a SignalLink USB and some software?  I need to do my research/homework this weekend but does anyone know exactly what I would need to get started? 
Which software packages would be good for this?

Welcome aboard!

Woohoo!  Congratulations!

I'm guessing it's a typo but the Baofeng ain't gonna do 10m as it's just 2m and 70cm.

I bought a 7 or 8 inch antenna off of Amazon that I think works better than the supplied antenna.  I also tried one that was about 15 inches that didn't really improve from the 7 inch.  A rat tail seemed to help a little but is difficult to fit well into the antenna/radio connection.
With that said though, I have no experience with any other type of HT antennas.

Since it's pretty quiet around here, I just thought I'd give an update on where I'm at with this since I started this thread almost 4 months ago.

Once the last few contacts are confirmed, I'll be at 31 states and about 800 points.  I've enjoyed the learning curve as well as the cold brew I'm usually partaking as I listen in most evenings.  Since I'm using W1AW stations as a learning tool as well as LoTW for keeping track of them, I've decided to make WAS my goal for the year.  What the heck, I'm most of the way there anyhow.  In between, I'm going for the WAC since I'm already most of the way there as well. 

Maybe DXCC is in my future but I'm really not so much into the awards themselves but they seem like useful measuring sticks for the learning curve.  I've made contacts on 10 through 40 meters so far.  I almost got Louisiana on 80 but fell short.  I think I can get 80 and 160 when W1AW comes to Texas.  And I now firmly believe only unicorns transmit on 6 meters.

I haven't been following this closely but my understanding is that it's basically practicing emcomms at various levels by getting off the grid, using QRP, etc.  So how does it work?  Does everyone try to maximize the number of contacts not unlike a contest?  Is LoTW used for logging? 

I've never been through one so just wondering what to look for this weekend.  As for my station, if I take the float charger off my battery, I'm completely off grid.  Well, except for my beer fridge.

Not really a class but hamexam and a few other sites have the FCC question pool online and will help you prepare for the tests.  Other than that, there's really not an online course that I'm aware of.  I'm a new ham myself so used the sites mentioned above to pass the tests but after that had to rely on various books to pick up different topics.
Hope this helps and welcome to the forum.

Found it here:

Quote from: Quietguy on April 23, 2014, 03:48:59 PM
ARRL members can download a 4 part series of articles published in QST during 1986 called "Electromagnetic Pulse and the Radio Amateur".  Part two is available to anyone but I think you have to be logged in to download 1, 3 and 4.  Part 4 gets to the meat of things with specific recommendations and diagrams on protecting a station.

Wally

After reading the article from QST that Quietguy recommended, I'm not as worried about EMP as I was previous.  My takeaway was that most lightning protection will suffice along with unplugging or coiling most long wires. 

Quote from: KK0G on May 07, 2014, 01:27:48 PM

Quote from: John Galt on May 07, 2014, 12:00:28 PM

Quote from: KK0G on May 07, 2014, 11:57:22 AM

Quote from: John Galt on May 07, 2014, 11:44:56 AM
One question though.  I'm able to run splits pretty well but I don't understand when they say they're "listening up 5 to 10".  I can usually get them using up 5 but how do they listen to a 5Khz range?  Do some radios have some kind of capability I'm not familiar with?

They're not listening to a 5 kHz range, they're tuning within a 5 kHz range.

It pains me to say this but....  I don't get it.   ???

OK, lets set this up: For the sake of discussion let's say he's on 14.020,  listening up 5 to 10.


That means his transmitter is parked right dead on 14.020 and it never moves from there, everybody calling will have their receiver parked right dead on 14.020 also (sort of).

To listen for calls he is tuning his receiver from 14.025 up through 14.030 until he hears one that he wants. Lets say he hears someone at 14.026 and makes contact with him then clears with that person. Chances are there are others also calling him on 14.026 so say he answers one or two more at that frequency. Eventually the wolf pack starts getting wise to the fact that he's listening on 14.026 and more start calling there, increasing the QRM so he tunes his receiver up to say 14.027 where there are fewer callers and he can better hear.


This cycle just keeps repeating within the range of 14.025 through 14.030. This is all done to spread out the pile up to better manage it.

Now you could just park your transmitter and receiver frequencies in one spot and just blindly call over and over in hopes that he happens to be listening to that particular frequency and that he happens to pick your call out at that time. the key though is to figure out the pattern he's using by listening to where the others are that he's making contact with. Example; maybe he makes 4 contacts per frequency then immediately moves up 1 kHz for the next 4.

See there!  All you had to do is splain it at the remedial level!!    :) :) :) ;D

Thank you, sir!

Well, not exactly...

Fer instance:  they might be on 21.330 listening up 5.  No problem, I transmit on 21.335 /listen on 21.330.

Next time they might be on 18.130 listening up 5 to 10.  And if you tune over to the area of 18.135 to 18.140, you can hear all the stations coming in on various frequencies.  They're not just on 18.135 or 18.140, you can respond on 18.137 and they'll pick you up.

BTW, I found W1AW CT on 10 meter last night.  First call into the pile up, he responds with my full call perfect the first time.  Oh yeah, that felt good.   8)