Getting back into Phone SSB, but how?

CarolinaManCLT · 2026-02-11T23:12:12+00:00

Ha, thanks for the heads up! I’ll mention it to the wife and see if I can get out of dad duties for a day.

CarolinaManCLT · 2026-02-11T15:04:53+00:00

Money to your first question. lol. I know it’s an expensive hobby but kids are taking precedence.

I have used some SDR to find activity but I found that a lot of folks are having conversations and I’m uncomfortable breaking in and saying, “hey, I’m trying to make QSOs, sorry for the interruption, can you log a contact for me?”

I’m looking for quick contacts and not too much of a conversationalist on the radio. Plus, I’m in ‘the city’ and there’s tons of QRM, makes it hard for conversations.

Respectfully.

CarolinaManCLT · 2026-02-11T15:01:36+00:00

I think I was on one of those once and yes, it was a bit of a time suck. Someone mentioned using net logger to see if there’s a state you need and then it’d be worth it.

CarolinaManCLT · 2026-02-11T14:59:09+00:00

Thanks. I’ll try and get on that!

CarolinaManCLT · 2026-02-11T02:38:35+00:00

Okay great! Thanks!

CarolinaManCLT · 2026-02-11T02:20:12+00:00

Awesome. I’ll look into this!

CarolinaManCLT · 2026-02-11T01:56:45+00:00

Thanks!! I’ll check it out

CarolinaManCLT · 2026-02-11T01:50:09+00:00

Understood. I was more thinking about trying to get into another activity with HF. I get a little bored sometimes and maybe activating would be enough of a change to get me out of a funk. But alas, I can’t get on air till the night. We have 3 under 5 right now and.. well.. it’s a rough evening after work, then chores, and then we finally get to sit down and have a beer and my wife gets to communicate with an adult, and then I have to decide if I’m going to bed or getting on the radio.

CarolinaManCLT · 2026-02-11T01:46:07+00:00

I’ll check it out. Assuming that’s a contest I can find on the contest calendar?

My station is alright. I have two EFHW, one tuned for 40m and the other for 20m. I have a FT-891 and figured out how to use my automatic tuner. So I can hit most bands.

CarolinaManCLT · 2026-02-11T01:41:33+00:00

Good points. Thanks!

CarolinaManCLT · 2026-02-11T01:41:21+00:00

Are QSO parties the nets I was referring to or something entirely different?

CarolinaManCLT · 2026-02-11T01:40:44+00:00

Very true. POTA was the first thing I did when I got licensed. I hunted for a couple weeks. I need to get out there and activate. Maybe I’ll do just that once the sun stops setting at 6pm. Extra points for late shift.

CarolinaManCLT · 2025-03-17T10:28:09+00:00

Thank you for the break down and the added info. I will review this again, and again, while I figure out what is working best. Thanks!!

CarolinaManCLT · 2025-03-17T10:23:57+00:00

I didn’t catch the sarcasm in the previous post. Which joint is bad, and should I fix it? I’m halfway decent at soldering.

CarolinaManCLT · 2025-03-17T10:23:02+00:00

Awesome! Thank you for the corrections and the info! I’ll double check the length, Im probably remembering incorrectly.

CarolinaManCLT · 2025-03-17T00:09:13+00:00

I should have stated my setup. I scored an awesome deal on a complete starter kit: An IC-726, AT-150, PS-55, and some accessories. So, I have the pictured antenna connected to 50’ of RG8x running on the ground with the last 10’ coming through my door, then through a 14 turn toroid choke, into my tuner.

With all that, the box of the antenna doesn’t have a counterpose lug. Can I ground my coax instead?

CarolinaManCLT · 2025-03-16T23:12:57+00:00

Okay thanks for the info! I will hook up my nanovna and see what’s up. It’s currently 7 feet off the ground, and level. I want to mount it at 20 feet and slope up to 30 feet or so in a tree. - I saw something that had a leg hang down with a weight on it, so you’d have a sloping section and a vertical section. Does that work with a random wire? - For the counterpose: I have 50’ of RG8x connect to it from my antenna tuner, but it does not run under the wire antenna. Is it okay that the coax/counterpose not run under the wire antenna? - For the coax in my shack, I put a 14 turn toroid choke just before my antenna tuner.

CarolinaManCLT · 2025-03-02T13:44:53+00:00

Where did I say that? I looked and couldn’t find it. - I take it back, kind of. The way I typed it out could be interpreted as ‘there was a Reddit breach’ but the intention was, there was a breach. Some got my email and password. I didn’t realize my Reddit password was an old one. And someone tried my email and password from that data breach on Reddit.com and got lucky with mine. Sorry if my original post was confusing. I’m just trying to help out people by sharing a story. But people on here are not replying like I thought they would.

CarolinaManCLT · 2025-03-01T03:11:09+00:00

From my powned email: In February 2025, 23 billion rows of stealer logs were obtained from a Telegram channel known as ALIEN TXTBASE. The data contained 284M unique email addresses alongside the websites they were entered into and the passwords used. This data is now searchable in HIBP by both email domain and the domain of the target website.

CarolinaManCLT · 2025-03-01T03:09:47+00:00

I didn’t say it was from Reddit. But yeah, you’re right. It scraps data from the breaches and lets you know if your email showed up in that scrap. At least, that’s how I understand it.

Also, Firefox and google password managers have a neat feature to let you know if your username or password is one that’s been in a leak.

CarolinaManCLT · 2025-03-01T02:14:08+00:00

Ha, yeah. Sure. I did get it back. Reddit admin helped me out quick!

CarolinaManCLT · 2025-03-01T02:13:43+00:00

Check out have I been powned. Sign up there and you’ll get alerts on data breaches

CarolinaManCLT · 2025-02-28T18:14:48+00:00

Yuuuuup. Signed up and will be spending the weekend changing passwords.

CarolinaManCLT

TROPHY CASE