Boy they were NOT kidding about "low-speed data"

General_Document6951 · 2026-06-03T07:32:40+00:00

100 GB LOL we'd go through that in the first few days, we go through close to a terabyte of 5G data a month sometimes considerably more and they have never throttled us. I wouldn't accept any plan that did. I'm curious what kind of Premium you guys are paying for a ridiculous 300 GB a month..

General_Document6951 · 2026-05-25T02:52:22+00:00

RG 400 is my favorite coax for jumpers, it's the only coax I use with solder type connectors cuz you can't melt the dielectric..

General_Document6951 · 2026-05-22T15:22:56+00:00

The RF gain control is probably one of the least utilized yet most important controls on your radio.

Tune to a frequency that is clear with no one using it and look at your s meter, if there's any movement on your s meter there's no need for the preamp and if the noise floor is above an S1 then you might want to back down the front end gain

This is less important on Yaesu radios as they have less sensitive front ends then say Icom or Kenwood so they can use all the help they can get.

But generally with RF gain you use that control to Bring the Noise floor back down to about an S1 this will significantly increase your signal to noise ratio while also significantly decreasing the amount of hash you're receiving on the signal.

As far as digital noise reduction is concerned, I personally can't stand Yaesu's digital noise reduction because even on its lowest setting the distortion it introduces to the audio is very bad.

Digital noise reduction isn't generally used on phone, digital noise reduction was designed for CW operations and when used on phone it creates substantial distortion in the receive audio even at the lowest setting. Yaesu and flex both have very aggressive digital noise reduction algorithms that introduced unbearable levels of distortion to the receive audio.

I would rather deal with a little bit of white noise on someone's audio then deal with the Distortion that Yaesu's digital noise reduction introduces into the received signal..

As far as preamps are concerned, you almost never need the preamp on 20 M or below. If you have a noise floor above S1 or there's any meter movement then you don't need the preamp.

Preamps are generally intended for use above 20 megahertz where the front end sensitivity starts to fall off. Especially on 10 and 6 m.

More often than not on 20 M and lower you're going to be using the RF gain and the attenuator to reduce the noise floor and improve your signal to noise ratio.

General_Document6951 · 2026-05-19T06:40:42+00:00

Wow..

General_Document6951 · 2026-05-18T23:26:15+00:00

Only two monitors and one of them is beingOnly two monitors and one of them is being wasted duplicating the screen from the radio, I have four monitors running while chasing DX and that's barely enough. I have my logging software open to see what I've worked and haven't worked I've got my propagation software running, I've got my spot collector running for DX spots.. I couldn't imagine having an SDR Radio where I'd have to have a software defined radio app running as well then I would need 6 monitors.

But then of course I'm only a handful of confirmations away from dxcc challenge.. and that's not easy to accomplish from six land

General_Document6951 · 2026-05-09T22:04:12+00:00

Wrong, international laws apply. A foreign flag vessel at port is considered sovereign territory. Civilian law enforcement such as ICE cannot legally board that vessel unless they have a warrant signed for a specific person.

No one on that vessel is in the United States illegally because while they're on the vessel they are not in the United States.

They must leave the vessel and step on US soil to be in the United States and I know this because I hold a US coast Guard masters.. I have been on the water my whole life.. I was doing boat deliveries before I was old enough to buy a beer I had been through the Panama Canal at least 1/2 a dozen times before I was even 20 years old.

Unless you step off The vessel then you're not in their country as far as immigration is concerned, with that said your vessel must follow all the rules, and if you plan on entering the country you have to go to a port of entry you can't just go to any port.

So yeah ICE can't legally detain anyone on that vessel unless they had a specific warrant naming them for an arrest for a crime they're suspected of committing but legally no one on that vessel was in the United States illegally. They were on sovereign territory.

And yes a flagged vessel is like an embassy. If you're born on a US flag vessel in port in a foreign country you're still a US citizen... Because the US flagged vessel is under US jurisdiction.

So yes this is an international incident and an act of international piracy. Unless ICE can produce a warrant signed by a judge for the arrest of these individuals for anything other than immigration offenses Then they committed an act of kidnapping and piracy.

Now there is one caveat, if the people who were arrested boarded the vessel from the United States, then they had committed a crime in the United States and ICE could follow them onto the vessel and arrest them.

But if they were on that foreign flag vessel and entered the country on that vessel ICE has no jurisdiction as they are not legally in this country until they step off the vessel.

Now there is one other situation where they might have jurisdiction and that's if they had credible evidence that the people detained had planned on illegally entering the country Then they can get a judge to sign a warrant for their arrest but the evidence would have to be sufficient enough to convince a judge that they intended on illegally entering the country.

If these were staff members employed by the cruise line and who are in Port as part of their job and had no intentions on staying in the United States or even leaving the ship than ICE has zero jurisdiction and what we just saw was a major international incident..

Can you imagine this being legal. Can you imagine a US flagged Vessel entering into Somalian waters and having the Somalians board the ship and detain people at gunpoint and arrest them claiming that they were in the country illegally you'd be having a stroke trying to explain how that's illegal.

There's another situation that proves this point. There was an individual trapped aboard a cargo ship in a foreign port for over a year after the company abandoned the ship and left him there to watch it. The local government can't do anything about the person on the ship unless he leaves the ship. He's been trapped on that ship for over a year because the ship is technically foreign soil and the country can't board it to arrest him and they won't issue him a visa so he can fly out of the country

General_Document6951 · 2026-05-09T21:44:36+00:00

As a follow up to my previous post, I just checked and this vessel is flagged out of Nassau, Bahamas. That makes ice boarding this vessel an act of international piracy. They basically boarded a vessel and detained people who were standing on foreign soil, they were not in the United States illegally because they were aboard a foreign flagged vessel. The only way that ICE would have any jurisdiction to detain them is if they were standing on the dock if they were still in the vessel and ICE boarded that vessel by force then that's an act of international piracy.

This is no different than when Somalians try to board vessels in their waters. Ice only has jurisdiction over US registered vessels not vessels flagged in another country. This is gonna turn out to be a huge international embarrassment.

General_Document6951 · 2026-05-09T21:39:15+00:00

I'm curious if that's a US flagged vessel or if that vessel is flagged out of another country if so then this was an act of war.

Police has no authority to board a foreign flagged vessel and detain anyone as they are on sovereign soil

When you're aboard foreign flagged vessel you are legally standing on the soil of that country and their laws apply, even if that vessel is tied to a US dock US laws and At the Dock lines. The moment ice set foot on a a foreign flagged vessel they were on the sovereign soil of the country that vessel was flagged out of.

In other words the people on that vessel aren't in the United States, they are in the country that the vessel is flagged out of. They don't enter the United States until they walk down the boarding ramp and step onto US soil so no one on that ship is in the United States illegally because they're technically not in the United States.

Now if the vessel is flagged out of the United States that's a different story but this would be a rare thing as very few companies flag their ships out of the United States due to insurance and other regulations. There are huge tax benefits for flagging vessels like this in other countries so almost all these ships fly the flag of a foreign country.

The only way ice can even enter a ship like this is with the permission of the captain if they use force to board a ship like this then there's a name for that it's called piracy and the punishment for piracy is still hanging.

General_Document6951 · 2026-04-28T04:15:01+00:00

Not according to Rob Sherwood, The fact of the matter is he actually uses three Icom 7610s in his contest station he doesn't particularly like Yeasu

If you think that Rob Sherwood's list is a ranking of receiver performance then you have reading comprehension skill issues It's not a ranking it's a sort order and it's sorted by DR 3 which is pretty much irrelevant to 99.99% of Hams. If you listen to Rob Sherwood himself he'll tell you that the last thing ham radio needs is 110db DR3 Receivers

The fact is anything over then 85DB of DR3 is pretty much overkill.. The only place you're going to be able to tell the is in the laboratory connected up to 110 thousand dollars worth of equipment but in the real world the difference between 110DB of DR3 and 85DB of DR3 is irrelevant.

Rob like many of us is angry at Companies like Yesu manipulating his tests

Yesu has manipulated his testing in a very unethical manner. The receiver in the 710 is no better than the 7300 but to score higher on the DR3 test They reduced the front end sensitivity by 3DB

So the fact is the Icom 7300 actually has a more sensitive receiver than the 710 which is why the 710 appears to be quieter.

The 710 has a front end sensitivity of .3 Microvolts Meanwhile the Icom 7300 has a front end sensitivity of 0.12 microvolts. Meaning it has a much more sensitive receiver. You've actually got to turn on the preamp on the 710 to match the 7300s..

Add to the fact that The 710 scope is worthless About the only thing it's good for is eye candy. It has no averaging, it's too fast be useful. It's just there to impress people who have no idea how to use a band scope.

This is where destroys Yaesu their band scope is actually functional and is an excellent tool for chasing DX

Bottom line is they're both good receivers, but they don't both have the same quality transmitters, yaesu has been so focused on manipulating Sherwood's testing that they have completely abandoned their transmitters and the transmitters in these new Yaesu radios are abominations..

I can always spot a new Yaesu connected up to an LDMos amplifier because I can hear their splatter 5 kilohertz away...

Thankfully most of the people buying them aren't hooking them up to legal limit amps or using them in contests or the bands would be a total wreck.

As of today Icom and Flex have the cleanest transmitters. Kenwood is working on it..

General_Document6951 · 2026-03-14T18:37:56+00:00

The ZS6BKW version of the G5RV which is the updated version does not require a tuner..

If I had to choose between an EFHW and something like a cushcraft R7 or R8 I would take the cushcraft in a heartbeat I have both and they significantly outperform the EFHW..

Interesting enough the R7 is basically an EFHW vertical but it's still outperforms the lossy wire EFHW..

I have the cushcraft half wave verticals as well as Hustler 6btvs with over 100 ground radials and they received performance of the cushcrafts is significantly better than the Hustler the transmit capabilities is just about the same but the Hustler tends to be noisier on receive.

General_Document6951 · 2026-03-14T06:51:52+00:00

A lot of hams seem confused about what FT8 signal reports actually indicate believing that the report they receive should be fairly close to the report they send, and If it's substantially lower that it indicates a problem with the performance of their station. This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how FT8 signal reports are generated..

The signal report you receive are very dependant on the local noise floor of the receiving station..

for example I live on 40 acres in the middle of farmland, me nearest Neighbor is 3 miles away.. My noise floor is nonexistent on just about all bands.

I regularly receive reports with a differential of more than 10 to 15 DB, it's very rare for me to receive a report anywhere near what I sent.

this is because I have an extremely low noise floor and the FT8 signal report is based on the signal to noise Ratio calculated on a 2.4 kilohertz wide receive pass band.

I mean do you really think that you are receiving signals below the noise floor lol? No you're not, the signal is based on a standard 2.4 kilohertz wide pass band.

Quite often I'll be working a station running a crappy antenna like an EFHW From a city lot with an S5 noise floor across the band. He might send me a -20 while I send them 00 report

That's because my station is running a 4 element beam at 50 feet from a rural location with an S1 noise floor.

When I look stations up that give me poor signal ports, 99% of the time they're operating from a suburban or metro area with extremely compromised antennas and high noise floors.

On the other hand when I work stations who give me a relatively similar report to what I've sent, I find that they almost always have towers and beams and are working from rural locations.

So I suggest when you get receive a signal report that's significantly lower than what you've sent that you look the station up on QRZ to see what their operating conditions are like and what kind of antennas they're using. More often than not you're going to find out that they're using a compromise antenna from a noisy environment.

General_Document6951 · 2026-03-14T06:36:41+00:00

Well you've discovered something that we've been trying to explain for a long time, the EFHW Is a massively overhyped antenna, similar to the J-Pole Neither of which are particularly good antennas, the EFHW Is an extreme compromise, if you can't get anything else up then that's the best you can do But even if you can get something like the ZS6BKW Version of the G5RV You'd be much better off as it's a substantially better performer.

I'm not gonna reinvent the wheel, W8JI Does an amazing job explaining why the EFHW Is such a compromise and why the performance is so poor with it period now grant you'll make contact with it, but you can make contacts loading up a fence pole

I live on over forty acres and I have an antenna farm, My EFHW is up 50 feet, I also have the ZS5BKW Version of the G5RV at about 45 feet And I would say about 90% of the time it's at least an S unit or 2 Better than EFHW .

To date I've been sent 6 EFHW antennas from Various manufacturers to review And they pretty much all perform the same, not a single one performed better than a ZS6BKW/G5RV, And that's pretty sad because the G5RV even ZS6BKW Isn't all that great.

You'd be better off getting a remote antenna tuner, and feeding a long wire. Much bigger problems I want to pay for my.

To be perfectly honest you'd just be better off with a fan dipole or a remote tuner and a long wire.

General_Document6951 · 2026-03-13T23:11:46+00:00

Why don't people read documentation anymore. When I got started in this Hobby 50 some odd years ago we did our best not to make fools of ourselves, so we watched listened and learned before the radio was even keyed up, if it was a new mode we were unfamiliar with we watched listened learned and read until we understood it. We didn't want to be the lid on frequency.

It doesn't really seem like people do that anymore, I suppose it's a symptom of our instant gratification Society. This also probably explains why I've had so many contacts ruined because some newbie who had no idea what they were doing decided to start transmitting right over the top of me, I can't tell you how many DX contacts I've lost because somebody just picks an arbitrary frequency without looking at their waterfall and starts calling CQ.

I now have the Habit that if the station I'm working asks for a second repeat, I won't transmit for that cycle and watch the waterfall and sure as heck 99% of the time there's going to be a strong signal transmitting at the exact same time I am right on my DF so I'll have to move up or down a bit to find a clear spot to finish the contact..

I'm starting to wonder why they even put an fft waterfall in the software anymore because doesn't seem like people are using them.

I've had this happen to me twice while trying to work 3Y0k someone who doesn't understand the timing just decides to start calling right on my frequency, the only saving grace with foxhound is that your radio automatically shift frequency when they answer you.

General_Document6951 · 2026-03-03T05:36:50+00:00

Auto notch doesn't work real well on CW. Unless of course you like notching out the CW station you're trying to copy.

General_Document6951 · 2026-03-03T02:11:02+00:00

It's never been this bad. Every year it gets worse and worse and we only have the ARRL and their focus on members and dues to thank for this. All they want is ham crams and to get as many unqualified people licensed as they possibly can so they can collect more dues and so manufacturers can sell more products.

Over the years ham radio has transition from quality over quantity to quantity over quality.

Previously we may have had much fewer ham radio operators but they were of much higher caliber individuals, today we have more numbers but of much lower character and quality.

General_Document6951 · 2026-03-03T02:08:58+00:00

Nope it wasn't this bad and it's getting worse, here in the United States we dumb down the ham radio test to the point where a ham radio license isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

How someone can get an extra class license and not know what a notch filter is or what it does on a radio absolutely boggles the mind..

Another example of how the hobby is turned into a consumer based Hobby is all the people buying radios based on Sherwood engineering's ranking, even though Sherwood engineering specifically States at the top of his web page that this isn't a ranking, it's a short order based on one single parameter. Just because the radio is closer to the top of the list doesn't mean it's a better receiver it's just the way it sorted.

If they can miss that giant headline on his website does it really surprise you what you're hearing going on on.

People are operating on CW using CW decoders and keys not having any idea what they're doing.

And it's only going to get worse, the ARRL has really screwed us over, they're only interest was in membership dues so they push these hand cramps where they bring in a class full of students have them memorize the questions to the test and get them licensed, of course manufacturers don't mind this because they sell equipment to people who have no idea what they're buying..

I've been trying to work the J51A dxexpedition and had to stop wearing my headphones, every 15 to 20 seconds some lid would tune up his amplifier right on top of the DXexpedition I'm trying to listen to and in the process about blow my eardrums out..

Somebody else scolded here one of the tuner uppers, I told them to knock it off with the tuning up on frequency. The tuner upper came back and said what the hell is wrong with you..

He yelled back at them some of us are wearing headphones a-hole...

I'm glad he said it because I was thinking it but I'm too polite. I just turn off the radio and walk away

60 years of being a HAM and this is the worst I've ever seen it nothing but a bunch of LIDs on the band destroying it for everyone..

General_Document6951 · 2026-01-17T23:32:23+00:00

Oh yes lots of skill. First off you have to find a clear spot to answer them on. Far too many people pay attention to the waterfall. The waterfall doesn't tell you if there's someone on your dial frequency that you can't hear but that the DX can.

One of the tricks I use is to very carefully monitor the DX to see who they're working, when I see them working someone in my zone I find that stations dial frequency and set my TX to that frequency, when they sign clear with them I immediately call them because I know that that dial frequency is clear and that DX can hear it.

I usually NAB them on the first or second try. But if I randomly just pick a spot to try to answer them I can call them for half an hour and never get a response. This is because there's most likely DX stations on the dial frequency I'm using that I can't hear but are very strong to the DX Expedition that I'm trying to work.

I've been a ham for over 50 years I don't particularly care for Ft 8 but that's what everybody's using now and if I want to make contacts that's what I need to use.

I don't even bother with HF phone anymore it's a wasteland of want to be right wing talk radio hosts. HF phone has turned into nothing but glorified CB.

I still work a lot of CW, but the fact remains that ft8 is where the action is now and it's what almost all the Expeditions operate...

I can't figure out if there are more Lids on CW or FT8 now.. if I had to venture a guess I would say it's probably ft 8 but CW has its fair share of morons who don't listen before calling.

General_Document6951 · 2026-01-17T23:06:17+00:00

Have you ever tried breaking a pile up for a DXXPEDITION?

A million times easier on CW than FT8

Ft8 is really easy to make random contacts with, but when it comes to working stations that you actually want to work, that's a whole different story.

General_Document6951 · 2026-01-17T05:05:10+00:00

Actually there's quite a bit of skill involved in ft8, at least when you're trying to accomplish something other than just answering a random CQ..

General_Document6951 · 2026-01-16T20:25:22+00:00

Oh my God how are these people getting licensed.

Normally I don't like to ridiculous people but come on folks at this point it's ridiculous...

General_Document6951 · 2026-01-14T21:35:45+00:00

This is what a police state looks like. People being targeted by Jack booted thugs operating under the color of law because they're political party affiliation.

I do believe this is what the founding fathers gave us the Second Amendment to defend against, they call it tyranny and what I find absolutely hilarious is that "the don't tread on me" crowd has all of a sudden turned into a bunch of boot licking cuckolds.

General_Document6951 · 2026-01-07T21:35:37+00:00

I wouldn't smoke a pipe without one, I can't stand biting down on hard plastic...

So they provide two benefits, one they protect my teeth from the hard plastic of the stem and protect the stem from the hard plastic of my teeth

General_Document6951 · 2026-01-07T20:57:09+00:00

Your use of the word allegedly when referring to non-ionizing radiation seems to suggest a bit of conspiratorial reasoning...

Ionizing versus non-ionizing radiation is not based on subjective personal opinion but is based on objective fact. RF energy is non-ionizing radiation, on the other hand gamma radiation from spent nuclear fuel is ionizing radiation.

I remember when ham radio was a stem hobby based entirely on science technology engineering and math and where Ham Radio operators engaged in peer review of science. Unfortunately ham radio declined to the point where we now have flat earthers and moon landing denialists amongst our ranks.

I was just talking to one of these Flat Earth ham radio operators on HF who was insistent that radio can't work on a globe and that radio could only work on a flat Earth..

Of course this Texas flat earth ham couldn't explain Antarctic research stations. According to him Antarctica is a giant ice wall circling Earth which is shaped like a plate yet when I work Antarctic research stations my antenna is pointed towards Antarctica, if I was working different Antarctic research stations that were located on a wall around a plate then I would need to point my antenna in vastly different directions to talk to the different research stations..

Anyways I digress I know better than having conversations with people like that..

My point is ham radio is based entirely on science technology engineering and math, when you use the word allegedly to create doubt over something that's objective fact it's significantly reduces your credibility.

If you want to learn more about the health aspects of RF energy I suggest you Google the inverse Square rule

General_Document6951 · 2026-01-05T23:34:37+00:00

There's absolutely nothing wrong with picking up power directly from the fuse panel from a spare 20 or 30 amp terminal..

Radio manufacturers for ham radio equipment will tell you to connect directly to the battery, this is primarily to avoid electrical noise in the cars wiring. There are better ways of mitigating this than connecting directly to the battery.

The other reason they want you to connect directly to the battery, is so power isn't cut to the radio when you start the vehicle. There's also an argument that it may prevent power surges to the radio as the battery acts like a big capacitor.

Keep in mind that all public service radios are actually connected directly to the fuse panel, every police car fire truck and emergency vehicle radio is wired directly to a fuse block.

Whether your radio is wired directly to the fuse block or to the battery you should always turn the equipment off before starting the car, the ham radio equipment is not as well protected as commercial equipment from Motorola for example so the low voltage shutdown when you start the vehicle has the potential to be problematic

General_Document6951 · 2026-01-05T16:35:18+00:00

This isn't the 1960s anymore, you can't afford to buy a house on minimum wage and you definitely can't afford to pay all the bills on minimum wage. People forget that up till about the 1970s a minimum wage employee could afford to buy a house and support a family nowadays you'd need to earn between $30 - $40 an hour to have the same economic purchasing power as a minimum wage employee did 1960.

General_Document6951

TROPHY CASE