Getting heard on SSB – first-time nets and sharing frequency
I wasn't actually sure my mic was worthwhile and working? In taking tentative steps with the sBitx this winter I'd tried to make contacts over SSB a few times, and managed to be heard once in a lot of noise and repeating myself, but it was a frustrating uncertainty whether I was just beyond garbled. I then replaced the microphone condenser element (with some other -25dB from Digikey) and again only managed to find someone who could only just hear me. I put the mic away for a few months.
Last weekend had a perfect combination of great band conditions on 40m, extra time for me to spend a several hours on the radio learning, and well-timed inviting nets – WASA and OMISS.
Welcome to the net! Let's exchange signal reports: I hear you 57, how do you copy me? Next, say your callsign and “up for grabs”. Repeat back a callsign you catch. Exchange signal reports with that station, too, then make another call or up for grabs. When you're done, say your callsign and “back to net control”.
On both nights I could hear a majority of both sides of calls, get familiar with the patter of Net operations, and made and received contacts across the US East. The thrill of hearing and being heard and getting a shared sense of the sounds of clear vs noisy signal – now I'm confident my mic works and I'm not wasting folks' time jumping onto a call. Funny to realize that's what was keeping me quiet.
KR4CYF Back to net with two good calls.
Participating over the whole net helped with context – checking in, listening for your callsign, mostly listening to net control and relays and other's exchanges. Particularly rewarding to hear the practiced welcome & coaching for new folks of how to call, exchange reports, return control, and to hear other new callers work through small missteps too.
While making only 10 contacts or so over a couple hours, calling and being called, I most enjoyed the loose coordination of the stations (op or not) who could be heard throughout the net and the shifting conditions for when we couldn't all hear someone, or the Canadian relay that came and went for me. And then there were the few stations I couldn't hear at all, which would have been dead air and a turn of the dial before, now the scheduled time and expectation that net control would return was part of the pattern I understood.
Thinking about alternative communication methods, this coordinating extends my sense of radio beyond “who can hear me” or stable repeaters to a blend of ad-hoc hierarchical and regional space held collectively. And I appreciate the relaxed pace imposed by one-at-a-time shared bandwidth and shared protocol norms – a little time to comment on conditions or equipment but neither a pileup race nor a ramble nor calling into the void.
(Aside: I'm a normal bit annoyed that Netlogger is the standard coordinating tool for these nets though – I have one windows laptop left in the house, would prefer to have all the radio aids running on the sBitx pi, but 64bit arm is an added hurdle for windows emulation I still need to dig into. On the other hand, an internet-based sidechannel for context is a nice handrail but ultimately optional. But this could all be accessibly web-based, too.)
Last night I scanned around listening to contesting on SSB – another time with more time, I can see the appeal there better of another new-to-me way to approach the radio. And I'll be back around to nets on good nights sooner than that.