Carlos Mendoza

honest opinion? the 7300 would be a big step up from the 756P3 in terms of the SDR-based receiver and the waterfall is genuinely useful even for casual operating, you start to see propagation in a way you just cant with a traditional rig. i made the jump from an older Icom myself a few years back and i was surprised how much i used the spectrum scope just for casual operating, not contesting or anything serious.
that said if you can stretch to the 7610 i think its worth it used. the dual watch thing i honestly use more than i thought i would, mostly just keeping an eye on two bands at once when im waiting for a specific station to clear up. its not a must have but its nice. i wouldnt buy new at 7610 prices but used market has been pretty reasonable lately. the 7700 is great but that feels like overkill for what you described and the older architecture means you're not getting the same SDR front end anyway

yeah it definitely gets easier, i used to freeze up on X and Q every single time. foxtrot... no wait. anyway the general idea is you use phonetics whenever theres any chance of confusion, so weak signals, noisy bands, any time you're giving out your call for a log or during a contest. on a quiet local repeater with full quieting you can probably just say your call normally and be fine, but if there's any static or the guy just didn't catch it the first time, phonetics just makes sense. there's no hard rule written down somewhere that says you must always use them, it's more just what's practical. the more you do it the more it becomes automatic, like i don't even think about it now i just kind of switch into phonetic mode when conditions warrant it.

ok so i just passed my general a few months ago and ive been making a decent amount of contacts, mostly on 40m SSB and some FT8. everyone keeps talking about QSL cards and LoTW and eQSL and honestly im a bit lost about how all this works and which ones actually matter for awards and stuff.
from what i understand LoTW is run by the ARRL and its the one that counts for DXCC but you have to get a certificate mailed to you first before you can even upload anything which seems like a lot of hoops. eQSL seems easier to sign up for but i read somewhere that it doesnt count for DXCC? and then theres still people mailing actual paper cards through the bureau which just seems really slow. like does anyone still do all three or do most people just pick one and stick with it.
also when someone on FT8 says QSL in the log does that mean theyre going to actually confirm it somewhere or is it just like an automatic thing with WSJT-X. sorry if these are dumb questions im just trying to figure out the whole ecosystem here before i spend time on something that wont count toward anything.

so ive been fighting this thing for about two weeks now and im starting to lose my mind a little. picked up a used 7300 from a local guy, seemed fine at first, but i noticed the power output is just... soft. like running 100w into my wattmeter and the meter shows maybe 28-32 depending on band. doesnt matter if im on 40 or 20 or 10, its always in that range. ALC looks okay on the display, not pinning, drive is set to 100%, RF power knob is at max.
already went through the obvious stuff - checked the coax from the rig to my meter (swapped cables to confirm), confirmed the wattmeter is accurate with my other radio, did a factory reset just to see. nothing changed. the radio sounds clean on receive, no weirdness there. transmit audio reports are fine from other stations.
i did notice the finals area gets a bit warmer than i'd expect but not crazy hot, and there's no fault indicator or anything popping up in the menu. starting to wonder if one of the PA transistors is partially gone or if theres something upstream limiting drive to the finals. anybody dealt with this before on a 7300 or similar SDR-based rig? not sure if i should crack it open and start probing or just send it to a service center.

yeah that sounds exactly like a coax connection issue, been there. on my old Silverado i had the same thing with a lip mount and the center pin on the PL-259 had worked loose just enough to cause intermittent contact. drove me crazy for like a month. id start at the radio end first since thats the easiest to get to, then work your way back toward the antenna. if you have a multimeter you can check continuity from the center pin at the radio end all the way up while someone wiggles the antenna — if it drops out you found your problem pretty quick.
also worth just double checking the NMO mount itself. sometimes the nut underneath the roof sheet metal works loose even if you think its tight. a little loctite on the threads isnt a bad idea once you find the culprit.

so ive been doing a lot of hilltop activations lately, mostly on 2m and 70cm, and ive been using a diamond x50 on a painters pole which works pretty well honestly but im starting to wonder if im leaving a lot on the table by not bringing a yagi up with me. the thing is, setup time matters to me and the x50 literally takes 30 seconds to get going.
the yagis i've been looking at are the m2 2m5wl and the arrow ii for dual band. the arrow seems like the obvious portable choice but ive heard the gain figures on those shorter yagis are kinda optimistic and you have to be really careful about aiming which on a windy hilltop can be a pain. i did one activation where the wind was just destroying my setup and i was glad i had the collinear because i didnt have to worry about pointing it.
for working into repeaters and doing some ssb on 2m the collinear seems fine but if theres ever a weak signal situation or i want to try for some dx off a tropo opening i feel like i'd want that directional gain. anyone been through this same decision? do you guys just bring both or is that overkill for casual /p ops

dont be embarrassed at all, everyone goes through this and honestly its great that you were listening before jumping in, a lot of folks dont bother doing that. what you did was totally correct by the way -- check in, give your call, say no traffic, done. thats exactly right for a lot of nets.
the thing about when to add something is it does vary a bit by net but the general flow is you check in when they call for checkins, then when net control gets back to you thats your window. if you have an announcement you can just say it right then instead of "no traffic" -- something like "W1ABC, no traffic, but id like to make an announcement if thats ok" or on some nets you just say it. net control will usually guide you if youre doing something off.
some nets have a specific announcements period after all the checkins, in which case you hold it til then. best thing is just to keep listening and youll pick up the rhythm pretty fast. and dont worry about net control, theyre usually pretty patient with newer folks especially on a local club net

the hum is almost certainly your wallwart. those switching supplies are noisy as anything and a simple regulator on the output doesnt fix the RF garbage they put on the rail. try running it off a battery temporarily and see if the hum goes away, if it does you have your answer. i went through the exact same thing with a 80m receiver i built last year, swapped to a 7ah gel cell and it was night and day.
the microphonics could be a few things, loose component leads, a ceramic cap that doesnt like vibration, sometimes its even the NE602 itself if you're running it anywhere near its max supply voltage. worth checking your bypass situation around pin 8 on the chip too if you havent already.

I literally just got my tech ticket like two months ago so I remember exactly how lost I felt at first. hamstudy is what I used and I passed no problem, but the thing that actually helped me the most was just doing the flash cards over and over every day on my phone when I had a few minutes. took me about three weeks of casual studying. the electrical theory stuff tripped me up at first, the formulas and ohms law stuff, but once you get a feel for it its not so bad. good luck with it

yeah the duplicate spots thing is totally normal, that's just how the cluster network works — multiple nodes around the world receive and rebroadcast spots so you'll see the same callsign come through from like W4 nodes and EU nodes within seconds of each other. its actually useful because it tells you the signal is getting out in multiple directions. DXwatch is just a web frontend that aggregates all of that.
for android i'd honestly just point you toward DX Alarm, its not fancy but it does what you need — you set up alerts for specific callsigns or DXCC entities and it pings you when something shows up in the cluster. also the DX Summit website (oh3bk's thing) works great in a mobile browser if you dont want to mess with apps. i personally have it bookmarked and just use it from my phone when im away from the shack and hear that there might be something rare on.
as for QRZ vs DXwatch they're not really the same thing, QRZ is pulling from the cluster too but i find the filtering on DXwatch is a bit more flexible. once you start getting into it you might want to actually telnet into a cluster node directly through your logging software but that's a whole other thing, no rush on that

I made flash cards for the most common ones and practiced during my commute. Remember you'll hear Q-codes in voice modes too, not just CW, so even if you're not a Morse operator you need to know them. Once you start using them regularly, they become second nature.

ok so i just passed my general a few months ago and ive been making a decent amount of contacts, mostly on 40m SSB and some FT8. everyone keeps talking about QSL cards and LoTW and eQSL and honestly im a bit lost about how all this works and which ones actually matter for awards and stuff.
from what i understand LoTW is run by the ARRL and its the one that counts for DXCC but you have to get a certificate mailed to you first before you can even upload anything which seems like a lot of hoops. eQSL seems easier to sign up for but i read somewhere that it doesnt count for DXCC? and then theres still people mailing actual paper cards through the bureau which just seems really slow. like does anyone still do all three or do most people just pick one and stick with it.
also when someone on FT8 says QSL in the log does that mean theyre going to actually confirm it somewhere or is it just like an automatic thing with WSJT-X. sorry if these are dumb questions im just trying to figure out the whole ecosystem here before i spend time on something that wont count toward anything.

The middle curve shows an optimized Yagi. The lower curve represents a poor performance design. Are you using the same wire diameter and height above ground in both programs? Small differences in these parameters can cause the variations you're seeing.