Ahmed Hassan

careful with the TX mod if youre not already authorized for those freqs, just saying. i know youre doing it for emcomm and thats fine but ive seen guys do that mod and then wonder why they got a letter from the FCC. not accusing you of anything just worth mentioning since this thread might get read by people who dont have the full context.
i did a different kind of upgrade on my 7300 — added a proper Bonito antenna splitter on the panadapter port so i can feed the raw RF to an SDRplay at the same time. not a hardware mod exactly but it changed how i use the rig completely. being able to see a wide chunk of spectrum on the laptop while operating is really useful for contesting, you can spot openings way faster.

oh man i remember this exact feeling, it was probably the most frustrating part of the whole journey for me. the thing that finally broke me through was stopping all the practice software for like two weeks and just listening to actual QSOs on 40 meters. not trying to copy everything, just leaving it on in the background while i did other stuff around the shack. your brain starts to pick up the rhythm of real operators and it kind of rewires how you process the characters.
also the thing your club friend said about going faster isnt wrong exactly but the way it helped me was i raised the character speed to like 20wpm but kept the farnsworth spacing really wide so i had more time between characters to process each one without slowing down the actual sound of the letters. that way your ear learns what a fast C or a fast R actually sounds like without the pressure of copying a whole word every second. after maybe a month of that i started closing the farnsworth gap little by little and it just kind of came together. you'll get there, 13 to 20 is honestly the hardest stretch and everyone hits that same wall around 12-15

I went through the same decision a couple years back. Ended up getting the RSP1B and don't regret it but I'll be honest, the first week I was like did I actually spend this money for this. Took a while to figure out the gain settings and IF bandwidth stuff before it started really shining. One thing nobody told me was that you really want a decent bandpass filter upstream if you're doing HF work, even with the RSP1B. I had an AM broadcast station about 8 miles away and it was just stomping all over everything until I slapped a highpass filter on the coax. After that it was like a completely different radio. If you're set on shortwave and utility monitoring I think it's worth it but budget maybe another 20 bucks for some filtering too or you might be disappointed at first.

ok so ive been checking into the local tuesday night net for about 3 months now and i keep second guessing myself on the ID rules. i know the FCC says every 10 minutes and at the end of a transmission but like... on a net when the NCS is moving through check-ins pretty fast, do you ID every single time you respond or just at the end when youre done talking? i asked one of the guys at the club and he said just follow what the net control says but that doesnt really answer my question because sometimes NCS moves so fast i barely have time to say my callsign let alone do a full ID.
also related i guess -- when someone finishes their traffic and says QNI or whatever, is it rude to ask a question right after or do you wait for NCS to open the floor? i dont want to be that guy who steps on people but i also dont want to miss my chance to ask something if its relevant to the net topic. been lurking more than participating honestly because im not sure of the proper flow. any advice appreciated, still very much learning the ropes here

I went through the same decision a couple years back. Ended up getting the RSP1B and don't regret it but I'll be honest, the first week I was like did I actually spend this money for this. Took a while to figure out the gain settings and IF bandwidth stuff before it started really shining. One thing nobody told me was that you really want a decent bandpass filter upstream if you're doing HF work, even with the RSP1B. I had an AM broadcast station about 8 miles away and it was just stomping all over everything until I slapped a highpass filter on the coax. After that it was like a completely different radio. If you're set on shortwave and utility monitoring I think it's worth it but budget maybe another 20 bucks for some filtering too or you might be disappointed at first.