Robert Martinez

welcome to the dark side haha. CQ WW is genuinely one of the best contests to start with because the exchange is dead simple, your call sign and your CQ zone, thats it. for North America youre almost certainly zone 3, 4, or 5 depending where you live, worth double checking on a zone map before the weekend.
dont stress about the setup. i worked my first CQ WW with a G5RV and a 100w radio in a suburban backyard and still managed a couple hundred contacts. the bands are absolutely packed that weekend so you'll hear plenty to work. my suggestion is just to start by search and pouncing, meaning tune around and answer other peoples CQs rather than sitting on a frequency and calling yourself. way easier when youre learning and you still get the points. once you feel comfortable with how the pacing works you can try running a frequency but honestly for a first time just chasing contacts is plenty fun.
no pre-registration needed, just get on the air. N1MM Logger or even just a paper log works fine. have fun with it

yeah the 897 has a known issue with the driver transistors running hot over time, especially if the previous owner ever ran it without great airflow or pushed it hard on digital modes. the Q1001 and Q1002 area is worth checking -- you can measure the bias voltages on the driver stage without fully pulling the board and that'll at least tell you if you're losing drive before it ever gets to the finals. also worth checking the LPF relays if you havent already, a relay that's not fully switching can kill your output on specific bands without being obvious about it. i'd start there before assuming the PA section itself is toast.
if you have a scope you can trace the drive level through the chain and find exactly where it's falling apart. without one you're kind of guessing but the relay thing is free to check and ive seen it catch people out before.

so ive been using a cheap RTL-SDR V3 dongle for about a year now mostly just scanning around VHF/UHF and doing some APRS decoding with Direwolf, pretty happy with it honestly. but i keep reading about the SDRplay RSP1C and RSP2 and people saying the dynamic range and sensitivity is way better especially on HF. im running mine with an upconverter right now (the Ham-It-Up) and it works but the noise floor is kind of ugly below like 10 MHz.
my actual question is whether anyone has used both and can say whether the jump to an SDRplay is actually noticeable in day to day use or is it one of those things that looks great in benchmark charts but you dont really feel it sitting there turning the dial. i mostly just want to monitor 40m and 80m when im not transmitting, maybe do some digidecoding with fldigi or WSJT. not doing anything serious just curious what the bands are doing.
also is SDRuno still kind of a mess or have they cleaned it up, last time i tried it was like 2 years ago and i ended up just using SDR# because it felt less crashy

So I finally managed to work VK9 last month but it took me like 3 hours of trying before I got through and honestly I'm not even sure what I did differently at the end that made it work. I've been licensed about 4 years running 100w into a trap vertical in the backyard and pileups just destroy me. I feel like I'm doing everything right — listening to where the DX is transmitting, trying to figure out the split, waiting for the right moment — but I just get walked over every single time.
The thing that really gets me is the stations with big linears and beams just seem to punch right through no matter what. I know I can't compete with a kw and a 5 element yagi but there's gotta be technique stuff im missing too. Like when do you actually transmit? do you just call constantly or wait for a gap? I've seen people say to tail-end but every time I try that I still get buried under 40 other guys.
Would upgrading to even a small beam make that much difference or is this mostly a power thing at this point. Genuinely curious how the guys who run qrp manage it at all.

i was in exactly the same spot about a year ago and ended up getting the yaesu ft-4xr which is even cheaper than the ft-65 and honestly been really happy with it. does everything i need for local stuff. the audio is decent and i havent had any issues programing it with chirp.
one thing nobody told me when i was starting out — get chirp set up before you do anything else, programming these things from the front panel is kind of a nightmare on most HTs. makes loading in your local repeaters way easier

The DX advantage is real - many rare stations hang out in the Extra-only phone segments, especially on 20m during openings. Plus you can administer all three amateur radio license examinations which is rewarding for giving back to the community. I'd say it's worth the effort if you're serious about HF.

The Extra segments are usually toward the center of the phone portions where antennas have better SWR. On 20 meters, that bottom 25 kHz from 14.150-14.175 is prime real estate for DX work, especially during contests when the General portion gets packed.

congrats on passing and making that first contact, the first one is always the weird one haha. dont worry about not understanding the antenna stuff right away, half the hobby is just picking that up over time by listening. you'll start recognizing terms pretty quick. which repeater are you on if you dont mind me asking, im always curious what's active in different areas.

honestly for your situation id say skip the Baofeng for now, not because theyre terrible but because the programming software is a pain and the receiver isnt great — you'll pick up a ton of interference on busy areas and it can get frustrating fast when youre still learning the ropes. the FT-60 is a really solid choice for a first radio, its built like a tank, the audio is loud and clear, and its genuinely straightforward to use without diving into the manual every five minutes. been recommending it to new hams in our club for years and i dont think anyones come back complaining.
the TH-D75 is awesome but its also like $500+ so that seems outside what you're looking at. if you really want APRS built in and dont mind spending more the D75 is hard to beat, but you could also just grab an FT-60 now and do APRS later with a phone and a cable or a dedicated tracker. no rush to have everything at once when youre just getting started.

honestly I went through the exact same thing when I upgraded from a straight key to paddles. what finally helped me was using the Koch method practice software (I used G4FON) but specifically practicing just sending, not copying, just slowly squeezing out letters and listening to what the keyer actually produced versus what I thought I sent. you hear the mistakes differently when youre focused on output.
also one thing nobody told me - make sure your sidetone pitch matches whatever youre using to copy. sounds weird but when my keyer tone was at 700hz and I was used to copying nets at 500hz my brain kept getting confused. small thing but it made a difference for me.

so i just got my technician license about three weeks ago and ive been trying to get on the local 2m repeater but nobody seems to hear me. i can hear other people talking just fine but when i transmit nobody responds. did some googling and i think it might be something to do with a CTCSS tone? my radio is a baofeng uv-5r and i honestly have no idea what tone to use or even how to set it up. the repeater directory listed it as having a 100hz tone but i dont know where to go from there in the menu. also is there like a standard way to call out when you first get on a repeater or do you just start talking? i dont want to be rude or interrupt someone mid conversation without knowing it

yeah the cluster feed can be a firehose when you first look at it, totally normal to feel that way. what helped me a lot was filtering by band in DXwatch — theres a filter option so you can just see 20m or whatever youre working that session and it cuts the noise way down. once i started doing that it became way more usable.
for the QRZ lookup thing you're doing, thats actually a pretty solid habit. some guys use the DX spots that are built right into logging software like Log4OM or even the free version of HRD and those can show you the spot plus auto-fill the DXCC info at the same time, which saves the tab switching. might be worth looking into if youre logging contacts anyway.
as for phone apps i use DX Toolbox on android, different from the one you mentioned i think, and it pulls from the main cluster network just fine. been reliable for me. just make sure whatever app you use is connecting to a real telnet cluster node and not just some cached feed that's 20 minutes old, that'll drive you crazy when you tune to a frequency and the station is long gone

The Extra segments are usually toward the center of the phone portions where antennas have better SWR. On 20 meters, that bottom 25 kHz from 14.150-14.175 is prime real estate for DX work, especially during contests when the General portion gets packed.