James Moore

yeah dont overthink the insulators, i made some out of sections of fiberglass tent pole once and they lasted three years. the dipole itself is pretty forgiving. one thing i will say though is cut it a little long first, like maybe half a foot extra per side, then trim it down after you measure SWR. much easier to trim than to add back on. the 468 formula gets you in the ballpark but your actual environment, height, nearby trees, soil conductivity, all that stuff shifts it a bit so plan on doing a trim and check cycle.

the FTM-500 is a great radio btw, i went back and forth between that and the ID-5100 for months before i pulled the trigger. anyway yeah what the other guy said about the ground is spot on in my experience. also one thing people dont always think about — try moving the head unit cable away from your HVAC controls and any USB charging ports you have in the cab. i had some interference that turned out to be coming from one of those cheap USB adapters i had plugged in for my phone. pulled it out and like half the noise went away immediately.

im actually in almost the same boat right now debating between the 7300 and the FT-991A because i want the VHF/UHF built in and thats the thing holding me back. but everyone i talk to says the HF performance on the 7300 is just noticeably better so i keep coming back to it. your post is not helping me wait lol

congrats on the tech license and good on you for jumping into nets early, thats honestly the best way to get comfortable on the air. a lot of people sit on the sidelines for months before they ever key up. for finding active nets the ARRL net directory can be hit or miss like you said, but what i usually tell newer folks is to just ask on whatever local club repeater is in your area -- someone will know whats actually running. most clubs have their own weekly net and those tend to be pretty welcoming to new check-ins. once you get your general and get on HF the 40 meter band is great for nets, theres traffic nets and ragchew nets pretty much all day. the 75 meter rag chews in the evenings can get a little... colorful... but theyre never boring. the 10-10 net is worth looking into too if you want to get into that whole member number thing. also keep an eye out for special event stations around holidays and anniversaries, they pop up on the ARRL website and its a fun way to get a QSL card for something memorable. not exactly a net but same idea of a scheduled on-air event.

so ive been running my 7300 for about two years now and overall its a great radio, no complaints really but ive been going down the rabbit hole on some of the TX audio mods people do and now im second guessing everything specifically been looking at the mic equalizer settings and the bass rolloff tweak some guys do in the menu, also saw a thread somewhere about swapping the stock electret element in the HM-219 mic for something with a bit flatter response curve. been monitoring my own audio on a second receiver and yeah it does sound a bit boxy out of the box, not terrible but not great either anyone actually done the internal mods vs just doing careful menu EQ work? feels like messing with the hardware on a radio thats still under any kind of warranty window is probably dumb but also i dont really care about warranty at this point. just want to know if the juice is worth the squeeze before i start poking around in there

im pretty new to ARES stuff, just joined a few months ago, but i was reading this and it made me think -- do most groups actually practice with all the real equipment or do people sometimes just simulate parts of it? like i wasnt sure if the point was to practice the radio procedures or also the whole physical setup side of things. our EC mentioned exercises but we havent done a full one yet and im trying to understand what to expect

yeah messages are tricky because its not like a one-way beacon — the system actually needs an ACK to come back to you and your radio has to hear it. so even if your position is getting out fine, if the igate nearest you is receive-only and not connected to the APRS-IS in a way that routes message ACKs back out to RF, you'll just sit there retrying forever. check if there's a two-way igate in your area on aprs.fi — look for the little icon difference or just look at what's been gating traffic both directions. also SMSGTE specifically can be finicky, ive had better luck with WLNK-1 for email stuff. and double check your callsign-SSID is set correctly in the radio because if thats off the ACK wont find you even if everything else works.

yeah the menu mod is software only, theres a specific button combo at startup that unlocks the extended menu on most firmware versions. on mine it was holding the fast and lock buttons while powering on but it varies by firmware revision so you'll want to look up the exact sequence for whatever version you're running. gives you access to some of the alignment menus and a few extra display options, nothing earth shattering but its nice to have. good call on the caps by the way. i did mine about a year ago after i noticed the audio was getting a little muddy at higher AF gain settings, turned out one of the caps in the audio section was starting to drift. these radios are old enough now that preventive recapping is just smart maintenance. did you do the internal speaker or just the PA board?

im in almost the exact same boat as you so ill be watching this thread. i hit 100 entities on LoTW a few months ago but havent actually submitted yet because i got confused about the fees and the whole process tbh. did you figure out the club membership thing? i think it's cheaper if you're an ARRL member which i am but i couldnt find where to actually apply on the website, kept going in circles

ok so ive been listening to a lot of HF lately and people are throwing around all these weird codes like QSL and QTH and QRM and honestly i have no idea what half of them mean. i know QSL is like... confirming something? and i think QTH is location but im not totally sure. is there a standard list somewhere or do people just kind of make them up as they go also whats the deal with 73 and 88 i keep hearing those at the end of conversations. someone in my local club said 73 means best regards but then someone else told me it comes from old telegraph codes which is kind of cool if true. just trying to get a handle on all this shorthand before i actually start transmitting, dont want to sound completely clueless on air

so ive been running an old TS-590SG for about four years and always kind of wondered if the 7300 hype was justified or just icom fanboy stuff. well my 590 developed some weird intermittent TX issue that i never fully tracked down and rather than sink money into diagnosing it i just... bought the 7300. not a totally rational decision but here we are. anyway after a few weeks on it i have to say the waterfall display alone is worth a lot. i know that sounds shallow but being able to actually see whats happening on the band in real time changes how you operate. i was always kind of flying blind before, just spinning the VFO and listening. now i can see a pileup forming before i even hear it, spot the gaps in a net, stuff like that. the receive on 40 and 80 feels about the same to me as the kenwood honestly, maybe a little better on 160 but im not confident enough in my antenna situation on topband to say that definitively. one thing that surprised me is how much i use the built in ATU now. my 590 had one too but i never trusted it much, always kicked in the external LDG. the icom one seems to find a match faster and holds it better, at least with my end-fed. could be placebo but i dont think so. RF gain staging feels a little different and i had to retrain some muscle memory but its not a big deal. the menus are a bit deep on some settings but theres enough youtube content out there that you can usually find what youre looking for in like 10 minutes. not saying its the best radio ever made but for the price point and what you get out of the box i get why everyone recommends it now. if youre on the fence and have an HF license and want one radio to do most things, this is probably it right now.

swap meet 7300 with mystery history, yeah that's always fun. did the seller say anything about why he was moving it? not accusing anyone of anything but sometimes people offload stuff right when a problem is starting to show up and they know it. anyway the bias drift thing the other guy mentioned is legit, that would be my first check too. also dont overlook the possibility of a cold solder joint somewhere on the driver board, these things travel around and get bumped and sometimes connections that were marginal get worse over time. a careful visual with decent magnification and maybe some gentle pressure on connectors while watching the power output could tell you something.

okay so ive had my technician license for about two months now and i finally got a decent handheld, a baofeng uv-5r. i can hear people talking on what i think is the local repeater but whenever i key up nobody ever responds or acknowledges me. ive tried just saying my callsign and listening but nothing. i checked the repeater directory thing online and it listed a frequency and offset but didnt say anything about a tone. so i just transmit without any tone set. is that the problem? i dont really understand what CTCSS even does, i thought it was for like filtering out interference or something? do i NEED it just to get into the repeater or is it optional. also is there like a standard way to announce yourself on a repeater, like do you just say your callsign or do you say something else. sorry for the basic questions just trying to figure this out

ok so ive been listening to HF for a few weeks now with my new radio and i keep hearing people say things like QRM and QSB and writing QTH in their callsign info online. i know Q codes are a thing but i cant find a good explanation of like... when people actually USE them versus just knowing the definition. like is QRM just interference or is it specifically other stations interfering and does it matter which one you say. also saw someone write 73 at the end of a message and guessed it means goodbye or something but not sure. basically just trying to figure out how people actually talk on air because it sounds like a completely different language sometimes

is it running hot at all? mine did something similar after a really long contest weekend and it turned out the thermal pad on one of the PA transistors had kind of shifted and it was going into thermal limiting way earlier than it should. not saying thats definitely it but worth feeling around the heatsink area after a transmission and seeing if anything seems unevenly hot.