Ashley Wilson

so i was just sitting down with coffee around 9am local and decided to spin the dial on 10 meters just out of habit, not expecting much, and holy cow there was a pile of stations coming in from europe like it was 1979 or something. worked a few italians and a german station before it kind of faded out around noon. solar flux has been looking pretty good lately and i guess its finally showing up on the higher bands which is great news for those of us who got our tickets during the low years and never really experienced a good cycle peak.
anyway totally unrelated but has anyone actually gotten hands on time with the new Yaesu FT-710? ive been reading the reviews and they seem decent but reviews always seem decent. my 7300 is fine but theres something about that new receiver architecture yaesu is talking about that has me curious. not in a rush to upgrade just wondering if anyone here has actually used one on the air for a while and has real opinions about it.

ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now, got my technician last spring and ive mostly just been doing local 2m repeater stuff which is fine. but i want to start doing more and i keep reading about Part 97 and what techs are allowed to do vs general vs extra and honestly the FCC website just makes my head spin
like i know techs get HF privileges on 10m but only certain modes? and i think theres something about 15m or 40m CW only for techs but i cant remember and i dont want to accidentally transmit somewhere im not supposed to. someone at my club told me something about a 200 watt limit too but then i read something else that contradicted that
is there like a plain english version of this somewhere or can someone just explain the tech HF privileges in a way that makes sense. also what happens if you accidentally go out of band, is that an automatic fine or does the FCC even care about that for honest mistakes

the inverted V will definitely shift resonance lower compared to a flat top, the coupling between the drooping legs changes things. 28 feet at the apex with ends at 8 feet is a pretty steep angle — if you measure the angle between the legs it's probably under 90 degrees which compresses the radiation resistance too, that could explain the 2.1:1 even at resonance since youre looking at maybe 35-40 ohms instead of the usual 50-ish for a flat dipole.
honestly though 2.1:1 isnt catastrophic, most rigs will handle that fine. the bigger issue is getting it to the right frequency. trim carefully, like 3-4 inches per leg at a time and recheck. also double check that coax isnt laying on the ground right at the feedpoint because that can really mess with your readings on the 259. the common mode current thing is real and if you dont have a choke balun or at least some ferrite beads on the coax near the feedpoint the coax shield is basically acting like part of the antenna and youll chase your tail forever.

so ive been messing around with my audio chain for a while now trying to get a cleaner signal on 20m SSB and honestly half the advice i read online feels like people just repeating stuff they heard somewhere without actually testing it. wanted to get some real opinions from people who've actually spent time on this.
my current setup is an IC-7300 with the stock mic, i know i know, everyone says get a better mic and i probably will eventually but i want to squeeze what i can out of what i have first. ive been playing with the TX bandwidth settings and the bass/treble in the radio's audio menu and it actually does make a noticeable difference when i monitor on a second receiver. cutting the low end below like 200hz and rolling off above 2800 or so seems to tighten things up a lot, less mud i guess.
the thing im not sure about is the compression settings. the manual says keep the TX power compressor under 10dB of gain reduction to avoid distortion but ive heard guys running way more than that and still sounding decent. is there a point where more compression just makes you louder on peaks without actually helping average power? feels like thats whats happening when i push it too hard, people report the audio gets harsh.
also curious if anyone has actually A/B tested different mic positions, like boom vs desk vs handheld. i feel like proximity matters way more than people admit.

ok so ive been licensed about 4 months now and i still feel weird about phonetics. like sometimes on the local 2m repeater people just say letters normally and sometimes they go full NATO alpha bravo charlie and i cant figure out when youre supposed to do which one. my elmer told me to always use phonetics but then i hear people not doing it all the time and its confusing.
also is it a rule or just like a suggestion? i looked in part 97 and couldnt find anything that flat out says you have to. and does it matter if youre on HF vs VHF? feels like HF people are way more strict about it but maybe im imagining that

yeah the variability right now is pretty typical for where we are in the cycle honestly. solar flux in the 150-190 range is generally good news for the higher bands but the real wild card is the K index and any geomagnetic disturbances that come through. you can have a great flux number and then a CME hits and the bands go dead for a day or two. thats probably what youre seeing with the inconsistency
the short openings like that south america thing you described, thats pretty common with sporadic conditions or even just the terminator passing through. some of the best DX ive ever worked was in a window under 30 minutes. you really do just have to be there at the right time. i keep a radio on in the background a lot more than i used to just because of stuff like that. 17 meters in particular has been giving me some really weird long path stuff in the mornings, worth checking if you havent tried that yet

so i was just sitting down with coffee around 9am local and decided to spin the dial on 10 meters just out of habit, not expecting much, and holy cow there was a pile of stations coming in from europe like it was 1979 or something. worked a few italians and a german station before it kind of faded out around noon. solar flux has been looking pretty good lately and i guess its finally showing up on the higher bands which is great news for those of us who got our tickets during the low years and never really experienced a good cycle peak.
anyway totally unrelated but has anyone actually gotten hands on time with the new Yaesu FT-710? ive been reading the reviews and they seem decent but reviews always seem decent. my 7300 is fine but theres something about that new receiver architecture yaesu is talking about that has me curious. not in a rush to upgrade just wondering if anyone here has actually used one on the air for a while and has real opinions about it.