Sarah Collins

congrats on the 7300, its a genuinely solid radio for the money. i ran one for about two years before i moved up to a 7610 and honestly i still kinda miss the simplicity of it.
for twin PBT on 40m phone i was usually running the inner passband shifted just slightly low and the outer maybe 200hz or so toward the high end — hard to give exact numbers because it really depends on where the QRM is sitting. what i found more useful honestly was just dropping the FIL1 bandwidth down to like 1.8k or even 1.6k when it gets messy, you lose a bit of the audio quality but the adjacent channel rejection gets much better. the DSP NR on that radio is pretty decent too, NR1 mode usually works better for voice than NR2 in my experience.
the fan thing is just the 7300 being the 7300, you kind of get used to it. some guys mod the fan with a quieter aftermarket one but i never bothered.

For the harmonics issue, I added a simple 7-pole Chebyshev filter after the antenna connector. Used silver-plated air core inductors and NPO caps - measured -50dB at 2nd harmonic. The 705's internal filter is decent but not contest-grade clean.

the listening part is so underrated. i used to just jump in and call and wonder why i never got through. took me embarrassingly long to figure out you have to decode the operators rhythm before you do anything. some of them have really distinct patterns too, like theyll work a run of EU stations then flip to NA for a few, and if you can catch that pattern youre golden. the 8-10 up trick is real by the way, especially on crowded bands where everyone is piled into the same 3khz window like they think the DX can only hear one slice. spreading out legitimately helps, the op has to move the RX VFO either way so might as well be where fewer guys are.
the power thing i dunno about personally. on the DX expedition side ive been on two trips and honestly the signals that stand out are the ones that are clean and punchy, not necessarily the loudest. so maybe youre onto something with the cleaner 400w vs dirty 700w theory. reciprocal conditions matter too, if the band is marginal they need your signal to be readable not just loud.

so after about two years of running an old TS-480SAT that i got off a silent key estate sale, i finally picked up an IC-7300 last month. been meaning to post about this for a while but life gets in the way. anyway the short version is i love it but there were a couple things that kind of caught me off guard coming from older gear.
the waterfall is obviously the thing everyone talks about and yeah its genuinely useful for finding activity, not just a gimmick like i kind of assumed before i had one. but the thing that actually surprised me more was how much i had to mess with the ALC settings before it stopped looking ugly on my neighbors SDR monitor. i was running a little hot without realizing it for like the first week. nobody told me, which, whatever, i eventually figured it out by checking my own signal with a websdr.
also the built in ATU is fine but its not going to save a really bad antenna situation. i have a pretty compromised attic dipole for 40m and it does what it can but dont expect miracles. the radio itself though, receive is noticeably better than the 480 was especially on 17m for some reason, thats been my favorite band to just sit and listen lately.
anyone else come from older icom or kenwood stuff and have thoughts on the learning curve? feels like theres menus inside of menus inside of menus sometimes.

so i finally did it after like two years of telling myself i was gonna get my license. passed the technician exam last thursday at a local club session and my callsign showed up in the ULS database two days later which was honestly way faster than i expected.
anyway i borrowed a baofeng from my buddy who got me into this whole thing and yesterday i just keyed up on a local repeater and said my callsign and asked if anyone was around. felt super awkward honestly, like way more nervous than i thought id be. but this guy came back to me immediately and we talked for maybe 15 minutes about... honestly i dont even remember, antennas i think and where i was located. he was really patient and explained a bunch of stuff i didnt fully understand yet.
not sure what radio to get next, the baofeng works but everyone seems to have opinions about it lol. just wanted to share because im pretty pumped about it

so ive been a General for about three years now and i keep putting off the Extra exam because honestly the theory sections just feel like a wall. i got through the General okay but some of the Extra pool questions are just... i dont even know where to start with some of the filter design stuff and the Smith chart questions. like i understand conceptually what a Smith chart is for but the actual math behind reading one in an exam context is still fuzzy to me.
i bought the ARRL Extra Class License Manual and ive been going through it but some chapters feel like they just throw formulas at you without really explaining why. the RF propagation stuff i mostly get, and the operating procedures and privileges section is actually pretty interesting to read through since thats the whole point right, getting access to those extra band segments. but the electronic theory chapters are where i keep stalling out.
anyone been through this recently and have a sense of what actually shows up a lot versus what you can kind of skim? i know you're supposed to study everything but realistically some of it sticks better than others. also is hamstudy.org still the go-to for drilling questions or is there something better now?

I'm studying for my Technician exam and wondering about the most effective approach. Should I go straight to the back of the ARRL book and work through all questions, then study the material I missed? Or is it better to read through chapters first? The exam has 35 multiple-choice questions and I need to answer 26 correctly, so I want to make sure I'm using my study time efficiently.

You'll do fine! The key is to listen first - sounds like you're already doing that. Our ARES nets are very welcoming to new folks. Most net control stations will ask if you have any traffic or announcements after they acknowledge your check-in.

yeah the flea market aint what it was, thats just the reality. everyone knows what their old drake is worth now becuase they checked ebay before they loaded the car. but i still go every year, mainly to see club guys from all over. our local club usually does a dinner saturday night and that alone is worth the trip honestly. if youre driving more than like 5 hours probably think hard about it, if youre within a reasonable range i wouldnt skip it

the door seal thing is almost certainly your problem, or at least part of it. that pinches the coax and over time can nick the shield or center conductor just enough to cause weird intermittent issues. you might not even see damage if you look at it but the SWR can get ugly and you lose a surprising amount of signal. i ran mine through the firewall grommet when i installed in my F-150 and it made a big difference, takes about an hour if you have the right tools and a fish tape.
on the antenna placement question, roof center is actually pretty good on a pickup if you can get it there. the ground plane concern is real but a big steel cab roof is plenty of metal for VHF, mag mounts work fine on that surface as long as the mount itself has good contact. id clean the paint contact area with some scotchbrite if you havent already, sometimes theres a clear coat layer under there messing up conductivity. also worth checking the PL-259 or whatever connector you have at the radio end, those can loosen up from the vibration of driving.

i went RSP1A a couple years back from an RTL dongle and honestly for shortwave listening the difference was real. not like holy cow everything is perfect now but noticeably cleaner and way fewer phantom signals showing up. WSPR decoding especially seemed to get better spots, could be coincidence but i dont think so.
one thing nobody told me is that SDRuno takes some getting used to, the UI is kinda weird. there's also CubicSDR and GQRX if you want to use something other than the official software, both work with the RSP stuff via the API. some people swear by SDR# with a plugin but ive never gotten that working smoothly myself

yeah i was in the same boat when i started. what finally clicked for me was realizing LoTW and eQSL dont really talk to each other at all, theyre completely independent systems run by different organizations. so a confirmation on one does nothing for the other.
i personally skip the paper cards most of the time unless someone sends me one first, then ill usually send one back. bureau cards take forever to arrive like sometimes over a year, its kind of wild. but i have gotten some really cool cards from DX stations that way so its not totally dead.
one thing that helped me was just setting WSJT-X to auto upload to LoTW after every session, takes the hassle out of it completely. not sure what logging software you're using but most of them have that option now.