CW Operator

yeah what he said about the 40m segment is right. i was in the same boat when i upgraded, spent like an hour convinced i was reading the band chart wrong lol. one thing i'll add -- dont stress too much about accidentally violating stuff as long as you're actually trying to follow the rules. the FCC isn't out there monitoring every QSO waiting to bust a newly licensed general. just keep your ID habits solid and stay in your segment and you'll be fine. the third party traffic rules tripped me up once too if you ever get into that, basically just be careful relaying messages for non-hams to foreign countries because some countries have restrictions on that

I'm running into timing issues with my SO2R setup during heavy pileups in CQWW CW last weekend. SO2R is un infinite series of 3 seconds, where your brain toggles back and forward between two radios. The problem is when I'm working a 40-meter pileup and try to S&P on 20m simultaneously - the transmit lockouts aren't properly synchronized and I'm getting interference between my own radios.
Equipment: FT-1000MP radios with Array Solutions SO2R box. Using N1MM+. The lockout timing seems inconsistent especially when rapid-firing through the pileup. But if you get a good rate going on one radio, go ahead and disregard the second radio and concentrate on running the pileup. Anyone have experience fine-tuning the lockout delays for CW operation specifically?

yeah the encode vs decode thing trips up a lot of new folks, you definitely want encode turned on — that's what sends the tone to the repeater so it actually opens the squelch and lets your signal through. decode just filters what you hear on your end so you only hear stations that are also sending that tone. for day to day repeater use you really only need encode, decode is more useful if you're scanning and dont want to hear every random blip.
on the baofeng it's usually under the T-CTCS menu for transmit (encode) and R-CTCS for receive (decode). make sure T-CTCS is set to 100.0 and you should be good. and double check your offset is right too, most 2m repeaters around here use 600 kHz offset so if the output is say 146.940 your radio should be transmitting on 146.340 automatically when you set it to plus offset. the radio handles the math you just have to tell it which direction.
as for the etiquette thing, yeah you should wait for a pause between transmissions before jumping in, repeater conversations kind of have a rhythm to them. when there's a gap you just say your callsign and that usually signals you want to join or have a call. the guy probably wasn't trying to be mean, some folks just get a little short when they're mid conversation. you'll get used to it.

so ive been running an inverted V for 40m for about two years now, center point is maybe 35 feet up on a fiberglass pole and the legs slope down to about 8 feet at each end. works ok, gets me in the log, but ive always wondered if i was leaving something on the table by not getting it up as a flat top.
problem is my yard isnt great for supports — i'd have to get creative with the fence posts on one side and there's a tree on the other end that might work but its kind of an awkward height, maybe 28 feet? so the antenna wouldnt even be truly flat, it'd be more like a slight droop in the middle or id have to run it at an angle across the yard which puts it near the house.
is the difference actually noticeable in real world use or is this one of those things thats like 1-2 db on paper and basically nothing in practice? i mostly work domestic, some casual dx when conditions cooperate, not contesting seriously or anything.

yeah 2.5 on 70 is annoying but honestly your radio will probably survive it for now while you track it down. i had a Diamond NMO antenna a while back that was just slightly loose at the base plate and that was enough to throw things off. the LMR-240 with hand soldered connectors is usually fine but 70cm doesnt forgive sloppy connectors the way 2m does. if you have access to a cheap antenna analyzer even a NanoVNA you can sweep it and see exactly where its resonant which makes finding the problem way faster than just poking around. good luck with it, clean installs like that are worth getting right

yeah same boat as you when i started, i used to keep a little cheat sheet taped next to my radio which felt embarrassing but whatever it worked. the thing that helped me most was just listening to a lot of HF traffic and net operations because the experienced ops use them so automatically it starts to sink in. i think the freezing up mid-transmission thing goes away after a while, now i dont even think about it. one weird thing i noticed is some older hams still use like Golf or George interchangeably and dont really care, but if youre doing anything formal like ARES nets or traffic handling they do expect proper NATO phonetics and they will gently correct you if you slip up

Your readings actually aren't that far off spec for the X510HDM - Diamond rates it at <1.5:1 but real-world installations often see slightly higher SWR due to ground interactions and mounting variables. Try temporarily raising it another 5-10 feet to see if ground coupling is the culprit.