Michael Moore

so ive been trying to get into DX chasing more seriously lately and a buddy told me to start using the cluster spots to find activity. i set up an account on QRZ and i can see the logbook stuff and the callsign lookups obviously but im a little confused about how the spotting side of it all fits together with like DXwatch and the other cluster tools out there. right now what i do is i have DXwatch open in one tab and im filtering by band since im mostly operating 20m and 17m these days, and then i have QRZ open in another tab to look up whoever gets spotted. is that basically how most people do it or is there a smarter workflow. feels like im missing something because sometimes i see a spot on DXwatch and by the time i tune there the pileup is already huge or the station is completely gone. also someone mentioned there are apps that do this on your phone, i downloaded one called Ham Radio Deluxe but i think thats more for rig control? not totally sure what im looking at there. anyway any tips would be appreciated, been licensed about 8 months and still figuring out the DX side of things.

yeah the 7300 menus are kind of a rabbit hole. i spent probably two weeks just messing with the twin PBT and notch filter settings before i felt like i had something i was happy with. honestly my suggestion is find one of the config guides that guys like W4EEY put together and use that as a starting point instead of going through every option cold. saves a lot of time. the scope thing you mentioned is exactly right though. once you use it during contest weekends it becomes almost hard to go back. i borrowed a friend's older rig for a field event last summer and kept reaching for a scope that wasnt there, felt weird. congrats on the upgrade, the 450D was a solid radio but the 7300 is just in a different tier for the money.

same boat as you were not too long ago lol. what finally clicked for me was realizing LoTW is basically the "official" one for awards and eQSL is more casual. i do both now just takes like 2 extra minutes after a session. paper cards i only do when someone specifically requests one via QRZ or if i work somewhere really rare and i want a physical thing to put on the wall. dont stress too much about having the perfect system, just get LoTW sorted first since thats where the award confirmations come from

so ive had my TS-590SG for about 4 years now and honestly it's been a great radio, no complaints really. but i keep looking at the IC-7300 and wondering if i should just make the switch. i know the 7300 has that real-time spectrum scope which the 590 doesnt and the SDR-based front end is supposed to be really clean. but then again i already know every menu on the 590 and the filters are excellent, and i dont really contest so i dont need the absolute best roofing filters or anything like that. my shack is pretty basic — 590 into a LDG tuner into a fan dipole for 40/20/15, nothing fancy. mostly do casual ragchews on 40m evenings and some 20m DX when i get the time. so im wondering if anyone has actually moved from a 590 to a 7300 and if the real world difference was noticeable or if its one of those things that looks good on paper but you dont actually notice day to day. feel like i might just be suffering from new radio syndrome and should put the money toward a better antenna instead.

okay so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (tech) and i finally got my baofeng programmed for the local 147.xxx repeater. i can hear other people on it just fine but when i try to transmit nobody seems to hear me or at least nobody responds. a guy at the club meeting mentioned something about a CTCSS tone but im honestly not totally sure what that means or how to check if mine is set right. i looked it up a little and it sounds like its like a subaudible tone you send along with your transmission so the repeater knows to open up? is that right? and if so how do i even know what tone to use — is it listed somewhere or do i have to ask someone. the repeater is listed on repeaterbook but i wasnt sure if the info there is always current. also is there such a thing as a repeater that doesnt need a tone at all because i thought i heard someone say that once sorry if this is a dumb question, still figuring all this out

unfortunately yeah, this happens more than people like to admit. some nets are run really tightly and the NCS will gently remind someone to wait their turn, but a lot of local club nets are pretty relaxed and the net control doesnt always want to call someone out publicly, especially if its a long-time member. its not ideal but thats just the reality of it. the proper procedure is to wait until NCS acknowledges you before transmitting, thats pretty standard across almost any net format. what you witnessed was technically incorrect operating but its one of those things where people let it slide. if it really bugs you and you get to know the net manager you could always mention it privately, that usually goes over better than saying something on air. welcome to nets by the way, glad you finally checked in

drilled NMO on the roof is the right answer if you plan to keep the truck a while and actually use the radio seriously. i fought with a lip mount on my old Tacoma for two years and it was always a headache -- the ground connection would get flaky especially after rain got in there and oxidized things, and i was constantly chasing SWR issues that turned out to be the mount. once i finally drilled the cab and put in a Larsen NMO mount with a proper grommet and sealant it was night and day. SWR dropped, receive improved noticeably, and i havent touched it since. for a 2019 F-150 the roof is a big flat panel so you've got a great ground plane. just make sure you seal it properly when you drill, use a step bit to get a clean hole, and get some self-amalgamating tape over the cable entry inside. the coax routing can be a bit annoying on newer trucks but you can usually get it behind the headliner and down the A pillar without too much grief. as for antennas, im running a Comet SB7 on UHF and a separate antenna for 2m but thats maybe overkill for most people. the Diamond NR770H you have is genuinely a solid antenna, probably not worth changing that part.

yeah the multi-tab juggling gets old fast, been there. what a lot of folks do is move over to something like DX4WIN or even just use the built-in cluster in Log4OM or Ham Radio Deluxe if you're logging with either of those — they pull spots directly and you can click a spot and it'll tune your radio automatically if you have CAT control set up, which the 7300 does really well. that alone changed everything for me because you stop losing 30 seconds flipping between windows. for filtering on DXwatch just set it to your bands, no point seeing 160m spots if you cant work it right now. you can also filter by mode. once you narrow it down to like 20m and 15m SSB or whatever you're working it becomes way more manageable. the QRZ lookup habit is good though, keep doing that, its how you learn the entities and start recognizing prefixes without having to look them up every time.

ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now, technician class, and i keep hearing and seeing people use all these abbreviations and codes that i have no idea what they mean. like on the local repeater someone said QSY and i had no clue if that was good or bad or what they wanted me to do. and then on HF (i was just listening, dont have HF privileges yet) i heard someone say QRM and QSB and a bunch of others and i was just completely lost. is there like a master list somewhere or do people just pick these up over time? also some of them seem to be used differently depending on context which makes it even more confusing. im not even sure what to search for honestly, someone in my club just said "oh you'll learn them" which wasnt super helpful

You don't need to hear your own echoes to complete EME contacts - it's about whether the other operator can hear you and if their station is powerful enough for you to copy them. Q65's signal averaging really helps - it pieces together information from multiple sequences to achieve decodes. Your 100W dual array setup should handle most EME QSOs fine.