Michael Moore

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

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.

so i've been at this for about 8 months now and i just want to share what's been working for me in case anyone else is grinding through the same thing. started at 5wpm with the koch method on lcwo and honestly the first few weeks were rough, like really rough. i kept second-guessing myself and counting dits in my head which everyone tells you not to do but its really hard to stop once you start.
the thing that finally clicked for me was just accepting that i was going to miss stuff and not freezing up when that happened. i read somewhere that your brain needs to hear the whole character as a sound not a pattern and that really changed how i practiced. instead of drilling for an hour straight i started doing like 20 minutes max but every single day without fail and just bumped the character speed way up to 20wpm even though my effective speed was way lower.
anyway i just hit 15wpm copying actual QSOs on 40m last night and i could barely believe it. still a long way from 20 but it doesnt feel impossible anymore. if anyone else is stuck around that 10-13wpm range and wants to swap notes i'm happy to talk through what helped. and if anyone who's already past 20 wants to give me a reality check on what i should be doing different, i'm all ears.

i was so nervous my first check-in i forgot my own callsign for a second, so dont feel bad. the thing that helped me was just writing out exactly what i was going to say on a sticky note before the net started. felt dumb but it worked. now i dont even think about it.

so ive been fighting this for about three weeks now and its driving me nuts. i put a yaesu ft-7900r in my f-150 last month, antenna is a tram 1185 on a mag mount sitting on the roof, coax runs down the drivers side door jamb and under the dash. power is tapped directly off the battery with the supplied cable and a 20 amp inline fuse.
everything works fine when im just sitting still — i can hit the local repeater no problem, audio is clean on both ends. but when i start driving, especially accelerating, i get this weird buzz or hum that comes through on transmit. people on the repeater tell me it sounds like engine noise or alternator whine. im not hearing anything on receive, just when i key up. ive tried adding a ferrite choke on the coax near the radio and it didnt seem to help much.
anyone dealt with this before? i feel like its probably a grounding thing but i really dont know where to start. the radio chassis is just sitting in a cheap bracket under the dash, not explicitly grounded to anything separate.

so ive been noticing for the past couple weeks that 20m seems totally dead in the afternoons when it used to be my go-to for working europe from here in the midwest, and then randomly at like 7pm local time it just opens up like crazy for maybe 45 minutes and then closes again. happened three days in a row last week. checked the solar flux index and it was sitting around 145-150 which honestly i thought would mean decent conditions but maybe im reading too much into it
also 17m has been doing some weird stuff, had a solid opening to japan two mornings ago which i wasnt expecting at all, worked like 6 or 7 JA stations in a row and then nothing. my buddy down the road said he didnt hear anything on 17 that morning so either his antenna is the problem or i got lucky with some kind of short path thing. anyway just curious if others are seeing the same kind of inconsistent conditions or if somethings going on with the sun that i should be reading up on

so ive been at this for about 8 months now. started with the basics, got up to around 13wpm which felt great at the time but now i feel like im just spinning my wheels. i can copy most letters fine but when i get into actual QSOs or even just running the G4FON trainer at higher speeds i start falling behind and then i panic and lose my place entirely
i think part of the problem is im still kind of spelling out the letters in my head instead of just hearing whole words. like i know thats the thing everyone talks about but knowing it and actually doing it are very different things lol. started with 5wpm back in january doing the Koch method and honestly that first stretch from 5 to maybe 10 felt pretty natural but somewhere after that it just got harder
is there a trick to getting past this plateau or is it really just more hours? i do about 20-25 minutes a day most days. wondering if i should bump up to like 17 or 18wpm in the trainer even if my copy is terrible, or if thats just going to reinforce bad habits. also been thinking about trying LCWO but havent set it up yet

Special event stations are a bit different from regular nets — theres no formal check-in process usually, you just find them on the air and work them like any other contact. They'll announce their callsign and sometimes have a pile-up depending on how popular the event is. A lot of them will send you a QSL card or certificate afterward if you log the contact and send in a request, which is a nice little bonus.
For finding them ahead of time the ARRL website keeps a calendar and QRZ also lists upcoming special events. I usually just bookmark a few that look interesting and then check the DX cluster the week of to see what frequency they're operating on. Some of them run multiple modes too so if you miss them on phone you might catch them on digital.
As far as regular nets go if youre on the east coast the afternoon 80m traffic nets are worth checking out, good practice for handling formal message traffic which is a whole different skill from ragchewing.

yeah what he said. also a lot of nets have their format posted on a website if you can find it, like the ARRL net directory has a bunch listed with contact info and sometimes the net manager will email you the format if you ask. i did that before my first HF net and it helped a lot knowing what to expect.