Patricia Kim

so the FCC allocation for general class on 40m phone is 7.175 to 7.300 MHz, that part you had right. 7.245 is fine, the guy probably just had a bee in his bonnet about something. now the "band edge" thing is a seperate issue -- the concern there is that if youre running USB on say 7.300 and your signal has any width to it at all, sidebands can bleed above 7.300 which is out of band. most people say stay at least 3khz inside the edge to be safe, so like 7.297 max for the upper end. on the lower end at 7.175 same idea, dont park right on 7.175.000 because your signal isnt a perfect knife edge.
the arrl band plan is just a gentlemens agreement, it doesnt have the force of law like the fcc allocations do. its more like suggestions for where different modes tend to cluster so people can find each other. doesnt mean you CANT operate outside those suggestions, just means you might be in the middle of a net or a pileup you didnt know about

made that exact jump about 18 months ago and honestly the dual receive is something i use more than i expected. during contest weekends running S&P on one band while monitoring another for openings is genuinely useful, not just a gimmick. the noise floor on the 7610 also feels a bit cleaner to me but that could be placebo, hard to A/B test when youre swapping rigs not just toggling a setting
that said if youre doing casual HF and FT8 the 7300 is not holding you back at all. the 7610 is a nicer radio but its not a transformative upgrade the way going from like a 100w barefoot to a decent amp is. if the dual RX is genuinely solving a problem you have then go for it, but if youre just looking at the spec sheet and dreaming, the 7300 will keep doing the job fine

dont rule out the PA bias drifting — ive seen that cause exactly what youre describing. the 7300 has a bias trimmer and if it walks off for whatever reason the output just falls off a cliff. might be worth looking up the service adjustment procedure before you start swapping parts, could save you some money if thats all it is.

idk man i'd look at what the 7300 goes for used before buying new, seen em on qrz classifieds lately for like 850-900 in good shape. that's a decent chunk saved and the radio is built solid enough that buying used isnt really a risk. just my two cents

so ive been messing around with cluster spotting for maybe the past month or so and im still not totally sure im using these tools the right way. basically what i do is have DXwatch open in one tab and QRZ logbook in another and i kinda bounce between them trying to figure out whats active on the bands. worked a few new ones this way but it feels a little clunky.
my question is mostly about the filters on DXwatch — i can filter by band and mode but i dont really understand the continent filter. like if i filter to only show spots FROM north america does that mean the station being spotted is in north america, or the person doing the spotting is in north america? that distinction matters a lot i think and the help page on the site doesnt really explain it well at all.
also is there a better app or tool people use for this? ive heard of DX4WIN and some guys on my club use Ham Radio Deluxe with the built in cluster thing but im just running a simple station at this point, nothing fancy. would love to know what other people actually use day to day.

ok so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (tech) and i finally got my baofeng programmed to hit the local 147.something repeater. i can hear people talking on it fine but when i key up nobody seems to hear me, or at least nobody responds. i checked the repeater directory and it says the tone is 100.0 hz. i think i have it set right in chirp but honestly im not 100% sure if i set it as a tone or a tsql or whatever the difference even is.
also i noticed sometimes there are two different groups of people talking at different times and they seem to kind of just... take turns? like is there some kind of schedule or do people just know when to jump in? i dont want to step on anybody. one of the guys on there sounds like he does a net every tuesday or something. should i wait until after that before i try to check in or is it ok to just say my callsign at some point?
sorry if these are dumb questions, just trying to not be that guy who ruins everyone elses QSO

PoLo has been solid for me! When I spot myself it posts to both POTA and WWFF networks simultaneously - huge advantage for dual activators. For QRZ issues, try downloading offline reference files in the settings.

PoLo has been solid for me! When I spot myself it posts to both POTA and WWFF networks simultaneously - huge advantage for dual activators. For QRZ issues, try downloading offline reference files in the settings.

dont rule out the PA bias drifting — ive seen that cause exactly what youre describing. the 7300 has a bias trimmer and if it walks off for whatever reason the output just falls off a cliff. might be worth looking up the service adjustment procedure before you start swapping parts, could save you some money if thats all it is.

Started using FT8 from my apartment with just an end-fed in the attic. Many operators make global contacts using 25–50 watts or less and it's true! Worked VK and ZL last week on 20m when SSB was completely dead.

dont rule out the PA bias drifting — ive seen that cause exactly what youre describing. the 7300 has a bias trimmer and if it walks off for whatever reason the output just falls off a cliff. might be worth looking up the service adjustment procedure before you start swapping parts, could save you some money if thats all it is.

PoLo has been solid for me! When I spot myself it posts to both POTA and WWFF networks simultaneously - huge advantage for dual activators. For QRZ issues, try downloading offline reference files in the settings.