Robert Johnson

so i've been borrowing a friend's old TS-570 whenever i wanted to get on HF which has been fine but also kind of a pain because i have to coordinate with him and drag it over to my place and set everything up and then tear it down again. anyway i finally just bought an IC-7300 last week and i've been messing around with it for a few days now and honestly i kind of can't believe how different the experience is compared to the 570. the real-time spectrum scope alone is worth it for me — i spent like two hours just watching propagation shift on 20m without even making a contact which probably says something about me. the waterfall is just addicting to look at. audio on receive is really clean too, running it through some old Heil headphones i had laying around and it sounds way better than i expected for an SDR-based rig. only thing thats kind of annoying is the touchscreen is a bit finicky when my hands are cold, which is dumb but my shack is in the garage and its been cold lately. anyone else run into that or have a workaround? also wondering if anyone's done the firmware update recently and whether its worth doing right away or waiting a bit.

so i finally got off my butt and did an actual SOTA activation instead of just chasing from home. took my FT-818 and a linked dipole up to a local summit, nothing crazy elevation wise but it counts. the hike was only like 45 minutes but man carrying all that gear plus the mast and tent stakes and rope and everything adds up fast. my back was not happy. anyway what i wasnt prepared for was how long it takes to get set up once youre up there. i figured id be on the air in like 10 minutes but between finding a spot to anchor the mast and getting the feedline sorted and then actually alerting on the app it was almost 40 minutes before i made my first qso. wind was also way stronger than at the trailhead which i should have expected but didnt. made 12 contacts on 20m SSB and 4 on 40m before the clouds started rolling in and i decided to pack it up. still qualified the summit which was the goal but i feel like i left a lot on the table. anyone have tips for speeding up the setup process, im thinking about pre-rigging more stuff at home before the hike

yeah the first one is always the hardest just because of the mental barrier. i remember sitting in my car for like 20 minutes before i actually walked out and set up. once you do a few it becomes pretty routine. 10 contacts is totally fine, valid is valid. i usually try to get to 15 or so before i start packing up just to have a little cushion in case the upload has issues but honestly never had a problem with 10. the kx2 is a solid choice for this stuff btw, i run one myself for most of my activations. what antenna were you using, just end fed or what?

been putting off the extra for like 3 years now because every time i look at the question pool my brain just shuts down. i mean i get the basic stuff from general but some of these questions are just insane... do i really need to understand all the smith chart calculations and modulation theory stuff or can i just memorize answers? heard mixed things about how deep you need to go. already have general privs so not in a huge rush but would be nice to get those extra 25khz segments on 20m