Jessica Moore

yeah i was in the same boat not too long ago. i ended up just doing all three because honestly once you get the hang of logging software it kind of happens automatically — i use Log4OM and it can upload to LoTW and eQSL at the same time after each session so its not really extra work once its configured.
the physical cards are the fun part for me too, i got a custom card made through one of the online printers and it came out really nice, something like 250 cards for not a lot of money. i dont send one to every single contact but for any DX or anything that felt memorable i like to drop one in the mail. sometimes you get something back from a really interesting place and thats just cool, theres something about holding an actual card that a guy in like Slovenia or wherever printed up that you dont get from clicking confirm on a website

which kit was it exactly? im trying to decide between a few different ones and keep going back and forth. also did you have any trouble with the soldering if you're newer to building stuff, im always worried i'll mess something up

TCXO is one of those mods where people either swear by it or say they cant tell the difference, i think it really depends how drafty or temperature-variable your shack is. mine stays pretty climate controlled year round so i never bothered but i could see it mattering a lot in a garage setup or something like that. good to hear the install wasnt a nightmare, icom docs for the 7300 are generally decent from what ive seen.

congrats on the first contact that's awesome. i just want to say the Michigan Mighty Mite was my first build too like three years ago and i had the exact same drift thing going on and kind of panicked thinking i did something wrong. you didnt. its just how that circuit behaves. once it warms up its actually pretty stable for what it is.
i cant really speak to the EFHW stuff yet im still figuring out antennas myself but i will say i upgraded from random wire to a simple dipole cut for 40 and it made a noticeable difference even at QRP levels so any improvement you make to the antenna will probably pay off fast

yeah the TX EQ on that radio took me forever to figure out. one thing i noticed that helped my audio a lot was actually the mic position, like how close i was to the PR-40. i was talking kind of off axis because i read that reduces plosives but i think i was too far off and it was making me sound thin and distant. moved back to talking more directly at it from maybe 4-5 inches and suddenly reports got way better. not saying thats your problem but it's worth checking before you go too deep into the menu settings

so ive been watching the solar flux numbers creep up over the past few weeks and honestly wasnt expecting much since we had a few days of geomagnetic disturbance that kind of killed everything but then yesterday afternoon i fired up on 17 meters and just started hearing stations i hadnt heard in months. worked a couple JA stations without much effort and then an OA4 in Peru called me out of nowhere which was pretty exciting for a weekday afternoon.
im curious if other people are seeing the same thing or if it was just a lucky window i stumbled into. my antenna situation is nothing special, just a fan dipole up about 30 feet so its not like im running a beam or anything. been checking DXmaps and the cluster but sometimes you just gotta get on and listen i guess.
also been trying to understand the K index better — i know lower is generally better for HF but is there a point where even a K of 2 or 3 can still support decent DX or does it really fall off a cliff above 1?

so ive been licensed for about 4 months now and i mostly just listen but im starting to actually key up and talk to people and everyone keeps throwing out all these abbreviations and codes and i can only catch like half of what theyre saying. like QSL i think means confirmed? and QTH is location? but then someone said QRN and QRM and i got totally lost. is there like a standard list somewhere or do people just kind of learn these over time. also whats the deal with 73 because i hear that constantly at the end of every contact and i just say it back but i dont actually know what it means lol
also saw someone write QRP in a thread here and i know thats low power but is there a specific wattage that counts as QRP or is it just kind of a vibes thing

oh man i had no idea this was coming up, thanks for posting. ive been looking for a decent antenna tuner and figured a swap meet would be the cheapest way to find one. do people usually take offers or is everyone pretty firm on prices at these things

so i finally finished my first QRP rig, been putting it off for like two years because i kept telling myself i wasnt ready to build something from scratch. ended up going with the QCX mini kit on 40m and honestly the whole process was way more approachable than i expected. took me two evenings at the kitchen table with a decent iron and some flux and it just... worked. first time i keyed up i was genuinely shocked.
been running it portable the last couple weekends, just a random wire up in a tree and the built in ATU on my little KX2 to tune it and im getting contacts into the midwest pretty regularly from the northeast. running about 4-5 watts. i know thats kind of cheating since the KX2 is doing the matching but still.
anyway my actual question is about battery runtime. im using a 3ah lipo and it seems like im getting way less time than i thought i would. is that pretty normal for 40m ssb or should i be looking at cw more seriously. i mostly do cw anyway but sometimes i switch over. also curious if anyone has tips for keeping power draw down on receive since thats actually where most of my time goes.