John Taylor

so ive been doing single op contests for a few years now, usually finish somewhere in the middle of the pack for my category, and ive been reading a lot about SO2R and how the serious contesters swear by it for rate. but every time I try to wrap my head around actually setting it up and operating it it just seems like an enormous amount of complexity for... what exactly? like my brain already feels like mush after hour 20 of a 48 hour contest, adding a second radio and all the switching logic seems like a recipe for me making more mistakes not fewer.
for context I'm running a K3 right now and have a spare TS-590 sitting around that I could theoretically use as the second radio. the antenna situation is manageable i think, i have a 2el yagi on 20 and a dipole on 40 so there's some separation there. what I'm really asking is at what point does the rate gain from SO2R actually become noticeable vs the overhead of managing two radios. is there like a contacts/hour threshold where it starts to make sense

yeah i went through this same thing last year, the AE7Q website that guy mentioned is genuinely the best resource, way easier than trying to figure out the FCC site. i spent like an hour on the FCC ULS and then found AE7Q and had my answer in 5 minutes lol
one thing i'd add is think carefully about what callsign you actually want before you apply. i kind of rushed mine and got something fine but i wish i'd thought more about how it sounds phonetically on the air and for CW if you ever go down that path. like some calls just roll off the tongue nicer than others. take your time with the list of 25, its worth spending an afternoon on it

the 9700 will work fine for EME honestly, the doppler correction is built in or you can let WSJT-X handle it, doesnt matter much on 2m since the shift isnt that dramatic compared to higher bands. your real bottleneck is going to be the antenna and the preamp, in that order.
single yagi is definitely doable now with JT65B and Q65, guys are making contacts with a 9 element and 500w, it just means you're limited to working the big stations — the ones with arrays or dishes. which is still real EME, just not the same as being able to work other single yagi stations. preamp goes at the feedpoint, full stop. every foot of coax between the antenna and the LNA is killing you. i use a down east microwave unit, its been solid for years. NF around 0.3 dB which is about as good as it gets without going crazy.
start with the WSJT-X group on groups.io and look for the EME logs, you can see what stations are working what and get a feel for whats realistic for your setup before you spend anything.

not a dumb question at all, everyone goes through this. the Q codes go way back to the telegraph and early maritime radio days, they were invented basically so operators who spoke different languages could still communicate, so like QTH means "what is your location" or "my location is" depending on context, QRM is interference from other stations, QRN is natural static like from lightning, QSB is when your signal is fading in and out. QSL specifically means acknowledgement or confirmation, so when someone says QSL it means they got your message or they're confirming something. a lot of people use it just to mean yes or understood now even in casual conversation on the air.
the 73 thing is old telegraph code too, it basically meant best regards or best wishes, nobody really remembers exactly why 73 specifically but its been the ham farewell for over a hundred years so it just stuck. 88 means love and kisses which you still hear sometimes usually between people who know each other well. theres also stuff like OM which means old man, its not an insult its just an affectionate term for any male ham, and YL means young lady which just means any woman ham regardless of age. XYL is supposedly ex-young lady meaning wife. yeah the old timers had their thing going on.
honestly just keep listening and it clicks after a while. arrl website has a decent reference list if you want to look them up all at once.

i did the fan mod but skipped the mars thing, didnt really have a use case for out of band tx. the fan writeup i followed was by someone on qrz forums i think, they measured temps before and after with a thermal probe and it was like 15 degrees C difference under load which is pretty significant for a rig thats already in a marginal thermal envelope. one thing to watch on the 857 is the connector on the fan wires is kinda fragile when you unplug it, go slow or you'll be buying a new JST connector from digikey and cursing for an afternoon. ask me how i know lol

honestly the question pool looks scarier than it is. when i did mine a couple years back i just used HamStudy.org every day for like 2-3 weeks, maybe 20-30 mins a day, and i passed pretty comfortably. the site tracks which questions you keep getting wrong and keeps drilling you on those. i wouldnt bother with the full handbook for exam prep, thats more of a reference thing. what helped me was actually understanding WHY certain answers are right instead of just memorizing, especially the electrical stuff like ohms law, because there are a few questions that are basically the same formula just with different numbers so if you get the concept you can work it out.
the regulations questions are pretty straightforward once you read through them once. dont overthink the license structure stuff either it clicks pretty fast

yeah i saw that firmware notice pop up on the Icom America page but totally forgot about it, thanks for the reminder. been meaning to update mine for a while now. the ALC thing on mine hasnt been super noticeable but i've read enough threads on the reflector to know it's real for some people.
that 6m opening sounds awesome. i completely missed it, i was out most of saturday running errands and by the time i got back to the shack it was all gone. story of my life with Es honestly. one of these days im gonna have a remote setup so i can at least monitor from my phone when im away from home. the DX cluster alerts only help if youre actually able to get to the radio in time you know

yeah the waterfall is what gets everyone, i remember the first time i sat down at one i just kind of stared at it for a while. you start to recognize signal shapes after a bit, PSK31 looks completely different from a badly overdriven SSB signal and you can just see it without even listening.
the internal tuner thing is accurate, icom rates it for like 16.7 to 150 ohms or something in that range which sounds generous until you actually have an antenna that wanders. i ended up leaving my external tuner in line most of the time anyway just out of habit from the old setup. one thing i'll add — spend some time in the menu going through the scope settings, there's a ref level adjustment that makes a big difference depending on your noise floor. took me embarrassingly long to find it.

The kit's contents were well organized as were the accompanying instruction. Parts are sorted into one of 10 bags and the assembly follows the bag's numerical sequence. Perfect beginner kit - I built the 20m version and it's been rock solid. The manual is excellent and they keep it updated online.