Ham Fan

so i've been putting this off for like two years but finally got around to doing the MARS/CAP mod on my IC-7300 last weekend. nothing scary, just the usual jumper thing on the board, takes maybe 20 minutes if you're not rushing. but i wanted to post about some stuff i noticed afterward that i dont see mentioned much.
first the obvious — yeah you get the expanded TX coverage which is the whole point. but what i actually found more interesting is the radio just feels a little different on receive in the areas outside the normal ham bands. like i was poking around the 60m area outside the ITU allocations and the noise floor seemed slightly different, not sure if thats psychosomatic or what. probably psychosomatic.
anyway the main reason i did it was for some ARES/EMCOMM stuff where we occasionally need to work on freqs outside the standard allocations under part 97 exceptions. figured i might as well have the capability ready. anyone else done this and messed around with it much? also curious if anyone has done any of the audio mods on the 7300 — ive been looking at the TX audio equalization stuff, supposedly you can get a lot more presence out of the mic chain with some tweaking in the menu but i havent gone down that rabbit hole yet.

so ive been a general for about two years now and i keep going back and forth on whether to bother with the Amateur Extra. like i use most of the hf bands i want already and the sliver of extra spectrum you get doesnt seem like a huge deal honestly. but a few guys at my club keep telling me to just do it and the theory is what keeps most people from trying.
i looked at the question pool and some of that stuff about RF amplifier design and the filter theory and whatever... its a lot. i was never great at math and some of the formulas in there look pretty intimidating. did anyone else feel like that going in and then find it was more manageable than expected? or is it actually as rough as it looks. i dont want to spend months studying and then fail it twice like my buddy did with his general back in the day
also is the extra really worth it just for the privileges or is there something else im not thinking about

So ive been chasing SOTA for about 6 months now and finally decided to stop sitting at home logging other peoples activations and actually get out there and do one myself. Planning to do W4T/SU-001 this Saturday, its not a super hard hike so figured it would be a good first one to try.
My main question is about the logging and spotting side of things. I have the SOTAwatch app on my phone but cell service up there is basically nonexistent, does the self-spotting only work if you have signal or is there a way to do it via radio? I saw something about APRS spotting but im not totally sure how that works or if my HT even supports it.
Also just wondering if 5 watts on 2m FM is enough to count for the activation or do I really need to make HF contacts. I know you need 4 contacts minimum but wasnt sure if all 4 can be on VHF. My go kit right now is just a Yaesu FT-65 and a roll-up j-pole, dont have a proper HF portable rig yet. Maybe thats the bigger issue here haha.
Any advice from folks who have done activations would be really appreciated, especially around gear and what to actually expect up there. First time for everything I guess.

yeah the HF difference is real, thats probably the main reason to make the jump honestly. direct sampling on the RTL is kind of a hack and it shows — you get images all over the place and the noise floor is pretty rough. the RSP1A has actual frontend filtering and a proper ADC so HF just feels cleaner, less garbage to dig through. i noticed it immediately when i first fired it up on 40m, signals i was barely pulling out on the dongle were just sitting there clearly.
that said if youre mostly doing airband and satellites the RTL is genuinely fine. i still have one dedicated just for ACARS decoding because why waste the RSP1A on that. SDRuno is okay but a lot of people still use SDR# with the SDRplay plugin anyway so you dont have to switch your whole workflow. the 12-bit ADC vs 8-bit is where the dynamic range improvement comes from, matters more if you live somewhere with strong broadcast AM stations stomping on everything.

so this has been my thing lately, just spinning the dial on 40m after dinner and seeing whats out there. not even transmitting half the time just listening to random ragchews. heard some guys talking about their garden last week for like 45 minutes, had no idea who they were but it was weirdly nice to just have that going in the background while i was doing dishes
idk theres something about 40m at night that just feels different than any other band. skip is usually good enough to hear stuff from all over but not so far that it sounds completely alien. anyway not really a question just curious if anyone else does this kind of aimless listening thing or if thats weird

so the short version is LoTW is what you need for DXCC and most of the serious ARRL awards, eQSL is accepted for some things but not DXCC, and paper cards are accepted for DXCC too but you have to physically send them in or have a trustee handle it. for everyday award chasing most people just do LoTW and call it done.
for the Japan card — yeah you can mail direct if you have his address, just put a green stamp or a few USD in the envelope (that's the return postage thing, it's called an IRC traditionally but most DX guys just want a couple bucks these days). or you can use the outgoing bureau through your ARRL section if you're a member, it's slow like months sometimes but it's cheap. incoming bureau is basically dead for a lot of sections right now though so dont count on getting paper cards back that way very fast.
honestly for FT8 and digital modes most people just do LoTW, it's pretty much automatic once you have it set up. paper cards are more of a hobby within the hobby if that makes sense, some guys love them some guys dont bother at all.

so my neighbor has been into ham radio for years and finally talked me into trying to get my technician license. i downloaded a couple things but honestly im kind of overwhelmed. like there are study guides and apps and the actual question pool and i dont really know which one is the actual thing i should be using vs which ones are just extra.
i guess my main question is do i need to memorize the whole question pool or is there like a smarter way to study. i heard somebody say the pool has like 400 questions but the test is only 35, does knowing the pool just mean i automatically pass or is it more complicated than that
also do the questions change, because i saw something about a new pool but wasnt sure if that affects me right now

the hum is almost certainly your wall wart, those switching supplies are terrible for this kind of thing. i went through the exact same thing with a similar build and swapped to a proper linear regulated supply and it cleaned up like 90% of the noise. even just a 7812 or 7809 depending on your voltage requirements with some decent filter caps before it will make a huge difference. also check that your audio ground and your RF ground are tied together at one single point, if you have a ground loop anywhere in that audio chain it will hum like crazy no matter what supply you use.
the muffled audio could just be the passband on your LPF, what values did you end up using for the cutoff? for SSB you want to think about rolling off around 3kHz or so but if you went too conservative it'll sound like everyone is talking through a pillow.

After running both JS8Call and PSK31 for six months, I wanted to share some observations. JS8Call's weak signal performance is impressive - comparable to FT8 - but the conversational aspect makes it far more engaging than automated exchanges. However, I've found PSK31 still has advantages for quick ragchews, especially when band conditions are good.
JS8Call's heartbeat and message relay features are excellent for emergency communications, and the built-in spotting system helps find active stations. But PSK31's simplicity and wider software support (Fldigi, DM780, etc.) keep it relevant. Anyone else notice JS8Call seems less active during contest weekends?
For newcomers hesitant about voice modes, both offer keyboard-to-keyboard communication, though JS8Call's structured approach might be less intimidating initially.

That basement RF deck placement is smart for heat dissipation and noise reduction. This reduces interference from fan noise and ensures more efficient heat dissipation. The 7760's digital pre-distortion works flawlessly even with longer cable runs - no noticeable latency in my setup.

W6/CT-096 is a nice one, did that one myself a couple years back. yeah 40m in the afternoon is kind of a crapshoot depending on conditions and time of year. i've started carrying a small linked dipole cut for 30m as well since that band tends to be a bit more reliable when 40 goes soft and its not as crowded as 20. anyway welcome to the addiction, SOTA is the reason i actually lost 15 pounds last year lol

Just got my general upgrade and I'm starting to work some DX! Already have about 85 countries in my log after a few months of chasing spots. DXCC requires confirming on-air contacts with 100 countries, so I'm getting close to applying for my first DXCC.
My question is about confirmations - should I use LotW (Logbook of the World) exclusively or still bother with paper QSLs? I've been uploading everything to LotW but only getting about 30% confirmations. Some of the DX stations I really need don't seem active on LotW at all. What's your experience with electronic vs paper for DXCC credits?

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and ive been listening to a lot of the big contests on the bands but never actually jumped in. i tried a little bit of field day last summer with my club but i was mostly just watching other people operate and fetching coffee lol. this year i want to actually participate and maybe try CQ WW or one of the ARRL contests on my own.
problem is i dont really know where to start. like do i need special logging software or can i just keep a paper log for something like CQ WW. and how do people even figure out what multipliers they need, i kind of understand the concept but in the heat of the moment it seems overwhelming. also i heard SOTA activations count toward some contests? not totally sure how that works.
any advice would be great, im running a modest setup, just a vertical and 100 watts, nothing fancy. is that even enough to be competitive or am i just gonna be calling CQ into the void the whole time