Gary Yamamoto

yeah what he said about proximity effect on the PR-40 is real, i had the same problem when i switched to a large diaphragm mic. kept getting told i sounded like i was calling from inside a tunnel lol. moved the mic off to the side slightly instead of dead-on and rolled back the bass in the EQ and got way better reports almost immediately. the 7300 EQ is actually pretty decent once you figure out where it lives in the menus, took me forever to find it the first time.

omg yes i thought i was going crazy with 20m. im still pretty new to HF and i kept thinking i did something wrong with my setup because one morning i worked like six stations in europe easy and then the very next day nothing. didnt realize solar activity could change things that fast honestly. still learning all this propagation stuff, its kind of fascinating but also frustrating when you just want to make contacts lol. does anyone have like a good beginner resource for understanding when to expect what band to be open? i've been using pskreporter to see whats getting out but im not totally sure how to use that info to predict anything

what antenna setup were you using exactly, just a random wire end-fed or like a linked dipole or what. trying to figure out what to bring for my first one next month

i was in the same boat not too long ago, the whole cluster ecosystem is kind of confusing when you first look at it. one thing i started doing was just keeping DXwatch open in a tab while im on the radio and it works pretty well for 20m hunting. the color coding by band is nice once you figure out what youre looking at.
one thing nobody told me that would have saved some frustration — make sure you set your home callsign in whatever tool you use because some of them will highlight spots that are "new" for you based on your log if you connect it up. QRZ does this if you sync your logbook. kinda cool when it starts flagging stuff you still need.

same boat as you when i upgraded, honestly the best thing i did was just download the actual part 97 text and ctrl+f whatever i was looking for. yeah its dry but its not as bad as like actual legal code. also your club probably has an elmer or two who can just walk you through it, thats honestly faster than reading through the whole thing yourself when youre just starting out

35 feet of RG-8X isnt killing you that badly at 2m, youre probably losing maybe 1.5 to 2dB over that run which isnt nothing but its not the whole story either. LMR-400 would get you back most of that sure but honestly id look at your connectors first. one bad PL-259 will rob you way more than the coax itself, especially if somebody soldered it in a hurry or the center pin isnt making great contact. i had a similar situation last year and it turned out the connector at the antenna end had moisture in it, looked totally fine from outside but the inside was corroded green.
also the chimney mount thing is worth thinking about. 18 inches from brick isnt ideal for a vertical, the chimney can mess with the pattern depending on which direction your repeater is. might be worth temporarily sticking the antenna somewhere more in the clear just to see if your signal improves before you spend money on coax.