Daniel Patel

hey same boat here i passed mine about three months ago. i went with the baofeng to start and its fine, does what it needs to do. my first qso was on a local 2m repeater and i literally had my script written out on a piece of paper lol. the other guy was super patient with me. you'll do great

so ive been doing single op for a few years now and my rates are decent but i keep watching the top scores and wondering how much of that gap is just SO2R vs actual skill. like i know the top guys are also just better operators but the second radio thing has to be a significant chunk of it right?
my current setup is a k3 and i have an older ts-590 sitting on the shelf doing nothing. antenna situation is two yagis on the tower which is actually not terrible for trying this i think, the feedlines are already separate. my main worry is the intermod situation between the two radios when theyre both transmitting. ive heard horror stories about guys blowing up preamps or just getting so much garbage on the second receiver that its useless anyway.
is there a minimum filter investment before this is even viable or am i going to spend more on bandpass filters than the whole thing is worth? and does the SO2R actually translate to rate improvement for someone whos not already a top 10 operator or is it kind of wasted until you have the operating fundamentals so dialed in that the second radio is the actual bottleneck

QRZ is the one that tripped me up when i first started, i kept thinking it was some kind of question about signal quality but nope its basically just who is calling. now i use it all the time when i cant make out a callsign. the fading thing, QSB, yeah that gets mentioned a lot on 40 especially in the evenings when propagation gets weird. dont worry about not knowing them all right away, ive been licensed two years and still occasionally have to look one up

Working on optimizing my IC-7300 SSB audio and wondering about the practical differences between the built-in speech processor and external compression. Manual suggests keeping ALC between 30-50% with processing off, but I'm seeing better average power with processing enabled.
Currently running mic gain at 35% with processor level at 60%. Some suggest much lower mic gain settings (5%) can still achieve full 100W PEP with proper setup. What's your experience with finding the sweet spot between intelligibility and splatter?
Too much processor input creates that harsh Darth Vader sound and drives background noise, but I need the extra punch for DX work. Anyone found good baseline settings for the 7300's DSP chain?

Working on optimizing my IC-7300 SSB audio and wondering about the practical differences between the built-in speech processor and external compression. Manual suggests keeping ALC between 30-50% with processing off, but I'm seeing better average power with processing enabled.
Currently running mic gain at 35% with processor level at 60%. Some suggest much lower mic gain settings (5%) can still achieve full 100W PEP with proper setup. What's your experience with finding the sweet spot between intelligibility and splatter?
Too much processor input creates that harsh Darth Vader sound and drives background noise, but I need the extra punch for DX work. Anyone found good baseline settings for the 7300's DSP chain?

Working on optimizing my IC-7300 SSB audio and wondering about the practical differences between the built-in speech processor and external compression. Manual suggests keeping ALC between 30-50% with processing off, but I'm seeing better average power with processing enabled.
Currently running mic gain at 35% with processor level at 60%. Some suggest much lower mic gain settings (5%) can still achieve full 100W PEP with proper setup. What's your experience with finding the sweet spot between intelligibility and splatter?
Too much processor input creates that harsh Darth Vader sound and drives background noise, but I need the extra punch for DX work. Anyone found good baseline settings for the 7300's DSP chain?