Jessica Nakamura

yeah the Tokyo Ham Fair stuff had me going down a rabbit hole for like two hours last week. from what i pieced together it sounds like Icom was showing a prototype or pre-production unit rather than a full release, so i wouldnt get too excited just yet. could be months before it actually hits the US market and even then the first batch always goes fast. i remember when the 705 came out and dealers were backordered forever.
the 10 meter thing is real though. i was just messing around Saturday morning with my old Yaesu and worked a station in Argentina on my first call, no pile up, nothing. just answered me right back like we were chatting next door. conditions like this dont last forever so yeah get on while the getting is good.

the spot on the split thing took me forever to figure out too. i always just tuned to whatever the cluster said and called with everyone else. complete waste of time on big ones.
one thing i'd add is antenna polarization on ssb — i've had good luck when conditions were weird just rotating my yagi slightly off what i thought was optimal and suddenly the dx could hear me fine. not sure if that's real or just confirmation bias honestly but it happened enough times i keep doing it

ok so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and ive been making contacts pretty regularly, mostly HF on 40 and 20 meters, some SSB some FT8. everyone keeps telling me different things about QSLing and im honestly a bit lost at this point.
some guys tell me LoTW is the only one that matters for awards like DXCC and WAS, and that eQSL is kind of a second tier thing that not everyone respects. but then other people say eQSL is totally fine and way more convenient. and THEN theres still people mailing me actual paper cards which i love getting honestly but i dont know if i should be sending them back or if thats even expected anymore.
like do i have to upload to all three of these or can i just pick one and stick with it? and for the paper cards people send me, am i supposed to send one back even if they didnt ask? i feel like im offending someone every time i dont respond to a card but i also dont have a huge budget for postage right now. sorry if this is a dumb question, just trying to figure out the etiquette here

had almost this exact same situation about two years ago. ended up going RSP1A and honestly for HF receive it absolutely destroys the RTL-SDR, like not even close. the noise floor improvement alone is worth it and the 14-bit ADC makes a real difference when youre trying to pull weak signals out. SDRuno works fine with it though i mostly run it through SDR++ now which is way smoother.
the HackRF thing — i get the appeal but keep in mind its only 8-bit which actually makes the RSP1A a better pure receiver even though HackRF costs more. the transmit capability on HackRF is cool but its not like you can just use it as a radio, youre really doing more like signal generation and experimentation stuff. if you want to eventually transmit with SDR properly youre probably looking at a LimeSDR or something anyway. for what you described, just get the RSP1A and spend the leftover money on a decent upconverter if you need it or a LNA.

had both on my bench at the same time for a few months so can give you a pretty direct answer. the RSP1C is genuinely better on HF, not marginally better, noticeably better. the dynamic range improvement is real and you'll hear it pretty quickly if you tune around 40m or 80m in the evening when theirs a lot of signals crammed in there. the RTL in direct sampling mode is doing something heroic just to work at all down there and it shows.
that said your antenna is probably your bigger bottleneck right now. 40 feet of random wire out a window with no real ground is going to limit both receivers. i ran a similar setup and upgrading to even a basic end-fed with a decent choke balun made more difference than swapping the SDR hardware did. if i had to choose one upgrade id probably do the antenna first and then save for the RSP1C. if you can do both obviously do both but the RSP1C on a mediocre antenna will still be better than the rtl dongle on the same antenna, just maybe not $100 better if the antenna is really limiting things
also SDRuno which ships with the RSP1C is actually pretty solid now, i was skeptical but ive been using it more than SDR# lately for HF work

had almost this exact same situation about two years ago. ended up going RSP1A and honestly for HF receive it absolutely destroys the RTL-SDR, like not even close. the noise floor improvement alone is worth it and the 14-bit ADC makes a real difference when youre trying to pull weak signals out. SDRuno works fine with it though i mostly run it through SDR++ now which is way smoother.
the HackRF thing — i get the appeal but keep in mind its only 8-bit which actually makes the RSP1A a better pure receiver even though HackRF costs more. the transmit capability on HackRF is cool but its not like you can just use it as a radio, youre really doing more like signal generation and experimentation stuff. if you want to eventually transmit with SDR properly youre probably looking at a LimeSDR or something anyway. for what you described, just get the RSP1A and spend the leftover money on a decent upconverter if you need it or a LNA.

so ive been meaning to do this for like two years and after the storms we had last month I finally got serious about it. got a Yaesu FT-857D that I'm planning to use as the main rig, hooked up to a 40ah LiFePO4 battery I picked up a few months back. threw everything in a pelican-style case from harbor freight (the actual pelican ones are way out of my budget right now).
my plan is basically to have everything I need to set up a functional HF and VHF/UHF station within like 20-30 minutes of arriving somewhere. I've got a roll of RG-8X, some coax connectors, a basic dipole kit that I can string between trees or whatever, and a little logging notebook. also keeping a printed copy of local ARES frequencies and the ICS forms in a ziploc in there.
but I feel like im definitely forgetting something obvious. this is my first real attempt at a go-kit so I'm not sure what I'll wish I had until I actually need it and it's too late. anyone been through this process and have stuff they always forget or wish they'd packed? also curious what people use for antennas when you cant guarantee any support structures nearby.

yeah the third party thing tripped me up too when i first got my ticket. i think the rule is mostly aimed at like, someone using your radio to conduct business or something sketchy, not your wife saying hello. but definitely read 97.115 when you get a chance, its actually not that hard to understand once you look at it directly instead of trying to find a summary somewhere.

the spot on the split thing took me forever to figure out too. i always just tuned to whatever the cluster said and called with everyone else. complete waste of time on big ones.
one thing i'd add is antenna polarization on ssb — i've had good luck when conditions were weird just rotating my yagi slightly off what i thought was optimal and suddenly the dx could hear me fine. not sure if that's real or just confirmation bias honestly but it happened enough times i keep doing it