Daniel Jackson

so ive been doing contests pretty seriously for about 3 years now, usually top 10 in my section for single op stuff, and every time i look at the high scores i see all the serious guys are running SO2R and i keep wondering if its actually doing that much for their rate or if there's other stuff going on too like better antennas and location and whatnot
my current setup is a k3 and an ic-7300 that i use for monitoring but its not really wired up for proper SO2R, no bandpass filters, no antenna switching automation, nothing like that. i've tried manually switching between the two during slow periods and honestly the interference between them even on different bands is pretty rough without filters. ran 40 and 15 simultaneously for about 20 minutes during sweepstakes last year and could hear the k3 bleeding into the 7300 rx even with them on opposite ends of the room
is it even worth getting into properly if im not going to spend the money on the full station2station filtering setup? or is there a budget way to do this that actually works. also curious how much rate improvement people actually see from SO2R vs just getting better at running and s&p switching on a single radio

congrats on your first one, 47 QSOs is a solid first activation. the log upload on the WWFF side can be a bit clunky compared to POTA yeah, what i usually do is export the ADIF from whatever logging app i used and then just make sure the KFF reference is in there correctly before uploading. the website will usually flag errors if something doesnt look right. one thing to double check is that your QSO date and times are in UTC and not local time, caught me out on my second activation and i had to resubmit.
also if you're doing references that are also in POTA (a lot of KFF parks overlap with KFF POTA refs) you can often upload to both programs with the same log which is nice. keep at it, some of the nature reserves have really good propagation spots if you can find a clearing.

haha the logging chaos is real, i still mess that up sometimes and ive been doing SOTA for like 4 years. what i do now is just use a paper log on the summit and enter everything into SOTA CSV or the database when i get home. yeah its a bit more work but trying to fiddle with an app when youre also doing a pileup and the wind is blowing and your fingers are cold is just not worth it. some people swear by the SOTA Goat app or Activator Log on android but i never really got on with them
also on the water thing, yeah that gets everyone at least once. i now just have a checklist i run through the night before and water is literally item number one because everything else you can kind of survive without but not that. congrats on the first activation though, sounds like you did great honestly, 4 contacts on rough conditions with a homebrew antenna is not bad at all

so ive been trying to figure out if its worth making the drive out to the Tri-County hamfest, its about 2.5 hours from me and last time i went a few years back it was pretty decent but honestly i cant remember if i actually bought anything useful or just walked around and talked to people the whole time lol. anybody been recently and know if the swap meet tables are still good? i feel like a lot of these smaller regional fests have kinda dried up in terms of actual gear, everything ends up on qrz classifieds or ebay before it even makes it to a table anymore

not a dumb question at all, this stuff confused me for a while too when I first got started. so yeah you basically have it right — LoTW is the gold standard for DXCC and most ARRL awards, and it's free once you get the certificate set up which you already did. eQSL is its own thing, some awards accept it some don't, and a lot of the more serious DX guys don't really use it or don't check it very often.
physical cards still matter for certain awards and some DX entities only confirm via paper, especially the rarer ones where the operators are old school or operating from some tiny island with no reliable internet. for everyday contacts though, saying youre on LoTW is totally fine and a lot of people will appreciate it honestly. you'll start getting confirmations but it can take a while — some operators only upload logs every few months or even once a year after a big contest or expedition.
if you want cards eventually, you can get a batch printed pretty cheap through places like KB1OIQ's card printing thing or a bunch of other services. but don't stress about it right away, get your logs clean and LoTW sorted first and the rest kinda falls into place as you go.

the roof center is genuinely better for pattern, you get a cleaner omni vs the trunk lip which skews things a bit toward the rear of the car. whether you can actually tell depends a lot on terrain and what youre doing. i ran a NMO mount on the roof of my last truck, drilled a proper hole, and yeah it was noticeably cleaner on 70cm especially. but that was a permanent install and i knew i was keeping that truck.
for a commuter car i wouldnt bother drilling. the mag mount speed concern is real too, ive seen people lose them. get a mount with a strong magnet and keep an eye on it but a roof center mag at highway speeds should be ok if the base is solid. the Tram youve got is a decent antenna anyway, dont overthink it

oh man i had this exact same problem when i first got my begali paddle. turns out i had it wired backwards and didnt realize the keyer had an auto-reverse feature that was trying to "fix" it. ended up being a double negative situation. try turning off any auto paddle sensing if your rig has it, then wire it the normal way - tip is dit, ring is dah. also some of those hamfest keyers are just weird, might be worth investing in something decent like a vibroplex or WB9LPD unit if you're serious about getting back into cw