Stephanie Clark

Four rules that affect amateur radio operators under Part 97 have been marked for deletion by the FCC, effective today. The deleted sections include §97.27 (duplicative license modification provision), §97.29 (obsolete paper license replacement procedure), §97.315(b)(2) (grandfathered pre-1978 HF amplifiers), and §97.521(b) with Appendix 2 (obsolete VEC regions).
The FCC adopted a Report and Order in October 2025 to delete almost 400 obsolete rules pertaining to wireless services, with four deletions in Part 97 that govern Amateur Radio. What practical impact do these changes have on current amateur operations? Are there any compliance considerations we should be aware of?

the ALC thing is super important and yeah its one of those things people mention but dont explain well. basically you want the ALC meter to just barely be moving, like kissing the bottom of the scale on voice peaks. if its pegging or even sitting steady in the middle of the scale you're probably overdriving the modulator and that's where you get the splatter and the distorted sound. back off the mic gain until you see it just nudging on loud syllables.
on the TX bandwidth, for a conversational contact i actually run mine a bit narrower than default — something like 200hz to 2800hz cuts the low mud and doesnt eat into adjacent channels as much. the stock setting on the 7300 is a bit wide imo. and yeah the TX monitor is not perfect, theres a bit of processing in the chain that can color what you hear, but its still useful for catching obvious problems like clipping sounds. honestly the best thing to do if you have a buddy nearby is get them to record your audio with their SDR or something and play it back — thats been more useful to me than anything else

yeah i passed mine back in march and honestly hamstudy was the only thing i used, didnt even open a book. just kept doing practice exams until i was consistently hitting like 85-90% and then i went and took the real thing. got a 32 out of 35. the regulations questions are the ones that tripped me up the most because some of them are really specific about frequencies and power limits and stuff, so pay extra attention to those. good luck

so this has been driving me nuts for about three weeks now. my 7300 started dropping receive audio intermittently, like it just goes completely silent for anywhere from two seconds to maybe half a minute then comes back like nothing happened. transmit seems fine, i can hit a repeater and people hear me no problem, and the s-meter is still moving when it's 'deaf' so it's definitely receiving rf just not passing audio through.
already checked the obvious stuff — volume knob is fine, no mute function accidentally on, AF gain is where it always is. i swapped headphones thinking it was the jack but same thing on the internal speaker. did a full reset twice and it came back within a day both times. firmware is current.
im starting to wonder if it's thermal — it seems worse after the rig has been on for an hour or more but i haven't been systematic enough about it to say that for sure. has anyone seen anything like this on a 7300 or know what i should even be looking at on the board? i'm decent with a soldering iron but i've never been inside one of these SDR-based rigs before and i'm not sure how much is serviceable vs just swap the board.

for self supporting in an open field with no trees, look into the Spiderbeam fiberglass poles if you havent already. the 12m one is pretty solid and packs down to nothing, we use them for field day every year. you'll need good guying though, any wind at all and a unsupported 40 foot pole with wire on it gets sketchy fast. we had one come down mid-contest a couple years back and it landed on somebodys car which was not a great moment lol.
also on the linked dipole — make sure your feedline routing is thought out ahead of time because it can get real messy real fast with two stations and you dont want common mode problems coupling between the two HF rigs, especially on adjacent bands. choke baluns at the feedpoints and maybe a line isolator on at least one run. just something to keep in mind.

honest answer: the question pool method works fine and theres no shame in it. the pool is public, the exam questions come straight from it word for word, so if you know the pool you know the exam. hamstudy is what i used and i passed first try no problem. just do the practice tests until youre consistently getting like 85% or better and youll be good, the passing score is only 74% which is 26 out of 35 questions.
the electrical theory stuff, yeah theres a handful of questions on ohms law and maybe some basic power calculations but its not a huge portion. i remember maybe 4 or 5 questions out of 35 being actual math. if you just memorize which formula to use for which type of question youre mostly fine even if you dont fully understand why. not saying thats ideal but for getting your ticket it works. once youre actually on the air you pick up a lot more anyway.

congrats on getting it done, that first one is always the hardest because you build it up so much in your head. 34 QSOs is a solid activation especially solo with modest gear.
on the 40m vs 20m question -- honestly both if you can swing it. i usually run a linked dipole so i can drop down to 40 later in the day when 20 starts to get long. mornings 20m is usually great for reaching hunters across the country and you'll get a lot more spots from people who hear you. 40m is more local but thats not a bad thing either, lots of dedicated hunters monitoring it. if you're running an endfed you might just try cutting it for 40 and see how it loads on 20 with your tuner, a lot of people get away with that.
also get a fisher space pen or just tape a backup pen to your log clipboard, that charcoal thing is hilarious but i guarantee youll forget the pen again otherwise

So i was poking around on the Icom website last night after seeing someone mention it on another group and it looks like theres been some chatter about new rigs coming out possibly later this year. I cant find solid specs anywhere yet, just rumors and a few blurry photos floating around. anybody else seen this or know more than I do?
Also completely separate thing — 10 meters has been absolutely wild the last few days. I was just spinning the dial kind of half paying attention and suddenly I'm hearing stations from Brazil and some EU stuff just rolling in. Hasnt been that good in a while, at least from my location. Solar flux must be up because the last few weeks before this it was pretty dead up there.
Not really a question I guess just wanted to share since its been kind of an exciting week for the hobby. Feel free to dump any other news or stuff youve seen here too.

yeah the iambic thing takes a while, dont get discouraged. i switched from a straight key to a paddle probably fifteen years ago and i remember thinking the same thing. what helped me was just slowing way down in the keyer speed, like embarrassingly slow, and really focusing on the muscle memory for each letter individually before trying to send at any kind of real pace. the iambic squeeze technique specifically i didnt really use much for a long time, i was mostly just single-paddle too and thats fine honestly, plenty of great ops never use iambic mode at all.
one thing that really helped me was using a practice oscillator and just spending 10 minutes a day sending random text, not callsigns or the same words over and over but like newspaper articles or whatever. forces you out of the muscle memory patterns you already have. give it another month before you judge yourself

Don't forget about the bonus points for operating on emergency power and for having an ARRL official visit your station. Also consider setting up a simple 2m FM setup for local contacts - sometimes those are the most fun conversations of the whole weekend!

for self supporting in an open field with no trees, look into the Spiderbeam fiberglass poles if you havent already. the 12m one is pretty solid and packs down to nothing, we use them for field day every year. you'll need good guying though, any wind at all and a unsupported 40 foot pole with wire on it gets sketchy fast. we had one come down mid-contest a couple years back and it landed on somebodys car which was not a great moment lol.
also on the linked dipole — make sure your feedline routing is thought out ahead of time because it can get real messy real fast with two stations and you dont want common mode problems coupling between the two HF rigs, especially on adjacent bands. choke baluns at the feedpoints and maybe a line isolator on at least one run. just something to keep in mind.

Don't forget about the bonus points for operating on emergency power and for having an ARRL official visit your station. Also consider setting up a simple 2m FM setup for local contacts - sometimes those are the most fun conversations of the whole weekend!

just took mine like 6 weeks ago so this is fresh. the band plan stuff tripped me up more than the theory honestly, like knowing exactly which portions of which bands you get as a General vs Extra vs whatever. there are a few questions that are basically just memorization. the electrical theory i just kind of brute forced by doing practice tests over and over until i recognized the answers, didnt fully understand all of it but got through fine
one thing -- once you pass get on HF as fast as you can even if your setup is rough. i literally strung a wire out my window the same weekend and made my first contact on 40m ssb and it was kind of a big deal for me personally. dont wait until you have the perfect antenna or rig because that day never comes