Amanda Jackson

yeah the allstar + remote HF thing is one of those ideas that sounds great until you actually try to implement it and then you realize every component in the chain wants to add its own delay and suddenly youre having conversations that feel like a moon bounce QSO. i went down that rabbit hole for a while.
what rig control software are you using alongside RCForb btw? i found that having both rigctld and the RCForb rig interface trying to talk to the 7300 at the same time over the same virtual COM port was causing some weird timing issues for me that kind of manifested as audio glitches weirdly enough, took me forever to figure out that was the culprit

yeah my first QSO i totally forgot to say over and just went silent for like five seconds like an idiot. the other guy was patient about it though. this hobby has some of the most welcoming people ive met which honestly surprised me. enjoy it

not a dumb question at all, this stuff trips up a lot of new hams. so the short version — technicians do get some HF but yeah its limited. you get 10 meters for phone above 28.300 MHz and there are small CW/data slices on 15, 40, and 80 meters too but they're pretty narrow. the 10 meter phone allocation is actually the most useful of the bunch, especially when the solar cycle is up like it is now.
as for your band plan question, thats actually a really good one that a lot of people dont think to ask. the FCC allocates frequency ranges to different services and sets the license class privileges within amateur radio, but the specific band plans you see on the ARRL website are voluntary gentlemens agreements basically. so technically nobody can fine you for calling CQ on a frequency thats traditionally used for digital modes, but you'll get an earful from other operators. the FCC rules are the legal floor, band plans are the social contract on top of that.
grab a copy of the ARRL handbook or even just the part 97 quick reference card they publish, it lays out the privileges by license class in a table thats way easier to read than the actual regulation text.

this is really helpful to read actually, im fairly new to ARES and just got my general so ive been trying to understand what these drills actually look like in practice vs what the handbook describes. the winlink part especially — i set it up on my laptop a few months ago and sent a couple test messages but i honestly dont know if id be able to troubleshoot it under pressure if something wasnt connecting right. maybe i should find someone to practice with more before the next exercise.

the PTT tail thing is a known annoyance with RCForb and a lot of people just live with it or switch to CW/digital where it doesnt matter as much. but there is actually a VOX tail setting buried in the server config on the remote end, not the client side, which i think trips people up. if you look in the server settings under audio there should be something like a hang time or tail delay value. default is usually way too conservative because they set it for bad internet connections.
also 180ms is on the edge for comfortable phone work in my experience. i have a similar setup to a mountain top site and i found anything over 150ms starts feeling wrong on phone even if technically the audio is fine. the brain just gets confused. for what its worth i ended up using a separate cheap VPS to relay the control data and shaved about 30ms off which actually made a noticeable difference. might be worth looking at where your routing is going geographically because sometimes the path is just dumb and adding hops locally is counterintuitive but faster

this is pretty much exactly what i needed to read right now honestly. im kind of new to chasing DX seriously, been licensed a couple years but only started really working the DXpeditions this year. i got completely obliterated trying to work a recent one and i was just calling calling calling and never once thought to actually study what the guy was doing. gonna try your approach next time. how long do you usually listen before you start calling, like is 15 min always enough or does it depend?

i went through this same thing last spring and just ended up ordering the X510 because someone local had one and let me compare it side by side with a cheap comet dual bander they had up. the diamond just felt more solidly built when i had it in my hands, the radials locked in better. no idea if that translates to RF performance but i havent had to touch it since i put it up and we had some pretty gnarly wind this winter so thats something

ok so i passed my general exam back in march and ive been kind of afraid to transmit because im not 100% sure where i'm allowed to operate. i know there are band plans and then theres the actual FCC part 97 rules and i keep reading stuff online that contradicts each other. like someone in a facebook group told me generals cant use certain parts of 40m for phone but then someone else said that was outdated info. i looked at the actual part 97 subpart d or whatever and it's honestly kind of hard to parse if you're not used to reading legal documents. is there like a plain english breakdown somewhere that's actually current? and does the arrl band plan have any legal weight or is it just a gentlemans agreement type thing

honestly the theory stuff is more useful than i expected when i went for it. i spent maybe 6 weeks going through the question pool and i remember being frustrated by the transmission line matching questions and the filter stuff but once it clicked it actually helped me understand why my antenna tuner was behaving weird on certain bands. so its not totally useless knowledge even if you dont go into engineering or anything like that.
the exam fee situation is a bit annoying right now, the FCC charges 35 dollars for the license application and then the VE session is usually 15 bucks or sometimes free depending on the club running it. so budget like 50 bucks to be safe. as for the privileges i thought the same thing you did before i upgraded but having access to the full 20m CW segment has been genuinely useful during contests and the 60m channel situation is slightly different for extras too i think. the band edges on 80 and 75 open up more than you'd expect once you start hunting DX on phone.
just use hamstudy.org and grind the questions for a few weeks, you'll get there

yeah the browser tab juggling gets old fast, been there. what most people end up doing is using a logging program that has a built in cluster feed so the spots just pop up right in the software and you can click to tune your radio if you have CAT control set up. Log4OM and N1MM both do this, DXKeeper/DXLab suite too. once you have that running you barely need to have DXwatch open separately
for mobile i use the DX Toolbox app when im away from the shack, its decent enough for checking spots on the go. QRZ has their own app too but i mostly just use the website. the real game changer for me was getting the cluster feed piped directly into my logging software though, seriously cuts down the lag between seeing a spot and actually being on frequency

yeah im in the same boat honestly, been doing my local net for maybe 6 months now and it still feels a little awkward sometimes. one thing i noticed is that some nets post their procedures on the club website which helped me a lot — might be worth checking if your club has something like that. ours had a whole little guide for new check-ins.