John Patterson

im literally in the same boat as you right now lol, been trying to learn for about 6 weeks. what i found helps me is just listening to actual on-air CW even when i cant copy most of it yet, like tuning around 7.050 or wherever and just letting it wash over me. probably sounds weird but i feel like my ear is starting to pick out letters i know. also just.com has some practice files you can download, theres slow QSO recordings which are nice for a beginner i think even if the speed thing is debatable

I was in the same boat not too long ago. One thing nobody told me that made a huge difference — practice sending random 5 character groups, not words. Words let your brain autocomplete and you stop actually hearing the code. Random groups force you to really listen to what youre sending and it tightens up your fist a lot faster. there's stuff on the LCWO site for this. Also the Bencher BY-1 is a solid paddle to learn on, good choice on that one.

i'm pretty new to chasing DX seriously and honestly reading stuff like this is really helpful. quick question though -- when you say split operation, the DX station is transmitting on one frequency and listening on a different one right? i think i understand that but i got confused once when i saw a spot that said like "14.195 up 5" and wasnt sure if that meant i should transmit exactly 5 khz up or somewhere in that range. felt stupid asking on the cluster chat lol

Consider the OCF Masters approach with center loading capacitors to selectively raise lower band resonances while keeping high band coverage. This could solve your 12m issue without compromising other bands.

yeah i had something similar when i put a radio in my jeep, drove me nuts for like two weeks. turned out my fuse was way too far from the battery. i thought i had it close but it was actually closer to the firewall. not saying thats your problem but worth double checking everything. also the FTM-500 has some squelch and noise blanker settings in the menu that might help in the meantime while you track it down. i dont remember the exact menu path off the top of my head but its in there somewhere.

so ive been running an rtl-sdr v3 for about a year now mostly doing aircraft and some wideband stuff and i got pretty comfortable with SDR# and then started messing around with direct sampling mode to get into HF and honestly it works way better than i expected for something that cost like 25 bucks but ive been eyeing the RSP1A for a while now and the price has come down enough that its not totally crazy the main thing i keep going back and forth on is whether the preamp and better ADC on the RSP1A actually makes a noticeable difference for shortwave broadcast and amateur bands below 30 mhz or if im just gonna spend the money and think oh ok its a little better i guess. i dont have a great antenna situation either, running a random wire out the window about 30 feet long with a 9:1 unun into a nooelec balun, so maybe the antenna is the limiting factor anyway and better hardware wont do much anyone switched from rtl to the RSPx series and had an actual noticeable improvement or is this one of those things where you spend more and convince yourself its better