Robert Miller

yeah what he said about the EQ is real, i ignored that for way too long on mine. one thing i'd add is just get on websdr or have someone you trust do a real recording of your signal and actually listen back to it. sounds obvious but i didnt do it for like a year and when i finally heard myself i was like oh wow that explains the reports. turned out i had a grounding issue that was adding some low level hum and i never would have caught it just going by ALC and reports alone.

yeah what he said. also make sure you have the net control's callsign written down somewhere and the primary and any backup frequencies — dont rely on memory when you're standing out in the cold at 0630. i keep a little laminated card in my go bag with all of that plus the phonetic alphabet even though i know it by heart now, just a habit from my first few years doing RACES events.
oh and one thing nobody told me early on — when in doubt, just say your callsign and stand by. dont step on traffic trying to figure out what to do. net control will come back to you.

so i passed my technician exam last thursday and literally the same night i was on 2m with a cheap baofeng i borrowed from my buddy. i had no idea what i was doing, forgot to say my callsign at the end of the transmission like three times and the guy on the other end had to remind me. super embarrassing but he was really cool about it and we talked for like 20 minutes about antennas and stuff. i didnt understand half of what he said but i was just happy to be on the air for real finally.
anyway i just wanted to say hi to everyone here, ive been lurking this forum for a few months while i was studying and you all helped me a lot without even knowing it. now i gotta figure out what radio to actually buy because i cant borrow my friends forever

oh man the freeze thing is so real, i had that for probably the first six months of actually getting on 40m CW. what helped me was just jumping into the shallow end and calling CQ myself at like 13 wpm and letting whoever responds set the pace from there. most people will qrs if you ask and experienced CW ops are almost always patient with newer folks.
on the paddle question — honestly you dont need to spend a lot to start. i used a cheap chinese iambic paddle for over a year before i upgraded and it was fine once i adjusted the tension and the gap. the MFJ-564 or similar clones are not pretty but they work. when you do know what feel you like then maybe look at something nicer but dont let gear be the thing that slows you down from actually getting on the air. the keyer built into most modern rigs is totally adequate too, you dont need a standalone keyer unless your radio doesnt have one.
the expensive paddles are mostly about feel and longevity and yeah the machining, some guys just love how a good Begali or Schurr feels and thats valid but its not a requirement at all

i went through the exact same thing a few months ago lol. what finally helped me was just running gpredict on my laptop next to me with the doppler display up so i could at least see roughly where i should be, even without CAT control its useful just as a reference. also 47 degrees is a solid pass, you should definitely be hearing traffic on it. if you were only getting noise i wonder if maybe you had uplink and downlink swapped or something? i did that embarrisingly long time before i caught it

the wall around 10-12 is super common, almost everybody hits it. what helped me break through was switching from copying individual characters to trying to recognize whole words at a glance, like your brain stops hearing dah-dit-dit and starts hearing the whole word "land" as one sound. took me maybe another 3 months of daily practice to get comfortable at 20 but i was only doing like 15-20 min a day so your mileage may vary.
also dont be scared to get on the air, honestly most operators are really patient with slower stations and the CW Ops guys run practice nets specifically for people learning, theres one called CWT i think but also just look up beginner CW nets in your region. getting on air is what really accelerated my speed more than any trainer software, something about the pressure of a real qso makes your brain lock in differently

I've been doing WWFF for about two years now and honestly the submission process still feels a bit clunky to me compared to POTA's website. But it works. I export ADIF from Log4OM and upload directly, never had a rejection yet. The main thing is making sure your callsign, reference number, and dates all match exactly or it kicks it back.
Also worth joining the WWFF facebook group if you havent already, theres usually someone who can help troubleshoot and people post activation reports which are fun to read through

congrats on already being that close without even trying, thats actually a solid start. so for DXCC the paper QSLs absolutely count, you just have to get them verified at an ARRL card checking session — your local club probably does them or you can send them in directly. LOTW is easier for sure but dont throw away your bureau cards, they still have value for this.
WAZ is a CQ Magazine award, totally separate from ARRL. you need to work all 40 zones and yes some of them are genuinely painful to get, zone 26 being the classic one everyone complains about. but a lot of the zones stack up pretty fast if youve been working DX at all.
honestly with 87 confirmed my advice is just get on during good DX openings and work everything you havent worked before, dont overthink it yet. the last 10-15 toward 100 will slow down a bit but its very doable on a vertical and 100w if your location isnt terrible. WAS you can knock out mostly on 40m if you have patience.

does it happen at the same power level every time or does it vary? asking because i had a 7300 that did something vaguely like this and it turned out to be a dodgy connection on the power supply side rather than the radio itself — voltage was sagging just enough under load after warmup that the radio was backing off. worth throwing a meter on the supply terminals while its running if you havent already, just to rule that out before you start pulling boards.

honest answer: SO2R is a multiplier on your existing skill, not a replacement for it. if you're doing 1000 QSOs single radio, adding a second radio won't double that unless you already have solid band change discipline and know when to abandon a run frequency. i ran single op for probably six years before i set up a second radio and the first few contests i actually did WORSE because i was so distracted managing two VFOs that i lost my run freq constantly.
the dead time problem you're describing is real and SO2R does address it, but you can get most of that back just by being more aggressive about when you move. a lot of ops sit on a dying run freq way too long out of habit. if the rate drops below maybe 40/hr for more than 10 minutes on a band that should be producing, just go S&P for a bit and come back. also are you using the packet cluster or running assisted? that changes the S&P math quite a bit

honestly same boat as you a while back. what helped me was just asking a local ham to do a side by side with me on a simplex frequency so I could actually hear what I sounded like in real time while adjusting stuff. way more useful than asking for reports from random dx stations who just say "59" to everyone anyway lol. the 7300 has a monitor function too so you can hear yourself through the headphones which is kinda weird at first but helps you hear what you're transmitting

i just did my first Field Day back in june with our club and it kind of scratched that contesting itch for me a little bit, though i hear CQ WW is way more intense. for SOTA i finally did my first activation a few weeks ago up a local peak and it was honestly one of the best days ive had with this hobby so far, just you and a little radio and a wire antenna and suddenly people are calling you from all over. totally recommend getting out there before winter if you're in the northeast, some of the summits get real sketchy once theres ice and snow.

the extra dit thing is almost definitely your timing on releasing the paddle — iambic keyers are pretty sensitive and if you hang on the dit paddle even a tiny bit after finishing a dah it'll grab another element. took me forever to unlearn that when i switched from a straight key. some people actually turn off the iambic mode entirely and just use single lever mode on the keyer until they get the feel for it, might be worth trying that first so you're not fighting the squeeze timing while you're still building muscle memory
as for getting on the air, 10 wpm is totally fine. just put QRS in your CQ or answer someone who's calling slow. there are also dedicated slow speed nets, the FISTS club has a few and the SKCC folks are super welcoming to newer CW ops. honestly if you call CQ at 10 wpm most decent operators will come back to you at whatever speed you sent, just dont panic when they do and take your time

congrats on already being that close without even trying, thats actually a solid start. so for DXCC the paper QSLs absolutely count, you just have to get them verified at an ARRL card checking session — your local club probably does them or you can send them in directly. LOTW is easier for sure but dont throw away your bureau cards, they still have value for this.
WAZ is a CQ Magazine award, totally separate from ARRL. you need to work all 40 zones and yes some of them are genuinely painful to get, zone 26 being the classic one everyone complains about. but a lot of the zones stack up pretty fast if youve been working DX at all.
honestly with 87 confirmed my advice is just get on during good DX openings and work everything you havent worked before, dont overthink it yet. the last 10-15 toward 100 will slow down a bit but its very doable on a vertical and 100w if your location isnt terrible. WAS you can knock out mostly on 40m if you have patience.

so i finally got around to actually checking into a net for the first time last week and honestly it was kind of overwhelming in a good way i guess. i've been licensed for almost two years now but just kind of sat on the sidelines listening to nets without ever actually transmitting into one. the wednesday night 2m net on the local repeater seemed like a low pressure way to start.
anyway i checked in fine, gave my callsign and the net control acknowledged me but then there was a long pause and i wasn't sure if i was supposed to say more or just wait, ended up just waiting and it worked out fine. but im curious — is there some kind of standard format people follow when checking into a nets or does it vary a lot depending on who's running it? also saw something about a special event station coming up for a state fair or something, does anyone know how those work, like do you just tune around and call them or is there a specific frequency listed somewhere

A simple ground rod and 4 x 12m radials can work incredibly well if you're on a budget. Start with 16-20 radials and add more if needed. Dollar store speaker wire works for radials - just strip it apart. Focus on getting the antenna up first, then optimize the ground system.

so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and done a fair bit of HF work, some VHF contesting, but EME has always been this thing in the back of my mind that seemed completely out of reach. lately ive been reading more about it and with JT65 and the weak signal stuff it seems like maybe its not as impossible as i thought when people were doing it with massive yagi arrays in the 80s.
my main question is really about the antenna side of things. i keep reading wildly different things about what the minimum viable setup looks like for 2m EME. some guys say you can do it with a single long yagi and 400 watts if youre patient enough, others are talking about 4x4 yagi arrays and kilowatt amps like its the bare minimum. i have a decent sized backyard but im not trying to build a moonbounce station that my neighbors will form a committee about, you know.
also curious what the actual contact experience is like, like do you just call CQ and wait for ages or is there some coordination that happens. ive seen references to the EME chat pages and stuff but havent really dug in. anyone actually done this from a modest setup, not a superstation