Mark Johnson

Stuck at around 80 QSOs/hour average rate in major contests and looking to break into triple digits consistently. Station runs K3 + Expert 1.3K-FA, TH7DX at 60ft, and N1MM+. Rate seems to plateau during prime time hours when everyone's running.
QSO rate - the number of QSOs per hour - is almost everything in contesting, but I'm struggling with the mechanics of maintaining momentum. Currently doing mostly S&P with occasional short CQ runs when I find clear frequencies.
Specific questions: How do you maintain rate during slow periods? What's the optimal balance between running and S&P? Should I focus more on SO2R techniques, or are there single-radio strategies I'm missing? Even at 60 Q/hour you'd work 2,880 stations in 48 hours - at 30/hour that's still 1,440 stations.

ok so i finally passed my general last month and ive been trying to figure out where i can actually transmit on 40 meters. i know theres a chart somewhere but honestly it confuses me more than it helps. like i see people say dont operate near the band edges but nobody explains why or what counts as near. i was going to try some SSB around 7.250 but then someone in a net said something about staying away from 7.300 and i didnt really understand what they meant. is 7.250 fine or am i going to accidentally stomp on someone important or go out of my allocation or something

We went with EchoLink on our club repeater and love it! The software runs on Windows, has mobile apps for iPhone and Android, plus the new web-based version means our members can participate from anywhere. Just remember that callsign validation is required which takes a few days for new users.

N1MM UI from 2003 lol fair point but i think thats kind of the point, its not trying to be pretty its trying to be fast. during a contest when youre running 200 contacts an hour you really dont want anything fancy getting in the way. that said for rag chewing and digital modes on a slow afternoon i totally get wanting something that doesnt feel like a tax software from the bush era.
i havent used Log4OM much myself, tried it once and got confused by the module layout but that might just be me. one thing i will say is that if you do a lot of FT8 the WSJT-X to N1MM pipeline is really well documented at this point, theres a KB article on the N1MM site that walks through exactly which UDP settings to use and it finally made sense to me after i read that instead of just guessing at port numbers.

We've been piloting it in our county since August. The recommendation is to complete Level 1 and advance to Level 2 as soon as practical. The ICS-213 practice has really improved our message handling during nets - much more professional now.

same boat as you a few months ago lol. i ended up going down a rabbit hole with this stuff. one thing that helped me was setting up filters on the cluster so im not drowning in spots for bands i cant work — DXwatch lets you do that, and so does DX Summit which is another one worth bookmarking. the QRZ thing is useful but yeah sometimes the pages are super bare, especially for rarer DX entities where the operator just put up a basic page.
havent really cracked the mobile logging thing either tbh, i just take notes on paper when im portable and sort it out later which is probably terrible practice but it works for me so far

i'm in almost the exact same spot right now lol, like 11wpm on a good day. someone in another thread mentioned just jumping straight into real QSOs on 40m even if you miss half of it, said that forced his brain to adapt faster than any software practice. havent tried it yet because honestly the idea terrifies me but maybe thats the point

so ive been running my 7300 stock for about two years now and honestly its been fine but i kept reading about people swapping in the Collins mechanical filters on older rigs and started wondering if there was anything comparable worth doing to a modern SDR based radio like this. ended up going down a rabbit hole and found a few threads about tweaking the DSP filter settings and also some people doing hardware mods to the front end for better IMD performance.
what i actually ended up doing was the front end mod where you bypass part of the stock input filtering and add a low noise preamp stage. took me a weekend and honestly the difference on 40m in the evening is noticeable. the noise floor dropped maybe 3-4 dB by my measurement, might be confirmation bias but i dont think so. also reflashed the firmware to an older version someone recommended because apparently the newer ones have some AGC behavior that people dont love.
anyone else been messing with the 7300 hardware or is everyone just leaving them stock and using the DSP? curious what actual improvements people have gotten vs just tweaking software settings

the hollow sound is almost always too much compression or the mic too close. i had the exact same issue and turns out i was just talking into the PR-40 like it was a stage mic, like right up on the grille. backing off like 4-6 inches made a noticeable difference. these side-address condenser type mics dont behave the same as the little dynamic desk mics that come in the box with radios.
also dont sleep on the bass rolloff switch if your mic has one, some heil mics have a presence boost setting too that can help with that hollow thing. might be worth checkin the manual just to make sure you havent overlooked something physical on the mic itself before going deep into the radio menus.

ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and im finally starting to get into chasing dx a little bit. i set up an account on qrz a while back mostly just for the logbook but i noticed there's a cluster spotting thing on there too and i wasn't sure how it relates to dxwatch or if they're pulling from the same data or what.
like right now i have both tabs open and sometimes the spots show up on one but not the other, or they show up at slightly different times. is one considered more reliable or is it just about what you're used to? i also saw people mention something called dxscape and now im even more confused about which one to actually use.
also is there a way to filter by band on dxwatch because i mostly operate on 20m and 40m and scrolling through everything is a little overwhelming when there's a big pileup happening somewhere

so i just passed my technician exam last week and im finally looking at getting my first radio. everyone keeps telling me to start with a handheld since its cheaper and easier to figure out but there are just SO many options and i honestly dont know where to start. ive been looking at the baofeng uv-5r because its like 25 bucks and seems popular but then other people are telling me to stay away from it and get something from yaesu or kenwood instead.
my main thing is i just want to be able to hit the local repeaters and maybe do some simplex stuff at events eventually. i dont need anything crazy. but i also dont want to buy something that breaks in a month or is super frustrating to program. whats a reasonable budget for a decent starter HT and is the baofeng hate justified or is it just radio snobs being snobby about it lol

same boat as you a few months ago lol. i ended up going down a rabbit hole with this stuff. one thing that helped me was setting up filters on the cluster so im not drowning in spots for bands i cant work — DXwatch lets you do that, and so does DX Summit which is another one worth bookmarking. the QRZ thing is useful but yeah sometimes the pages are super bare, especially for rarer DX entities where the operator just put up a basic page.
havent really cracked the mobile logging thing either tbh, i just take notes on paper when im portable and sort it out later which is probably terrible practice but it works for me so far

Stuck at around 80 QSOs/hour average rate in major contests and looking to break into triple digits consistently. Station runs K3 + Expert 1.3K-FA, TH7DX at 60ft, and N1MM+. Rate seems to plateau during prime time hours when everyone's running.
QSO rate - the number of QSOs per hour - is almost everything in contesting, but I'm struggling with the mechanics of maintaining momentum. Currently doing mostly S&P with occasional short CQ runs when I find clear frequencies.
Specific questions: How do you maintain rate during slow periods? What's the optimal balance between running and S&P? Should I focus more on SO2R techniques, or are there single-radio strategies I'm missing? Even at 60 Q/hour you'd work 2,880 stations in 48 hours - at 30/hour that's still 1,440 stations.