Jennifer Lee

had the 7300 for a year before moving to the 7610 and yeah the dual receiver thing is genuinely useful even if you're not going full SO2R. i use it mostly to monitor another band while working a pileup and its nice to have. the waterfall on the 7610 is also just... better. smoother and the dynamic range feels more real if that makes sense, the 7300 can get a bit washed out in heavy QRM.
that said the 890 receive is supposed to be in a different league, i havent owned one but a buddy at the club runs one and he swears the roofing filters make a noticeable difference in a contest environment. the controls on the kenwood feel more traditional too if you like knobs for everything rather than touchscreen. i dont think you can go wrong either way but if SO2R is even a remote possibility down the road the 7610 makes more sense to grow into.
as for just adding an amp to the 7300, totally valid and probably the most cost efficient path but you said yourself its the rx you actually want so might as well be honest about that and get the radio upgrade first then add power later

CW Academy is absolutely worth the wait if you can get in. The structured approach and having an actual elmer guide you through the plateaus makes a huge difference. That said, if you're motivated, you can definitely do it solo - just takes more discipline and patience.

not a dumb question at all, i remember being totally lost on this when i first started chasing DX. so the short answer is yes, LoTW confirmations count for DXCC — ARRL has accepted LoTW credits for years now, you dont need a physical card if the other station confirms on LoTW. that said some DXpeditions and especially some rarer entities still only send paper cards so youll end up needing both eventually just depending on who you work.
WAS and DXCC are completely separate awards with separate applications, but if you log to LoTW and the other station does too, those confirmations can count toward whichever award applies. so yeah the same QSO can credit toward WAS if its a US state and toward DXCC if the entity is on the current list. WAZ is the CQ zones award — thats run by CQ Magazine not ARRL so thats a whole separate thing with its own confirmation process, though they do accept LoTW records too last i checked.
honestly just make sure youre uploading everything to LoTW from day one and send cards via bureau for anything that doesnt confirm electronically. 40 countries is a solid start, youll hit 100 faster than you think once you get your antennas sorted.

yeah the inverted-v thing is definitely part of it. when you drop those legs down you're compressing the angle between them and the feedpoint impedance falls, sometimes into the 30-35 ohm range depending on how steep your angle is. so even a perfectly resonant antenna is gonna show higher SWR into 50 ohm coax just because of the mismatch. 75 ohm coax actually works pretty well for inverted-v centers for exactly that reason, brings the SWR down noticeably.
the frequency shift — if the resonant point moved up after you trimmed it you definitely went too short, but the original shift upward from calculated is common with inverted-v too. the formula assumes horizontal and free space basically, real world with ground reflections and the angle of the legs means you usually need to add a little length, not cut. i'd add 6 inches or so back to each leg and see where you land. also 25 feet center height on 40m is pretty low, ground losses are probably eating into things a bit but thats a separate conversation

so i heard the local club is doing a table swap thing before the main event on saturday, pretty sure its at the fairgrounds parking lot starting around 7am. havent been to one of these in maybe two years since everything was cancelled and i honestly forgot how much i miss just wandering around looking at other peoples junk lol. anybody here planning to show up? i need a decent SWR meter and maybe some coax connectors if someone has a box of PL-259s they want to unload cheap

so i've been doing this more lately, just throwing on headphones and tuning around 40m after dinner, not really trying to make contacts or anything just... listening. picked up a couple guys in texas chatting about their antennas for like 45 minutes last night. didnt even key up just enjoyed it. kinda nice honestly, sometimes i forget why i got into this in the first place and then i have a night like that and it clicks again. anyone else do this or am i just getting weird in my old age lol

just wanted to say im in basically the same boat so you're not alone lol. been sitting at like 7wpm for ages. someone told me to try the Morse Mania app for just drilling individual characters until they feel automatic and that helped a little bit. i think part of my problem is i still count dits and dahs sometimes instead of just hearing the whole character as a sound, like you know the way you recognize a word in english without sounding out each letter. havent fully gotten there yet but its getting better i think

yeah i went through exactly this about two years ago. ended up keeping both in the kit honestly. the collinear stays on the pole the whole time for fm/repeater stuff and the yagi comes out when i want to work weak signal or when somebody is really on the edge. the arrow dual band is pretty light so its not a huge deal to throw it in the bag. the thing people dont tell you about using a yagi for repeater work is that multipath can actually get worse on some paths if youre right at the edge of a ridge, the null from the pattern can bite you. for ssb and digital weak signal stuff though its a completely different situation, the yagi makes a massive difference. if your activations are mostly fm repeater contacts i probably wouldnt bother, but if you ever want to get into vhf contesting or even just working the occasional ssb dx from a hilltop the yagi is worth every ounce.