Kiwi Operator

yeah i had the same question when i was starting out. i just listened for a while too but eventually worked up the nerve to do a late check-in and it was totally fine. the net control guy on our repeater actually said welcome glad you could join us or something like that. i think as long as your not stepping on someone mid-sentence its all good

yeah what he said basically. i'll add that i personally use phonetics any time theres even a little qsb or noise, like i dont wait until its a problem i just default to it. saves having to repeat yourself. on the local repeater i barely bother unless its a new person i havent talked to or the audio sounds weird that day the mixed phonetics thing drives me a little crazy honestly, not because its wrong exactly but when youre in a pile-up trying to work a rare one and someones throwing out "sugar papa easy" you just kinda want everyone on the same page lol. stick to NATO and youre fine anywhere in the world

so ive been at this for about four months now and im stuck somewhere around 11-12wpm and it feels like ive hit a wall. when i first started i was doing the Koch method with LCWO and honestly the first few months felt like real progress, went from nothing to being able to copy maybe 5-6 words a minute without too much pain. but now its like my brain just stops processing when things speed up even a little bit. i practice every day, usually 20-30 minutes in the morning before work. mostly just listening to random QSO recordings and doing the LCWO lessons. someone at the club told me i should be sending more, not just receiving, so ive been using a straight key to send back along with whatever im hearing but im not sure if thats actually helping or if im just reinforcing bad habits. curious how long it took other people to get comfortable around 20wpm, and what actually made the difference. i feel like some days i can copy pretty well and other days its like ive never heard morse code in my life which is frustrating. is that normal or am i doing something wrong

so this has been bugging me for a couple weeks now and i finally have time to sit down and really dig into it. my 7300 has been acting weird on transmit — starts out fine, maybe 80-90 watts on SSB, but after about 3-4 minutes of moderate use it just starts tapering down. like not a sudden drop, more like it slowly loses its will to live and ends up around 20-30 watts. receive is completely unaffected the whole time. first thing i checked was ALC and that looked normal, and the SWR on my dummy load is flat so its not an antenna issue. fans spin up when it should, doesnt feel like its overheating to the touch. i havent pulled it apart yet but im wondering if anyone has seen this pattern before — the gradual rolloff specifically. wondering if its thermal related even if it doesnt feel hot, or maybe something in the PA stage starting to go. radio is about 4 years old, not abused, mostly used for digital modes and some SSB contesting on weekends. any thoughts before i start probing around inside would be appreciated, dont want to just start replacing things randomly

the thing that gets people every single time is power cables and adapters. you think you have it covered and then you're at a deployment and your cigarette lighter adapter is the wrong gauge for sustained draw or you forgot the barrel connector that fits your specific radio. i actually laminated a checklist that lives in the lid of my kit and i still find something missing every time i do a real exercise. a few things i'd add beyond the obvious: a small notepad and multiple pens because gel pens stop working in the cold and pencils are annoying, printed copy of your local nets and frequencies because you wont always have cell service to look it up, and honestly a small LED lantern not just a headlamp because when youre operating for hours at a table the headlamp gets tiring. also dont forget a coax jumper or two in different lengths. i cant tell you how many times ive needed just like 3 more feet of coax to reach where i needed to set up. the EFHW is a solid choice for HF, i'd just make sure you have multiple ways to get it in the air. a telescoping fiberglass mast is worth every penny if you dont already have one.

honest answer is it varies a lot but the advice about learning by sound is solid, dont make the mistake of memorizing dit dah patterns because then youre translating in your head instead of just hearing the letter and thats a real pain to unlearn later. i did that when i first started and had to basically restart koch method worked well for me personally, theres a free program called lcwo.net that implements it and you can just work through it at your own pace. the idea is you start with just two characters at full speed, like 20 wpm, and only add more letters once you can copy those reliably. sounds weird to start fast but it trains your ear properly from the beginning. i was making actual contacts probably around the 8 month mark but i was only practicing maybe 15 minutes a day so mileage varies. there's also the chirpster app and jscwlib stuff if you want something on your phone. just be consistent, that matters way more than how long each session is