Bob Williams

the 7300 receiver difference is real, not just paper specs. i went from an older Yaesu to a 7300 a couple years back and the first time i sat down with it on a busy 40m evening i was genuinely surprised how much cleaner everything sounded. the waterfall alone changes how you operate — you actually start to see propagation patterns and spot openings you'd have just tuned past before.
that said, the 991A is a solid radio and if you're brand new to HF the receiver difference isn't going to matter as much as just getting on the air and learning. and having 2m/70cm built in is genuinely handy for a home shack, one less thing to clutter the desk. if the guy selling it is someone you trust in your club and you can maybe put it on a dummy load and poke around the menus before buying, $750 for a working 991A is reasonable.
for FT8 and JS8Call either radio will work fine, both have USB audio built in. for POTA the 7300 is heavier and needs more power management thinking if youre running off battery, the 991A is similar but it does have a 5w low power mode which helps a bit. honestly either choice is a massive upgrade from a baofeng so you're not gonna go wrong, it really does come down to whether you want VHF/UHF integration or the nicer receiver.

FT8 abbreviations are a whole separate rabbit hole lol, like RRR and RR73 and 73 are all slightly different things and new people get them mixed up all the time. 73 just means best regards or kind of like goodbye, its not a Q code its just old telegraph shorthand that stuck around. RR73 in FT8 means received and goodbye basically, confirms the contact is done. i messed this up my first few weeks and kept sending wrong messages in sequences

so ive been using my old baofeng UV-5R for about two years now and honestly its fine for what it is but im starting to feel like i want something a bit more... i dont know, capable? reliable? hard to explain. it works but sometimes i feel like im missing stuff or the audio isnt great when im out hiking and theres background noise.
my main uses are local repeaters, APRS occasionally (though i dont have a dedicated TNC or anything, just playing with apps), and sometimes i take it out on SOTA activations with a friend who does that regularly. budget is probably somewhere in the $150-300 range but could stretch a little if something is really worth it.
ive been looking at the Yaesu FT-65 and the Kenwood TH-D74A but that kenwood is way out of my price range honestly. also looked at the Wouxun KG-UV9D but not sure about that one. anyone gone through this same decision lately or have strong feelings about any of these?

yeah what he said, and also worth knowing some people make up their own phonetics which is technically fine but can confuse people lol. heard a guy once use "Wisconsin" for W and it just threw me off for a second. stick with NATO and youll be understood everywhere, even by foreign stations which is kind of the whole point of standardizing it in the first place

so i finally picked up a used FT-7900R and i want to get it properly installed in my Camry but im kind of stuck on the antenna situation. the car is leased so i cant drill anything and the trunk lip mounts i keep seeing people talk about seem like they might not give the best ground plane. ive been looking at the mag mount route but i dont know, seems kind of janky for a permanent-ish install. does anyone run a through-glass NMO or something like that? i mostly just want to work the local repeaters on 2m and 440, nothing crazy. just dont want to compromise the radio performance too much or scratch up the car

your buddy's RFI story is pretty much every first SO2R attempt lol. i spent about three contests just debugging before i ever got a clean run going. the bandpass filters are not optional, learned that the hard way when i was keying up on 15 and my 40m audio turned into a wall of hash
one thing nobody told me early on is that SO2R isnt really about having two radios running flat out simultaneously, its more like... you have a radio thats running a pileup and a radio thats your scout, and you're listening to both but only ever transmitting on one at a time with a small guard time between them. N1MM plus has the alt+arrow key stuff built in for this and once it clicks it really does click. took me a full season to feel natural with it though
if youre not regularly putting up top 10 scores in your category on single radio i wouldnt bother yet honestly. get the rate discipline first like you said

ive been wanting to do basically this exact same setup, been on the fence about the 7900 vs the Kenwood TM-V71A for a few weeks now. how do you find the UI on the Yaesu? i've heard some people say the menu system is kind of buried but also some people dont care at all once its programmed. mostly gonna use it for local repeaters and maybe some simplex during commute so nothing crazy.

your ah estimate might be a bit high depending on how the actual net operates — if youre mostly listening and only transmitting in short bursts the 7300 at 50w isnt pulling that continuously. worth actually measuring your setup with a watt meter or one of those battery monitors before the exercise so you have real numbers instead of worst case guesses. i was surprised how low my actual consumption was once i measured it properly vs what i calculated on paper.
the MPAS is fine but yeah if 40m is the plan just cut a dipole, seriously takes like 20 minutes and some wire and you'll have zero regrets. i've used the chameleon stuff and its convienient but i always feel like i'm fighting the tuner more than i want to during an actual activation.

yeah the asphalt radial thing is annoying, ive just laid them on top and taped down the ends so nobody trips, works fine electrically even if it looks janky. for a parking lot i usually do like 8 radials minimum just fanning out from the base, you dont get the same performance as buried radials but its not as bad as people make it sound for local net work.
one thing i'll say about the buddipole as a vertical on 40 — watch your feedpoint impedance, at 25 feet youre going to want to play with the coil settings more than the manual suggests depending on what the SWR looks like. ive had better luck on 40 with it slightly detuned and letting the tuner in the 7300 sort it out than trying to nail resonance exactly. the 80m setup is where it gets fiddly, takes me a few tries every time.

yeah what he said. i went through the exact same thing when i first started checking into our wednesday night net. i actually called in my full name and grid square on the first transmission like i was reading from a script and net control kind of chuckled and said "copy just your call next time." wasnt embarassing or anything just one of those things you learn by doing. after a few weeks it just becomes automatic honestly.

yeah i was in the same boat like 8 months ago lol. i just did practice tests basically the whole time, maybe looked at a youtube video here and there when i really didnt get something. took me about 3 weeks of casual studying. the parts about electrical safety and operating procedures are pretty easy, the math scared me but theres only a few questions on it and honestly if you just memorize what the answers are you can get through it. one thing i wish someone told me is to just go take the test sooner than you think youre ready, worst case you fail and see what areas need more work and most VE sessions let you retest same day if you want

yeah i was in the same boat like 8 months ago lol. i just did practice tests basically the whole time, maybe looked at a youtube video here and there when i really didnt get something. took me about 3 weeks of casual studying. the parts about electrical safety and operating procedures are pretty easy, the math scared me but theres only a few questions on it and honestly if you just memorize what the answers are you can get through it. one thing i wish someone told me is to just go take the test sooner than you think youre ready, worst case you fail and see what areas need more work and most VE sessions let you retest same day if you want

went through this exact process last year. the 31 day window thing is real and the waiting is kind of brutal lol. i used a site called AE7Q to track available calls and see how many applicants were going for the same one, super useful for figuring out your odds before you commit.
one thing i'd add — make sure your application on the ULS actually went through and shows as pending, sometimes people think they submitted and it didnt actually go. just double check the status in the system.