Dave Williams

14 gauge stranded is fine, honestly anything from 12 to 18 works for a wire dipole, the gauge matters way more for current handling on high power rigs than for any electrical length stuff. for the center insulator i've been using 3/4 inch PVC pipe for years - just drill a hole through it on each axis, run the wire through, put a knot in it so it can't pull back, solder your SO-239 right to it. ugliest thing you've ever seen but mine has been up for six years through some pretty nasty winters. the tape is definitely not gonna hold, especially when the element starts swinging around in the wind and flexing at the feedpoint. that's where most homebrew dipoles fail, the mechanical stress at the solder joint. 1.4:1 off the bat on 40m is actually pretty decent, you're probably close on length. might creep up a bit once you get the thing in the air at real height versus just testing on the ground or whatever you did.

so ive had this 7300 for about 3 years and lately its been running low power across the board, doesnt matter what band. ALC looks normal on the display, the meter shows maybe 28-32w when im pushing it to full output. RF gain is fine, tried different antennas, swapped coax, same deal. mic gain and compression settings havent changed. the radio doesnt run hot or anything weird, fan comes on normally, no error codes showing up. i pulled the bottom cover and had a look around, nothing obviously burnt or smelling funny. my suspicion is something in the driver stage or maybe one of the finals is starting to go but im not sure how to isolate which one. i have a decent scope and a signal tracer but i havent cracked into the rf board yet because frankly icom's service manual for this thing is kind of dense and i dont want to make it worse. anyone been down this road with a 7300 or similar SDR-based rig? curious if theres a known weak point or if i should just send it to a tech. the radio still works fine otherwise, decodes FT8 great, receive is perfectly normal.

so ive been running an old TS-590SG for a few years now and its a great radio honestly no complaints but im kind of itching to upgrade and these two keep coming up whenever i read around. the IC-7300 is obviously the safer bet, tons of people have it, lots of youtube stuff, price has come down a lot. but the FTDX10 has that roofing filter setup and the RF-direct sampling on the 7300 is impressive but i keep reading mixed things about close-in dynamic range compared to the Yaesu. thing is my shack is pretty basic — dipole on 40m, an end-fed for the upper bands, and im mostly doing SSB and a little FT8 when the bands are boring. not really contesting seriously. would the roofing filter stuff on the FTDX10 even matter for how im operating or is that more of a contest/crowded band thing. also the 7300 touchscreen looks really nice in videos but i dunno if id actually use it that much day to day. anyone switched between these two or have both? genuinely cant decide and my wife is starting to ask questions about why i keep watching radio reviews at 11pm