Rick Anderson

so i got my technician last year and ive been thinking about eventually upgrading but honestly the thing that keeps pulling me back to ham radio in general is morse code, like i find it fascinating but i have no idea how people actually go about learning it from scratch
i downloaded a couple apps but i cant tell if im doing it right or if theres like a wrong way to go about it. one app has me memorizing the dots and dashes on paper and another one just plays sounds at me. is one method better than the other? i feel like im just fumbling around with no direction. someone at my club mentioned the koch method but i dont really know what that means or if its the thing i should be doing
also how long did it take you to get to a point where you could actually use it on the air, not looking for an exact answer just a rough idea so i know what im getting into

so ive been doing contests more seriously the last couple years, mostly phone but getting into CW now, and i keep reading about SO2R and wondering if theres a point where it actually makes sense to set it up vs just running a clean single radio setup. right now i'm using an IC-7300 and getting maybe 400-500 QSOs in a typical 24 hour contest which i know isnt spectacular but its decent for a part timer who sleeps.
the rate optimization stuff i've been reading about is interesting though -- like working the mult on one radio while running a frequency on the other, that makes obvious sense on paper but i can only imagine how confusing it gets in practice when you're already tired at hour 18 and trying to copy calls through QRM. does anyone actually do SO2R with modest antennas or is it really only worth it if you've got a serious station? i feel like my attic dipoles would just eat each other alive with the second radio keying up
also curious if people have thoughts on when during a contest you should shift your strategy -- like i tend to S&P the whole first hour to log easy mults then try to find a run frequency but i'm not sure that's optimal or if i'm just doing what feels comfortable

does it do it on SSB and CW both or just one mode? i ask because i chased a similar problem on a different rig for way too long and it turned out to be the mic compressor doing something stupid on SSB that i had turned on and forgotten about. probably not your issue since you mentioned the dummy load but just thought id throw it out there.

passed my tech last spring after about 10 days of studying so it definitely doesnt take months or anything like that. i used the HamStudy app on my phone mostly just during lunch breaks at work. one thing i'd say is dont just memorize answers without understanding anything, like for the electrical stuff and the basic antenna theory it actually helps to get the concept a little because some of the questions are worded differently than what you might have memorized. but even if you just grind the flash cards you'll probably be fine honestly

omg yes 10m has been so fun lately im still pretty new to HF like only had my general for about 4 months and i finally feel like i know what im doing enough to actually chase some DX. made my first ever contact to Europe last weekend which was just a random Thursday afternoon, wasnt even a contest or anything. guy in Spain came back to my call on the second try which felt pretty amazing honestly.
dont know much about the new Icom stuff but ill keep an eye out, im still using a borrowed radio so im starting to think about what i might actually buy eventually and all these rumors make it hard to know if i should wait or just pull the trigger on something thats already out there

So ive been using Log4OM for a couple years now for general logging and i really like it, the interface makes sense to me and the QSL tracking stuff is solid. But every time a contest rolls around everyone seems to be running N1MM and honestly i get why, it just handles contest stuff way better. My question is whether people are actually running both on the same machine and swapping between them or if theres a cleaner way to handle this.
Right now my workflow is kind of a mess. I do WSJT-X for FT8 which logs to Log4OM fine, but when i jumped into the ARRL DX contest last month i spun up N1MM and now i have logs in two places and im not totally sure how to merge them without creating duplicate entries. I exported the N1MM log as an ADIF and tried importing it into Log4OM but a few things looked weird, some of the exchange data didnt map right and i ended up with some contacts missing the RST fields.
Is there a standard way people handle this or am i overcomplicating it. Would love to hear how other people set up their shack software, especially if youre doing a mix of digital modes and contesting.

yeah people definitely still use it, 40 meters especially is crawling with CW activity late evenings. im still learning myself honestly, been at it about a year and im maybe at 12 wpm on a good day which feels slow but whatever. i use the morse code ninja videos on youtube and just have them on in the background sometimes while im doing other stuff, not sure if thats actually helping or not but it feels like it is lol. the main thing i noticed is you really cant rush it, some letters just take forever to click and then one day it just does. Q was the last one i got and now i hear it immediately without thinking which is kind of a weird feeling

does it do it on SSB and CW both or just one mode? i ask because i chased a similar problem on a different rig for way too long and it turned out to be the mic compressor doing something stupid on SSB that i had turned on and forgotten about. probably not your issue since you mentioned the dummy load but just thought id throw it out there.

I do 15 minutes of Koch method first thing each morning, then 10-15 minutes of actual QSOs in the evening. The morning session builds reflexes, evening practice applies them.
Key tip: don't write everything down during QSOs - practice head copy for short exchanges!

I'm a General looking at upgrading to Extra and trying to understand if the additional band privileges are worth the study time. Amateur Extra Class privileges include all frequencies and modes on the HF bands, but what does this mean in practice?
I know Extra Class licensees are authorized to operate on all frequencies allocated to the Amateur Service. 80, 40, 20, and 15 meters have segments exclusively for Amateur Extra operators.
Key questions:
Are the Extra-only segments actually less crowded during contests? How much difference does it make for DX work? Worth it for someone primarily interested in digital modes?

im in a similar boat, got a dipole on 40 at about 30 feet and the west coast is always a struggle from the midwest. what helped me more than anything was just getting on the band at the right time honestly, like the greyline stuff is real. but antenna wise i did put up an inverted-v configuration and i think the lower angle helped slightly, or maybe i just got lucky who knows.
one thing i did read somewhere is that a fan dipole or adding a loading coil to tilt it more broadside toward where you want to work can help, not sure how practical that is in your yard though.