Anna Petrov

the LM386 is kind of notorious for this honestly. that oscillation at higher gain settings is really common if you dont have the right bypass on pin 7, thats the bypass pin and most people skip it but you really need a cap there, something like 10uf to ground. also check how close your input wiring is to your output wiring because with ugly construction that coupling can just kill you. the 120hz hum sounds like rectifier ripple getting in somewhere, either through the supply or through a ground loop. i'd try running it off a battery and see if the hum goes away, if it does you know its a supply issue and not a layout thing. if it stays then you've got a ground loop somewhere and that's more annoying to chase down. fwiw i built a DC receiver a few years back and spent like three weekends fighting audio issues, ended up redoing the whole audio section with an LM380 and it was night and day. the 386 can be made to work but it needs more babysitting than the datasheet implies.

dont give up on it, seriously. iambic took me way longer than i expected and i had been doing CW for years before i switched from a straight key. the squeeze technique for letters like C really does feel unnatural at first and your brain kind of has to rewire itself a bit. one thing that helped me a lot was slowing way down, like almost embarrassingly slow, maybe 8 or 9 wpm, just to get the muscle memory right before speeding back up. also some people actually get along better with mode A if mode B is tripping you up, worth trying. the difference is how it handles the last element when you release but honestly just try both and see which one makes more sense to your fingers. the bencher is a solid paddle so its not the gear thats the issue, just takes time. keep at it

i was in the same boat when i started, honestly just takes time. i printed out a Q code cheat sheet and had it next to the radio for like the first year. one thing that helped me was noticing that a lot of the codes follow a pattern — anything with QR sort of relates to interference or slowing down, and QS stuff tends to be about stopping or switching. not a hard rule but it helped things stick for me. QRT means shutting down your station, QRX is standby or wait, QRV means ready to operate. the abbreviations people use on digital modes and even just typing in forums can be different too, like OM means old man which is just how you refer to another ham, XYL is wife, YL is any woman operator. weird old terminology but its kind of part of the culture at this point

so i finally did my first activation last weekend, been chasing for about 8 months and kept telling myself id get out there eventually. picked a 1 point summit nearby, W4T/SU-something i forget the exact ref right now, figured it would be easy to ease into it. brought the FT-818 and a linked dipole, figured id just throw it up in a tree and work a pile on 40m. well. the tree situation was not great. its a bald summit basically, couple scrubby bushes, no real support for the wire. ended up just doing a kind of sad inverted V off my trekking pole which honestly barely cleared the ground on the ends. still made 4 contacts which i think is the minimum? so it counts. but the whole thing felt kind of cobbled together and im wondering if there's a better antenna solution for summits with no trees. also how do people find out in advance what a summit is actually like terrain and vegetation wise before they drive 2 hours to it

yeah the rhythm thing is real and i think its underrated advice honestly. i spent a long time just calling blind and getting nowhere. the other thing that helped me was working split properly -- a lot of guys dont realize the DX station often drifts where theyre listening based on where theyre getting answers. so if hes been working 5 up for the last 20 contacts and suddenly goes quiet for a second, he might be sliding up or down a bit. you kinda have to feel it out. tail-ending works sometimes but its risky because if the QSO before you runs long youre just adding to the noise. i had better luck on 17m than 15 for some reason, less congestion and the guys running the DXpedition seemed more patient on the higher bands. also running a modest station here too, KX3 into a wire but ive worked some genuinely rare ones just by being patient and picking my moment.

had the 991A for about two years before i moved to the 7300 and honestly the scope alone made it worth it for me. the 991A scope is kind of an afterthought — its there but its not something you actually use day to day in any meaningful way. the 7300 one you actually watch while youre tuning around, it changes how you operate a little bit. on 40m at night i can see the whole band pile up situation before i even touch the VFO. the filtering on the 7300 is also noticeably better to my ear on crowded bands, the roofing filter setup just handles adjacent signal situations cleaner. for ragchew and digital it doesnt matter as much but you'll still notice it. if you're not doing VHF from the shack i wouldnt even think about it, just get the 7300. the 450D is fine but once you use a proper SDR-based rig you kinda dont want to go back