the thing is i dont really have a good reason to replace it. the 590 works fine. but every time i see the 7300s waterfall display i get a little jealous. is that a dumb reason to spend 700 bucks or whatever the difference would be after selling the kenwood? im not doing any digital modes or contesting, just ragchewing mostly. would i actually notice a difference on receive or is this just shiny object syndrome and i should leave well enough alone

the dual watch on the 7610 is kind of appealing and the roofing filters on the 890 seem like they'd help in a contest pile-up situation but i dunno, maybe im just having shiny object syndrome and the 7300 is doing everything i actually need it to do. my shack is pretty basic — the 7300 into an LDG tuner and a homemade fan dipole up about 30 feet, nothing crazy

has anyone actually made this jump and felt like it was genuinely worth the money or did you feel like you could have just stuck with what you had? not looking to spend 2500+ unless theres a real practical difference day to day

anyway my main thing right now is i have a G5RV up about 30 feet fed with some old ladder line into a manual tuner and i know the 7300 has a built in tuner but i dont think itll handle the impedance swing on ladder line right? so im assuming i still use the external tuner and just bypass the internal one. also wondering if anyone has opinions on the scope, like is it actually useful day to day or do you mostly ignore it after the novelty wears off. and the audio on this thing out of the box sounds way better than i expected honestly

first impression is obviously the screen, like everyone says. the panadapter alone has changed how i operate, i actually find myself just watching the band for a few minutes before i even key up which i never did before. the filtering is stupid good compared to what i was used to, especially crowded 40m conditions on weekday evenings when everyone and their grandmother is on.

one thing that did throw me off is the touch interface when youre wearing gloves or have cold hands in the shack in winter, it gets kind of annoying. my shack is in the garage and it gets cold. not a dealbreaker but worth mentioning. also took me a while to figure out the scope settings so it wasnt just a smear of noise, there are a bunch of ref level and speed adjustments that make a huge difference once you dial them in.

anyone else made a similar jump from older iron to something with a built in panadapter? curious how long it took you to really feel at home with it

first thing i noticed is just how different the waterfall feels compared to running SDRuno alongside the old rig. its all integrated and snappy, scrolling through 40m at night and actually seeing where the activity is without tabbing between windows is kind of a game changer honestly. the touch screen took maybe a day to get used to, i kept instinctively reaching for knobs that werent where i expected them.

RF performance wise i honestly cant tell a huge difference on RX compared to the 746 on most bands, maybe slightly better on 160 but im not doing rigorous testing here just operating. transmit audio reports have been good, running the stock mic which i never do but havent swapped it yet. the built in ATU handles my off-center fed pretty well up through 15m, starts complaining a bit on 10 when conditions are up and things get weird impedance wise.

anyway just figured id share since i see people asking about the 746 to 7300 jump all the time. happy to answer stuff if anyone has questions about the comparison

the thing is the 7300 already sounds pretty good to me and i dont do a ton of SO2R or anything serious enough to really justify the price difference. i picked up the 7300 used for like 850 and the 7610 is still sitting around 1700-1800 used depending on condition. thats a decent chunk of change for features i might not even use regularly

anyone made this jump and either regretted it or felt like it was totally worth it? my main operating is casual SSB, some FT8, and maybe 2-3 contests a year. shack is pretty basic, just the radio into a LDG tuner and then out to a trapped vertical

first thing — the waterfall is genuinely useful, not just a gimmick like i half expected. picked up a few weak stations on 40m that i probably wouldve scrolled past before. the real time spectrum display takes some getting used to in terms of scaling but once you find settings that work for your band conditions its hard to go back.

audio out of the box is a bit harsh on SSB to my ears. ran through the menu and tweaked the treble roll-off and the TX bandwidth and its much better now. still havent dug into the contour filter much but thats next. rx sensitivity seems very good, no complaints there at all.

one thing that surprised me is how warm it runs. like noticeably warm on the top panel after a long digital session. not alarming but worth keeping in mind if your shack gets hot in summer. i've got mine elevated on some rubber feet with a gap underneath.

overall pretty happy. would probably buy again. anyone else running one of these and found menu settings worth sharing, especially for FT8

the IC-7300 seems like the obvious choice and pretty much everyone online says just get that but then i keep reading about the 991A covering VHF/UHF too and since i dont have a separate VHF rig that starts to sound appealing even though i barely operate 2m from home. the 7300 supposedly has better receive and the roofing filter situation is supposed to be cleaner but honestly i cant tell if that actually matters for the kind of casual HF operating i do which is mostly ragchewing and some PSK when im bored.

has anyone actually used both or switched from one to the other, would love to hear if the 991A's VHF thing is actually useful day to day or if it just sounds good on paper

first thing — the waterfall. i knew it was supposed to be good but actually using it day to day is a different thing. found a few stations on 40m last night just by watching signals pop up that i would have completely missed scanning by ear. thats probably the biggest practical difference for me so far.

audio on receive is noticeably better than the kenwood, cleaner somehow, though i suspect some of that is the DSP and i havent really dug into the filter settings yet. the touch screen takes some getting used to, i keep accidentally changing things when im just trying to rest my hand near the rig which is annoying.

one thing i wasnt expecting — the built in antenna tuner is pretty limited. works fine for stuff thats close to resonance but i have a 40m dipole i sometimes use on 15m and the internal tuner just gives up on it. ended up leaving my LDG tuner in line which kind of defeats the purpose. not a dealbreaker but worth knowing if youre coming from a rig with a more capable tuner.

overall really happy with it. shack looks a lot less cluttered too since i got rid of a separate audio interface i was using, the USB audio in the 7300 works great with WSJT-X right out of the box pretty much.

the waterfall display is genuinely useful and not just a gimmick like i expected — i actually caught a weak DX station i would have completely scrolled past just scanning by ear. the built in tuner handles my end fed okay most of the time but it does give up on anything worse than like 3:1 which isnt great. RF gain staging feels really natural, way more intuitive than the Kenwood was.

main gripe so far is the fan. i run it in the shack which is a small back bedroom and on SSB when im pushing it the fan kicks on and its noticeable. not terrible but its there. also still figuring out all the menu stuff, some of it is buried pretty deep for no obvious reason.

anyway if anyone else is running one of these and has figured out a good starting point for the twin PBT settings on 40m phone id love to know what youre using, im still kinda guessing

been looking pretty hard at the IC-7610 mostly because of the dual watch and the two independent receivers on the same band which would help a lot when im trying to work split or monitor a second frequency without a second radio. but the 7610 is a pretty significant jump in price and i keep second guessing myself. the other option ive been kicking around is just grabbing a used TS-990 because you can find them at reasonable prices now and the filtering on that thing is supposedly incredible for contest environments with a lot of QRM.

anyone been through this decision or gone from a 7300 to either of these? curious what actually changed day to day in the shack and not just spec sheet stuff

Also curious about the built-in tuners - how well do they handle random wire antennas or do I need to invest in an external tuner right away? Any other gotchas between these two rigs I should consider?

the dual watch thing on the 7610 is what keeps catching my eye. i do sometimes want to monitor two freqs at once during a pileup situation and the 7300 obviously cant do that. but is that worth like what, an extra $600-700 depending on where you find them? i genuinely dont know. my budget isnt unlimited and i could also put that money toward a better antenna which might actually matter more than the radio at this point.

anyone made that specific jump or been running the 7610 for a while and can give me an honest take? not looking for a spec sheet comparison i can read that stuff on eham, just want to know if it feels different in actual use

anyway i had the 7300 basically in my cart last night and then i started reading about the 7610 and now im just confused again. the price jump is significant, like 600-700 bucks more depending where you find it, and im not really a contester or anything. mostly do some dx chasing on 40 and 20, maybe some digital modes on weekends when i have time. would i even notice the difference in day to day use or is the 7610 genuinely worth it for a casual operator. the dual watch thing sounds cool but i dont know if ill actually use it.

also my shack is nothing special, dipoles up about 35 feet and an lp-100a wattmeter, so its not like im feeding this into some super antenna system. feel like maybe im overthinking this and should just get the 7300 and be done with it.

my actual use case is mostly casual HF, some 40m and 20m ragchewing, occasional contests when i feel like it, nothing serious. i dont do any serious DX chasing or anything. the 7610 feels like overkill for what i do but i dunno maybe future proofing is worth the extra $700 or whatever the difference is right now. also my shack is just a corner of the spare bedroom so its not like im running some serious station here.

anyone gone from a 450D to the 7300 and felt like it was actually worth it? or am i just chasing waterfall porn at this point

my main concern is the panadapter stuff — like is it actually useful day to day or is it one of those things you play with for a week and then ignore. also the 450 has a really good receiver in its own right and i dont want to feel like i traded sideways just because the new radio has a touchscreen. anyone actually compare these two or am i just overthinking it

The amp I'm looking at is the AL-811H. Should I be concerned about this overshoot affecting the amp or is it something I can just ignore?

the 991A is appealing because it covers 2m and 70cm too so id basically have one radio for everything, and the price is obviously lower. but ive heard the 7300 is just... better? like the SDR-based receiver and the touchscreen waterfall is apparently really nice to use. the guy selling the 991A says its in great shape but its a few years old and i dont know the full history on it.

i mostly plan to do SSB on 40 and 20m, maybe get into JS8Call or FT8 at some point, and potentially some POTA activations down the road. not really a contester. does the 7300 receiver make that much of a real world difference or is that more of a "specs on paper" thing. honestly any input would help at this point im just going in circles

anyway picked one up last month from a local ham who was upgrading to a 7610, got it for around 800 which felt fair. first thing i noticed was the waterfall — i know everyone talks about it but until you actually sit there and watch signals pop up in real time you dont really get it. found a few dx stations i would have just tuned past on the 450.

the built in ATU is a bit weak, cant really tame my 80m doublet below like a 3:1 mismatch without complaining, i still end up using my LDG out front for that band. and the fan noise is more noticeable than i expected, my shack is pretty quiet at night so it stands out. minor gripes though.

overall very happy. if anyones on the fence about this radio i'd say just do it, the receiver really is noticeably better in a busy pile up situation. curious if anyone else has done the 450 to 7300 jump and whether they noticed the same thing on receive

first thing i noticed is the touchscreen interface takes some getting used to, like i keep accidentally changing things when i just want to scroll the waterfall. probably a me problem. the real time spectrum scope though is just ridiculous compared to what i had before, i can actually see whats happening on the band instead of just spinning the dial and hoping for something.

the built in ATU is decent but seems like it gives up on some of the weirder impedances my end fed throws at it. the 480 would sometimes grunt through stuff the 7300 just flashes an error on. anyone else notice that or is it maybe a settings thing im missing. also the receive audio is noticeably different, not sure if better or just different, sounds a bit more forward in the mids if that makes any sense.

overall happy with it but curious if anyone else made a similar jump from older Kenwood stuff and what the adjustment was like

first thing i noticed is how much real estate the spectrum scope takes up in terms of your attention — like i catch myself just watching signals move across the display instead of actually working them, which is kind of a problem but also genuinely useful when you're hunting a DX station and trying to find where the pile is splitting

audio out of the box was a little harsh to my ears on SSB, spent some time in the menu fiddling with the treble rolloff and it got much better, probably took an hour total to get it sounding the way i like. RTTY setup was actually easier than i expected through the USB audio, got WSJT-X running in maybe 20 minutes which honestly surprised me coming from the external interface i was using before

one thing that bugs me a little is the fan noise, not terrible but my old 480 was dead silent in receive and im noticing it now in a quiet shack at night. not a dealbreaker just something i wasnt expecting from reading reviews

anybody else make a similar jump from an older Kenwood or Yaesu to the 7300? curious if the honeymoon feeling wore off after a few months or if people are still happy with it

first thing — the touchscreen took some getting used to. i kept accidentally changing stuff when i was just trying to rest my hand on the desk near it. had to move my mic stand. small thing but nobody mentioned that anywhere. the real time spectrum scope is genuinely useful though, not just a gimmick, i actually caught a pileup forming on 17m that i wouldve missed completely just spinning the dial.

audio out of the box sounds really nice on SSB, better than i expected. did have to tweak the TX EQ a bit because my voice apparently sounds like a wet cardboard box according to my buddy in ohio. also the direct sampling architecture does seem to make a difference on crowded bands, 40m at night is actually usable now which was kind of miserable on the 450.

only gripe so far is the fan kicks on pretty aggressively when youre running any kind of power. not loud enough to be a real problem but its noticeable. shack is in a spare bedroom so maybe thats why it bothers me. anyway if anybodys on the fence about the 7300 for a first real HF rig or an upgrade from something older its hard to argue with what you get for the price these days.

first the real signal scope is way more addictive than i thought itd be. i literally just sit there watching it sometimes instead of actually operating, which is kind of embarrassing to admit. second thing — and this surprised me — the receiver feels noticeably different from the 450S. not worse, just different. the 450S had this kind of... i dunno how to describe it, a certain character to how audio sounded on phone. the 7300 is cleaner i guess but took some adjustment.

also spent about two hours messing with the digital modes setup through WSJT-X before i got the levels right. the documentation online is everywhere and some of it is outdated so just be aware of that if youre setting it up. once it clicked though FT8 contacts started rolling in pretty easy.

anyone else come from an older kenwood and notice that kind of audio difference or is it just me getting used to new gear?