so i was just spinning the dial on 10 meters around 2pm local time yesterday and all of a sudden the band just lit up out of nowhere. was working stations in South America like they were next door, S9 signals, just incredible. havnt seen 10m like that in a while honestly. solar flux has been climbing and i think we're really starting to see what solar cycle 25 can do. if you havent been checking 10m lately you might want to start poking around up there more often.

also saw some chatter on a couple of the usual sites that Icom is apparently getting ready to release something new in the mid-range HF market, something to compete with the 7300 but with some upgrades. nobody has confirmed specs yet and i dont want to spread rumors but it sounds like it might have a built in tuner improvement and better filtering. take that with a grain of salt obviously. anyone else heard anything about this or have more details?

yeah i caught the tail end of that opening, got on around 3pm and still managed to log a few ZL stations which honestly blew my mind. 10m to New Zealand from the midwest on a vertical with no amp, i'll take that any day. the cycle really does seem to be peaking nicely, WSPRnet has been showing some wild propagation paths lately if you watch it.

on the Icom thing, ive seen the same rumors floating around. there was something on one of the Facebook groups too but it was vague. wouldnt surprise me if they announce something at a hamfest later this year. Dayton always brings out new gear reveals even if the product doesnt ship for months after. i'll believe it when i see the actual spec sheet but yeah im curious.

wait 10m was actually open? i had the radio on in the background around that time and didnt notice anything, must have been on the wrong part of the band. what frequency were you around, like 28.3 area or higher up? im still kinda learning where people actually hang out on that band since ive mostly been on 40m since i got my general.