so i was just messing around on 10 meters saturday afternoon, wasn't really expecting much honestly, and all of a sudden the band just blew wide open. i was hearing stations from brazil, argentina, even caught a couple from europe which i haven't done on 10m in a while. ran barefoot with my dipole and still managed to work like 14 countries in maybe two hours which for me is pretty unreal.

also noticed a bunch of guys were talking about the new Icom IC-905 being in stock at a few dealers finally, don't know if anyone here has actually gotten their hands on one yet but the reviews ive been seeing look pretty solid for the microwave bands. been curious about getting into 1.2ghz for a while now so might be something worth looking at when i have more fundss in the operating budget lol.

anyway just wanted to see if anyone else was on during that opening or has news on other stuff going on, feels like the hobby is picking up again lately which is nice to see.

yeah i was on! caught the tail end of it around 4pm local time, conditions were already starting to fade but i still worked a couple stations in south america which i'll take. my old FT-857 was doing the heavy lifting and honestly it held up fine, sometimes i forget how capable that radio still is even after all these years.

on the 905 thing, a buddy of mine in the local club just got one delivered last week and brought it to the meeting. we were all crowded around it like it was christmas morning haha. first impressions are that the build quality is really nice and the spectrum display is way better than i expected for a microwave rig. he hasnt had time to do a real test from a hilltop yet but thats coming. if you're serious about 1.2 and up it looks like a legit option, just brace yourself for the price tag.

i totally missed it, was stuck doing yard work all day and by the time i got on sunday everything was quiet again. story of my life honestly. what part of the country are you in? im in the midwest and 10m has been hit or miss for me, sometimes i wonder if my antenna situation is hurting me more than i think.