so ive been seeing a lot of chatter on different groups about the 10m opening that happened mid week, some guys on my local repeater were saying they were working europe from the midwest which is pretty wild for this time of year. solar flux was way up, i think i saw it hit around 180 or so which hasnt happened in a while. wish i hadnt been stuck at work when it peaked because of course by the time i got home it was mostly gone, just my luck.

also saw something about Icom teasing what looks like a new HF rig, some blurry photos floating around on one of the facebook groups. hard to tell much from the pictures but people are speculating its maybe a successor to the 7300 or something in that lineup. could be nothing but the timing is interesting with hamvention coming up. anybody else seen that or know more about what they might be announcing?

and on the emcomm side apparently theres a pretty big statewide exercise happening next month, not sure if its ARES or RACES or both honestly, somebody posted a flyer in our club email list but i havent had a chance to read the whole thing. figured id mention it in case anyone else is tracking that kind of thing.

yeah the 10m opening was legit, i managed to catch about 45 minutes of it before it started fading on my end. worked a couple spanish stations and one guy in the UK which honestly made my whole week. 10m is just fun when its open, something about that band that feels different from 20. the audio just sounds clearer somehow i dont know how to explain it.

on the icom thing, ive heard the same rumors. someone in the DX cluster chat was saying hamvention is probably where theyll make it official if its real. i really hope its not just a cosmetic refresh of the 7300 because that radio is already great, id want to see something actually new, maybe better roofing filters or a real improvement to the panadapter. guess well find out. hamvention is what, like 6 weeks away now?

im pretty new to all this, just got my tech last fall and im studying for general now, but i keep hearing people talk about 10m like its this magical thing when conditions are good. is it really that different from like 40 or 20 meters for working dx? i have a little vertical in my backyard that supposedly covers up to 10m but ive never actually heard much on there so i kind of gave up on it. maybe i need to check during the day more.