so ive been running an old FT-450D for about 4 years now and its served me well but im starting to feel like i want something with a proper panadapter and better filtering. been eyeballing the IC-7300 for a while but my buddy keeps telling me to look at the 991A since it covers VHF/UHF too and i only have the one antenna feedline run through the wall right now.

the thing is i dont really do much VHF from the shack, i mostly just grab the HT for that. so the multiband thing on the 991A doesnt excite me as much as it probably should. the 7300 spectrum scope just looks so much more usable from everything ive seen. but its like $200 more depending where you look and thats real money.

anyone actually run both of these or switched from one to the other? im not a contester or anything just do general HF ragchew and some WSPR/digital stuff on the side. wondering if the 7300 is actually worth it for that use case or if im just getting lured in by the shiny touchscreen

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

i mean i use my 991A for VHF EME stuff through a preamp so thats probably not your situation lol but yeah for straight HF use the 7300 gets recommended constantly for a reason. the touch interface takes maybe a week to get used to and then it feels weird going back to knobs-only rigs. only complaint ive seen from people is the TX audio needs some tweaking out of the box, worth looking up the settings before you get on air with it