So i've been messing around on 10 meters the past couple weeks and honestly haven't seen it this open in years. Like genuinely surprised. Was calling CQ yesterday afternoon just kind of expecting nothing and ended up working a guy in Brazil, another in Spain, and then some station in South Africa all within like 45 minutes. Running maybe 50 watts into a crappy wire dipole in my attic. My attic antenna.

I know solar cycle 25 has been ramping up and apparently we're heading toward or near solar max but I didn't really expect it to get this nuts this fast. If you've been ignoring 10m because it was dead for years this is seriously the time to dust off whatever you've got up there and give it a shot. Even the technician guys can get in on this since they have privileges on that band.

Also saw something about a new Icom release coming? Someone on another forum mentioned it but I cant find any details. Anyone heard anything about that?

yeah 10m has been something else lately. I'm an old timer and remember the last solar max and this is starting to feel similar. Got into a pile-up for a VP9 station last Thursday and the signals were just booming in, S9 plus on some of them. Propagation tools like pskreporter are showing paths that I haven't seen in probably 12 years or so.

As for the Icom thing — I think you might be talking about the IC-905 stuff or maybe something newer, there's been some chatter on the reflectors about a possible update to one of their mid-range HF rigs but nothing confirmed that I've seen. Icom tends to be pretty quiet until they actually drop something so who knows. Keep an eye on their social media I guess, thats usually where it leaks first before any official announcement.

Oh man I just got my tech license like two months ago and didnt realize I could actually use 10m for voice. Just looked it up and yeah we get a slice of it. Gonna have to try this, I only have a little handheld right now but my elmer said he'd help me put up a simple dipole in the backyard. This is actually really exciting to hear about, gives me motivation to actually build something instead of just hitting the local repeater all the time.