so i was just sitting down with my coffee this morning and figured id spin the dial on 10m just to see whats up, and i ended up working like 8 or 9 stations in europe inside of maybe 45 minutes which honestly i wasnt expecting at all. been a while since ive seen it that good from here in the midwest. solar flux was up around 190something according to what i checked on DXwatch, and the geomagnetic stuff looked pretty calm too which probably helped.

also saw some chatter that Icom is supposedly doing something new with a mid-range HF rig announcement sometime this fall, cant remember where i read that, maybe one of the facebook groups or it might have been on eham. if anyone has more info on that id be curious. feels like there hasnt been a genuinely interesting new radio in that price bracket for a bit.

anyway just wanted to share because 10m being this open always puts me in a good mood. if you havent turned it on lately, worth a listen for sure.

yeah 10m has been treating me really well this cycle, honestly better than i expected when we were in the depths of the last solar minimum. i remember barely being able to work anything on that band for like two or three years so this is a nice change. ran a pile up on 28.450 last weekend for maybe an hour, mostly EU and a few JA stations snuck in there near the end. propagation was holding up way longer into the afternoon than usual too.

on the Icom thing, i think what you might be thinking of is the rumors floating around about something to compete with the IC-705 but slightly bigger, like a portable but with more power. i havent seen anything confirmed though, just speculation at this point. wouldnt suprise me if they announced something at tokyo hamfair or maybe at the dayton hamvention next year. guess we'll see.

im pretty new to HF, just got my general back in the spring, and ive honestly been a little intimidated to try 10m because everyone told me it was hit or miss. maybe i should just jump in. whats a good time of day to check? mornings seem to be what youre saying but i wasnt sure if that was just your timezone or kind of universal.