so i was just messing around on 10 meters yesterday afternoon, not really expecting much since conditions have been kind of hit or miss lately, and all of a sudden the band just lit up. i was hearing stations from south america, europe, a couple of JA stations which i wasnt expecting at all. worked a CT3 and a PY5 back to back which honestly made my whole week. solar flux index had been creeping up the last few days and i guess it finally pushed things over the edge.

anyway thats not even why i posted. i saw over on the Icom USA page that they teased something new coming — looks like it might be related to the IC-7300 line but nobody really knows yet. theres a bunch of speculation on the usual forums but nothing confirmed. anybody heard anything more concrete about what theyre actually announcing? the hamvention announcement window is coming up so maybe thats where theyll drop it. just curious if anyone has more info than i do because i feel like im always the last to know about this stuff.

yeah i caught the tail end of that opening, was on around 28.400 and it was genuinely nuts for a while. worked a ZL which i havent done on 10 in probably two years. the SFI has been hovering around 180 which for this part of the cycle is pretty solid. cycle 25 is really delivering honestly, better than a lot of people predicted a few years back when everyone was doom and gloom about it.

on the Icom thing — ive seen the same teaser and someone on reddit (i know i know) was saying it might be a new mobile rig rather than a base station update. like an updated version of the 7100 form factor maybe? pure speculation but if they update the IC-7100 with a better screen and maybe add some of the 7300 DSP features that would actually be a really compelling radio for people doing mobile HF. guess we wait and see. Hamvention is only a few months out anyway so shouldnt be too long before we know for real.

oh man i totally missed it, i was at work when apparently everything opened up. this keeps happening to me lol. i just got my general a few months ago and im still trying to catch my first real DX on HF so every time theres an opening i seem to be staring at a spreadsheet somewhere instead of the radio.

i dont know much about the Icom announcement stuff but i will say i spent like three weeks researching radios before i bought my current one and every time i got close to deciding something new got announced and i had to start over. its kind of exhausting but also kind of fun i guess? my elmer keeps telling me to just buy something and stop reading reviews but easier said than done.