so i've been running an IC-706MKIIG for probably 12 years now and it's served me well but the display was getting weird and i was tired of fiddling with it every time i wanted to do anything on 40m. picked up a used 7300 from a guy at our club's hamfest last month and honestly i dont know why i waited this long.

the waterfall alone is worth it for me, i can actually see whats happening on the band instead of just spinning the dial hoping to find something. noise reduction is noticeably better too, at least on 40 and 80 where i spend most of my time. my shack is nothing fancy, just an end fed halfwave into a 9:1 unun, MFJ tuner on the bench, feed the 7300 off a 30A regulated supply.

only gripe so far is the menu system takes some getting used to if you're coming from older icom stuff. been messing with the NR and NB settings trying to find a sweet spot. anyone else using one of these for mostly casual ssb work, wondering what settings people end up settling on for everyday use

congrats on the upgrade, the jump from the 706 series to the 7300 is pretty significant just in terms of the receiver alone. i ran a 706MK2 for a while too and yeah the front end is just nowhere near as clean.

for NR on ssb i usually keep it around 3-4, anything higher and voices start sounding kinda hollow and processed. NB i leave pretty low unless i'm getting hit with power line noise which is a whole other problem at my QTH. the twin passband tuning is probably the thing i use most honestly, once you get used to dialing out interference with it you wont want to go back to a rig without it. give yourself a few weeks with the menus and it becomes second nature, the touch screen stuff is actually pretty intuitive once you stop trying to do it the old way

ive had mine about two years now and still finding little things i didnt know it could do. one thing worth looking at is the RF direct sampling front end can be sensitive to strong nearby signals if you dont have good filtering, some guys add a low pass or bandpass before the antenna input depending on their situation. probably wont matter for casual ssb but worth knowing if you ever notice weirdness. also the 7300 community online is huge so theres basically an answer to any question you run into already out there somewhere