so i dont know if everyone saw but Icom quietly pushed out a new firmware for the IC-905 last week, something like 1.30 or whatever the version number is, and supposedly it fixes some of the ALC issues people were complaining about on 10GHz. havent had a chance to load it yet because im still waiting on a part for my transverter setup but figured id mention it here since a few folks asked about it in the other thread.

also wanted to share that 6 meters was absolutely wild last saturday morning. i was just sitting down with coffee and noticed the DX cluster lighting up around 50.313 and jumped on — worked like 12 or 13 stations in about 45 minutes including a couple down in florida which i dont usually hear up here. propagation just opened up out of nowhere, classic Es stuff. kids are out of school and ive been spending more time at the radio so the timing was perfect. if you havent been keeping an eye on the cluster lately its worth doing, season is definitely not over yet.

anyone else notice conditions have been kind of unpredictable this summer compared to last year? feels like the openings are shorter but more frequent maybe. or im just imagining it

yeah i saw that firmware notice pop up on the Icom America page but totally forgot about it, thanks for the reminder. been meaning to update mine for a while now. the ALC thing on mine hasnt been super noticeable but i've read enough threads on the reflector to know it's real for some people.

that 6m opening sounds awesome. i completely missed it, i was out most of saturday running errands and by the time i got back to the shack it was all gone. story of my life with Es honestly. one of these days im gonna have a remote setup so i can at least monitor from my phone when im away from home. the DX cluster alerts only help if youre actually able to get to the radio in time you know

this is kind of off topic but your mention of 6m openings reminded me — im pretty new to this whole thing (got my general back in March) and i still get confused about how to tell the difference between Es and tropo on 6m. like when im watching the cluster how do i even know which one it is? i asked at my local club and got kind of a long answer that went over my head a bit. the distances maybe? sorry if thats a dumb question