so ive had the 7300 for about three weeks now and figured id post something since i spent so long reading other peoples impressions before buying. background: i was running an old Kenwood TS-440S for years, like genuinely years, and the 7300 is just a completely different world in terms of what you're looking at on the screen. the waterfall alone has changed how i operate, i catch signals i would have just tuned past before.

the built in tuner is fine for stuff thats already pretty close to resonance but dont expect miracles with a badly matched antenna, it gave up on my 40m dipole when i had it trimmed wrong and i had to go back to my LDG external. not a dealbreaker but something i wasnt expecting based on some of the reviews i read.

audio on receive is really good, better than i thought it would be from a radio in this price range honestly. been doing a lot of 40m SSB ragchews in the evenings and people have commented the audio out is clean too. RF gain and the DSP noise reduction are both something youll want to spend time with instead of just leaving on defaults, took me a couple nights to find settings i actually liked.

anyway not a review just some notes. curious if anyone else made a similar jump from an older rig and what surprised them

yeah the waterfall is what gets everyone, i remember the first time i sat down at one i just kind of stared at it for a while. you start to recognize signal shapes after a bit, PSK31 looks completely different from a badly overdriven SSB signal and you can just see it without even listening.

the internal tuner thing is accurate, icom rates it for like 16.7 to 150 ohms or something in that range which sounds generous until you actually have an antenna that wanders. i ended up leaving my external tuner in line most of the time anyway just out of habit from the old setup. one thing i'll add — spend some time in the menu going through the scope settings, there's a ref level adjustment that makes a big difference depending on your noise floor. took me embarrassingly long to find it.

i made basically the same jump except i was coming off a ts-570 and honestly the hardest part was just learning where icom put everything since i was so used to kenwood's layout. still sometimes reach for a knob that isnt there lol. how are you finding it on 10 and 12m with the cycle picking up, ive been having a lot of fun up there lately and the radio just seems to come alive on the higher bands