so i was just messing around on 10 meters tuesday afternoon, wasnt really expecting much, and all of a sudden it just opened up like i havent seen in probably two years. i was running maybe 50 watts into a vertical and i was getting into europe no problem, worked a couple spanish stations and even heard what sounded like a JA coming through but couldnt quite pull him out of the noise. been a long time since ive had a session like that on 10m honestly.

also saw someone on the club email list mention there was a new firmware update for the IC-7300 that fixes some issue with the waterfall display, hasnt been an issue for me personally but figured id pass it along in case anyone else has been noticing something weird with theirs. i havent installed it yet, kind of nervous about updating firmware on a radio thats working fine you know how it is.

anyway just wanted to share, if youre not checking 10m right now during this part of the solar cycle you might be missing out. conditions have been surprisingly good lately and with the cycle ramping up it seems like its only going to get better for a while.

yeah i caught some of that on tuesday too, i was on my lunch break and just had the radio on in the background and heard a pile-up forming around 28.490 or so. managed to sneak in and work a CT1 station which was a new one for me on that band. honestly 10m is one of those bands that when its open its just magic, theres nothing quite like running low power and getting out that far.

on the firmware thing, i updated mine about a week ago and it went totally fine, took maybe 10 minutes and the radio came back up no problem. the waterfall does look slightly different but nothing dramatic. id say go for it, just make sure youre on a stable power supply and dont interrupt it obviously.

this is actually really good to hear, im pretty new to HF and 10 meters was the first band i ever made a contact on because i only had a technician license at the time. just upgraded to general last month so now i have the whole band to play with but i havent really explored much yet. do you have a particular part of the band you hang around on for DX or is it kind of all over the place when its open like that? still trying to get a feel for where people actually are on these bands vs what the band plan says