so ive been seeing some chatter on a couple other forums about Icom possibly dropping a new HF rig sometime this year, something to compete with the FT-710 maybe? nobody seems to have solid info yet but the rumor mill is spinning. anyone heard anything more concrete or is this just the usual pre-hamvention speculation that goes nowhere

also completely separate topic but has anyone else noticed 10 meters has been open almost every afternoon this past week? worked a bunch of south american stations yesterday just running 50 watts into my dipole, signals were genuinely loud. feels like we're really hitting the peak of cycle 25 now and its kind of exciting if youre used to the band being dead like it was a few years back. my buddy who got his general last spring had never really seen a good 10m opening and he was pretty amazed

there was also supposed to be some kind of special event station for a national park anniversary coming up but i lost the bookmark and cant find the callsign now. if anyone knows what im talking about please drop it here

yeah the 10m thing is real, i noticed it too. worked a ZL station last thursday which honestly surprised me, wasnt expecting that at all just spinning the dial. solar flux has been up in the 180s some days which is pretty solid. if youre new to HF this is genuinely a great time to get on because even modest antennas do well when conditions are like this

on the Icom thing i wouldnt hold your breath, every year before hamvention people swear somethings coming and half the time its nothing or its just a firmware update for something that already exists. that said the IC-7300 is getting old enough now that a proper successor wouldnt surprise me. i'd want to see better roofing filters if they do release something

omg yes 10m has been crazy i made my first ever dx contact last week on that band, got a guy in Argentina and i was literally just using a vertical in my backyard. i've only had my general for like 4 months so this whole thing is kind of blowing my mind. my elmer told me 10 was basically a wasteland for years so i feel pretty lucky to have gotten licensed now i guess