so ive had my old TS-590SG for about four years now and it's been a solid workhorse, no complaints really, but i kept reading about the 7300 and watching those waterfall videos and eventually just ordered one last month. been running it for about three weeks now.

first thing — the real time spectrum scope is genuinely useful and not just a gimmick like i thought it might be. i can see propagation changes happening in real time and it's actually changed how i operate a bit, like i'll notice activity opening up on 17m before i'd have even thought to check. that part lived up to the hype.

the thing that surprised me though is the touch screen is just... fine. not great. it's responsive enough but i keep accidentally changing things when i rest my hand near the front panel. might just need to adjust my habits. the menu system is also deeper than i expected, took me a good weekend of fiddling to get my audio levels and NR settings where i wanted them.

mic audio apparently sounds really good on the other end which is nice, people have been commenting on it on 40m SSB. overall happy with it but wanted to share some honest impressions since most reviews i read felt a bit like they were written to sell the thing. anyone else running one of these and found settings they really like?

yeah the touchscreen thing took me a while too, i ended up turning off the touch sensitivity for the main tuning area or whatever that setting is called, you can dig it out in the display menu. made a big difference for me. also if you havent already go look up the HDSDR or SDR# panadapter setup with the USB port — theres a way to get way more screen real estate on a laptop running alongside it which sounds redundant but actually isnt when youre trying to work a pileup and monitor a split frequency at the same time.

my NR is set pretty low tbh, like NR1 around level 3 or so, anything higher and voices start sounding phasey to me. the NB and notch filter are where the real magic is for me on 40 at night when the noise floor gets ugly.

i went the other direction and kept my 590 and just added a SDRplay for the panadapter functionality. works pretty well and i already knew the 590's quirks so felt easier than learning a whole new rig. but honestly every time i sit down at someone else's shack with a 7300 i do get a little jealous of that waterfall. maybe someday.