so ive been running an old TS-570 for like 8 years and honestly it still works fine but i kept reading about the 7300 and watching youtube videos and i just caved and bought one used off a guy in the next county over. paid $850 which felt high but everything on qrz classifieds was going for more so whatever.

anyway first impressions — the waterfall display is genuinely useful and not just a gimmick like i assumed. i was skeptical because i figured id just use it for a week and ignore it but i actually catch signals on it before i even hear them in the passband which is kind of wild. the receiver feels cleaner than the 570 on 40m which is where i spend most of my time, less noise floor or at least it seems that way, might be placebo.

the touch screen takes getting used to and i keep accidentally changing the filter width when im trying to tune around. probably a me problem. but overall im pretty happy with it. anyone else make a similar jump from older Kenwood or Yaesu to the icom SDR stuff and have thoughts on the adjustment period

made almost the exact same move about two years ago, went from a TS-480 to the 7300. the waterfall thing is real, youll never want to go back to a blank panel after a few months. i was the same way thinking it was marketing fluff.

the touchscreen i still fat-finger sometimes honestly. what helped me was just going through the menu and turning off a few of the touch-sensitive areas i wasnt using so i wasnt accidentally hitting stuff. also the multi function knob does most of what you need anyway once you get the muscle memory down. give it another month and it'll feel natural. the filter adjustment being touchy is annoying at first but i think you can adjust the sensitivity somewhere in the display settings, i forget exactly where but worth poking around.

850 for a used one in good shape is decent right now, ive seen them going for more lately which is nuts for a radio thats been out this long.

i have the 7300 and love it but fair warning the real rabbit hole starts when you hook it up to a computer and start running FT8 or JS8Call through the USB connection. the built in soundcard interface makes it almost too easy and then suddenly its 2am and youre working japan on 40m and wondering where the evening went. just saying.