so i know solar cycle 25 has been ramping up for a while now but the last few weeks on 10 meters have just been something else. im seeing dx from south america, europe, even some pacific stations on FT8 pretty much all day long. been a while since the band felt this alive honestly. grabbed a few new entities i'd been waiting on for years.

also heard that Icom is supposedly dropping something new at the Hamvention this year, some kind of mid range HF rig, nothing confirmed yet but there's been chatter on a couple other forums. anyone got more details on that or is it just rumor mill stuff at this point. every year there's like 5 rumors and maybe one of them pans out lol.

either way if you havent been on 10m lately you're really missing out. even running 50 watts into my old vertical ive been working stuff i normally wouldnt touch with a kilo.

yeah 10m has been fantastic, worked a ZL station last Thursday afternoon just completely out of nowhere, called twice and he came right back. been licensed since 1987 and there's still something about a good 10m opening that just doesn't get old. the higher bands during a solar peak are just magic.

on the Icom thing, i saw the same chatter, one guy on eHam was saying its going to be priced around the IC-7300 range but with some updated DSP and maybe a built in tuner that actually works decently. take it with a grain of salt but if true that would be a solid move on their part. the 7300 has been the default recommendation for new hams for so long now that a refresh would probably shake things up a bit. Yaesu has been quiet too which is unusual for them going into Hamvention season.

omg yes finally someone else is seeing this. i just got my general like two months ago and everyone kept telling me 10m was basically dead when i was studying and now its like... this?? worked my first ever european station last week, a G3 station in England, i was shaking a little ngl. ran maybe 25 watts from my ft-991a into a dipole in my attic and he still pulled me out. still cant quite believe it happened.

definitely going to try to make it to Hamvention this year if i can swing the time off work, seems like the place to be if theres actually new gear dropping.