so ive had this thing for about three weeks now and figured id share some impressions since i was on the fence for a long time before buying. came from an old TS-570 which honestly served me well for years but the display was dying and i figured it was time to move on rather than track down parts.

the 7300 is just... a lot. the waterfall alone is worth it if youve never had a panadapter before. i keep finding signals i wouldve totally scrolled past on the old rig. the touchscreen took some getting used to and i still accidentally bump things when im not paying attention but overall the interface is pretty logical once you spend a few evenings with it.

RF performance seems solid, noise floor is lower than i expected for a sub-$1000 radio. been working mostly 40 and 20m SSB and a little FT8 on 17m. audio out of the speaker is decent enough for casual listening but i did hook up a little external speaker and it makes a difference. TX audio reports have been good, ran it through the compressor settings a bit and found a spot i like.

main thing thats been bugging me is the menu system for some of the deeper settings, just feels like you have to dig around a lot. and i wish the built-in ATU had a slightly wider matching range but thats a minor gripe. anybody else running one of these, curious if theres any settings people swear by that arent obvious from the manual.

yeah the menu depth on the 7300 can be a rabbit hole for sure. one thing i changed pretty early on was the AGC settings, the defaults felt a bit aggressive to me on crowded band conditions. also worth poking around in the scope settings — there's a way to adjust the reference level and span that makes the waterfall way more useful once you dial it in for your noise floor.

the built-in ATU is kinda what it is, i use it for small corrections only and rely on an outboard LDG for anything more than a minor mismatch. if youre running a resonant antenna it doesnt matter much anyway. overall though solid radio, ive had mine for a couple years and it just works reliably which counts for a lot.

i went from a similar situation, older kenwood to the 7300, and the waterfall really does change how you operate. feels almost like cheating sometimes lol. i mostly do digital modes and having the scope open while running FT8 is super handy for spotting activity without constantly flipping around.

one thing i noticed is the USB audio interface built in is pretty plug and play for digital stuff if you havent messed with that yet, saved me a ton of fussing with interface boxes. just make sure youre on the right firmware version first.