so ive been running an old TS-590SG for about four years and always kind of wondered if the 7300 hype was justified or just icom fanboy stuff. well my 590 developed some weird intermittent TX issue that i never fully tracked down and rather than sink money into diagnosing it i just... bought the 7300. not a totally rational decision but here we are.

anyway after a few weeks on it i have to say the waterfall display alone is worth a lot. i know that sounds shallow but being able to actually see whats happening on the band in real time changes how you operate. i was always kind of flying blind before, just spinning the VFO and listening. now i can see a pileup forming before i even hear it, spot the gaps in a net, stuff like that. the receive on 40 and 80 feels about the same to me as the kenwood honestly, maybe a little better on 160 but im not confident enough in my antenna situation on topband to say that definitively.

one thing that surprised me is how much i use the built in ATU now. my 590 had one too but i never trusted it much, always kicked in the external LDG. the icom one seems to find a match faster and holds it better, at least with my end-fed. could be placebo but i dont think so.

RF gain staging feels a little different and i had to retrain some muscle memory but its not a big deal. the menus are a bit deep on some settings but theres enough youtube content out there that you can usually find what youre looking for in like 10 minutes.

not saying its the best radio ever made but for the price point and what you get out of the box i get why everyone recommends it now. if youre on the fence and have an HF license and want one radio to do most things, this is probably it right now.

yeah the waterfall thing is real, i had basically the same experience coming from an older rig. took me a while to stop just staring at it and actually operating but once you dial in the reference level and the speed its genuinely useful not just pretty. glad you mentioned the ATU because ive heard mixed things about the internal one but my experience with it has been solid too, works fine into my trap vertical which is not exactly a forgiving load on 80m.

the one thing i will say is watch the audio drive on the modulator if youre doing any digital. i had mine set a little hot coming from fldigi and it took me a while to realize i was probably splattering a bit. the ALC on that radio is a little sensitive to how you feed it. theres a dedicated digital modes level in the menu somewhere, i forget exactly where, but worth finding and setting correctly before you get on FT8.

ive been looking at the 7300 for months and posts like this dont help me keep my wallet closed lol. question though — how does it handle weak signal stuff, like are you doing any CW or SSB DX with it? most of what i see talked about is FT8 and i want to know if its actually a good CW rig day to day. im coming from an old Yaesu FT-857D which i love but its not exactly a shack radio, more of a mobile that lives on my desk.