so i was just sitting there messing around on 28.400 yesterday afternoon and all of a sudden europe was just pouring in, had a solid hour of contacts into spain and portugal and even caught a station in italy before it faded out. havent seen 10m that alive since maybe 2012 or 2013 honestly. solar cycle 25 is really starting to deliver and i feel like a lot of people slept on how good this peak was gonna be.

anyway that got me thinking about upgrading my HF rig and ive been looking hard at the Yaesu FT-710. anyone actually using one of these day to day? the AESS thing sounds interesting but i cant tell if its genuinely useful or just a marketing feature that sounds cooler than it is. my current setup is an old IC-718 which still works fine but the receive on it is starting to feel pretty dated compared to what im hearing from people with newer rigs. would love to hear from anyone whos made the jump

yeah that opening was something else, i worked a few EA stations myself around 1800 UTC and the signals were genuinely s9 on some of them which you just dont expect on 10m unless conditions are really cooking. propagation forecasts have been looking good all month honestly if you check the DX summit activity its been pretty nuts.

on the FT-710 question i picked one up back in the spring and im happy with it overall. the receiver really is noticeably better than older budget rigs, roofing filter situation is decent for the price point. the AESS thing i honestly dont use that much but the real time spectrum scope is genuinely handy, way more useful than i expected. main gripe is the menu system takes some getting used to, classic Yaesu in that regard. but for the money its hard to argue with it, especially if youre coming from an IC-718 the difference will be pretty obvious right away

i missed the opening completely, was at work ugh. this is why i need a remote setup i keep saying it but never actually do anything about it lol

not sure about the 710 myself im kind of waiting to see if Icom does anything new in that price range before i commit to anything. heard some rumors but who knows, theres always rumors. the IC-7300 is still such a solid benchmark its hard to know what would actually be worth upgrading to unless youre moving up to like the 7610 territory