so i was just sitting there messing around on 28.400 and all of a sudden stations start popping up everywhere, i was working EU for like two hours straight which honestly hasnt happened for me on 10m in years. caught a couple of UA stations and even a ZL near the end before the band went quiet again. solar flux has been pretty wild lately and i feel like we're really hitting our stride with the cycle now.

anyway while i had the radio out i was also playing around with my buddys FT-710 that he just picked up. first impressions from someone who's used IC-7300 for a while — the receiver feels really solid honestly, roofing filters seem to do a good job in a crowded band. the touchscreen is not quite as snappy as the icom but its fine. he paid around $1100 for it which seems like decent value for what you get. curious if anyone else has been running one of these for a few months and has longer term thoughts

yeah that opening was something else, i saw spots coming in on the cluster around 1400z and jumped on — worked about 30 countries in maybe 90 minutes which is just crazy for a Tuesday afternoon. propagation has been genuinely excellent this fall, pskreporter is lighting up like christmas on 10 and 12m almost every day now. feels like 2001 all over again for those of us who remember that peak.

on the FT-710, ive had mine since spring and overall im pretty happy with it. the main thing i noticed compared to my old FT-991A is the dynamic range is noticeably better in contests when everyones piled up close together. one thing that bugged me early on was the menu system takes a little getting used to but after a few weeks it becomes second nature. the built in ATU is decent for light work. if your buddy is coming from a mid-tier radio he'll probably really like it, if hes coming from a 7610 or something he might miss a few things

oh man i totally missed that opening, was at work and saw it blowing up on the dxwatch page after the fact and was pretty bummed. thats the thing about 10m you never really know when its gonna light up and then poof its gone. ive been trying to set up some kind of alert on my phone for when the flux hits certain numbers but havent quite figured out the best way to do that yet, does anyone have a setup they like for that?

not much to add on the radio side since im still running a pretty basic setup but it sounds interesting, i keep going back and forth on whether to upgrade from my entry level rig or just put money into antennas first which is probably the smarter move honestly