so ive been running an old TS-570D for probably 8 years now and it still works fine honestly but the waterfall display on the 7300 just kept calling to me every time i saw videos of it. finally bought one used off a guy at the last hamfest for a pretty decent price, came with the stock mic and power cable.

first thing i noticed is how much easier it is to find activity now. like on the 570 i was just spinning the VFO blind basically, maybe checking the cluster, but seeing the whole band laid out in front of you changes how you operate. spent way too long just watching signals go up and down on 40m at night instead of actually working anyone lol.

the receiver feels noticeably better to me on crowded bands, though i know thats a pretty subjective thing to say. 20m contest weekends used to be pretty rough on the 570 and the 7300 just seems to handle adjacent strong signals without as much garbage getting through. could be placebo who knows.

one thing that caught me off guard is the touch screen is kinda not that responsive sometimes, like i have to press the filter buttons twice occasionally. maybe i need to recalibrate it or something. anyone else had that issue? otherwise really happy with it so far.

yeah the touchscreen thing is real, mine did the same when i first got it. go into the menu and there's a touch screen calibration option buried in the settings somewhere, i think its under set > display or maybe function, honestly cant remember exactly but its in there. did it once and never had the problem again.

and yeah the panadapter completely changes how you use a radio, i went through the same thing when i upgraded from an older rig. you start realizing how much activity you were just rolling past before. the 7300 is a solid radio for the money, especially used. congrats on the new shack addition

been on the 7300 for about two years now and still think its probably the best value in HF right now at that price point. the direct sampling architecture is what makes the receive performance feel different from older superhet designs, its not placebo, theres actually something real going on there especially with strong signal handling. that said if you ever get into really serious contesting you might notice its limits but for general operating its hard to beat.

one tip — play around with the roofing filter settings and the NR/NB settings if you havent already, the defaults are kind of conservative. i run mine with the preamp off most of the time on 40 and 80, too much noise floor otherwise at my location. also the USB audio interface built in is great if you ever want to do digital modes, basically plug and play with WSJT-X once you set the audio device.