so ive been running an old FT-450D for like 6 years now and its been fine, no real complaints, but i started messing around at a buddy's shack last month and he had the IC-7300 set up and honestly the waterfall display alone kind of ruined me. like i came home and my setup just felt dated even though everything works perfectly fine.

anyway i've been watching prices and found a decent deal on a used one, guy says it has maybe 200 hours on it and comes with the stock mic. problem is im starting to read about the roofing filter situation and some people seem pretty upset about it and others say its a non-issue and i genuinely cant tell if im being talked out of a good purchase by contest guys whose needs are nothing like mine. i mostly do casual HF work, some digital, the occasional contest but im not serious about it.

anyone running one of these for just normal everyday stuff? is the filter thing actually going to bother me or am i reading too deep into forum drama

the roofing filter thing is basically a contest guy problem. if youre not sitting in a pile of signals trying to pull out a weak dx station with a loud one 2kHz away you are probably never going to notice it. i ran a 7300 for about 3 years before upgrading and for casual HF, digital modes, even some light contesting it was genuinely excellent. the SDR front end is the real story with that radio, the waterfall is actually useful not just pretty and the receive audio is clean. 200 hours on an Icom is nothing, those things are built well. only thing id check is the USB port because ive seen a few where the connector gets a little loose over time from people plugging and unplugging for digital work.

yeah i went through the same thing lol. ended up getting one about a year ago and honestly i dont think about the roofing filter at all. the built in ATU is decent enough for most things too which i wasnt expecting to use but ends up being pretty convenient. only thing is the stock mic is kinda whatever, i swapped mine out pretty quick but thats pretty personal i guess