so ive had this thing about a week now, coming from an old FT-450D that served me well for years but i just wanted that waterfall and the direct sampling SDR architecture. figured id post some thoughts in case anyone else is on the fence.

first thing i noticed is the waterfall is legitimately useful, not just a gimmick like i kind of expected. being able to see a pileup forming before you even hear it is kind of wild. tuning into DX stations is a completely different experience now. the touchscreen is a little finnicky when my hands are cold in the shack but thats a minor gripe.

audio out of the built in speaker is actually decent for a rig this size. i A/B'd it against my 450 on 40m last night and the receiver just walks all over it on a busy band, the noise reduction stuff actually works without making everything sound like a robot. the APF on CW is nice too and i've been getting back into CW a bit so that matters to me.

only real complaint so far is the menu system takes some getting used to. not terrible but not intuitive either. spent like 20 minutes trying to find the twin PBT settings the first night. anyway if anyone has tips or things they wish they'd set up differently early on id love to hear it, still feels like im scratching the surface with this thing

congrats on the 7300, its a great rig. one thing i wish id done sooner was go into the settings and tweak the AGC time constants, the defaults are a bit fast for my taste on SSB. also look into the built-in audio scope, you can use it to really dial in your transmitted audio which is something most people ignore at first. the mic gain and compression settings out of the box are a little hot depending on your mic.

also grab the CS-7300 software from Icom if you havent, doing the memory management from the PC is so much easier than fighting the front panel. took me about a month of casual use before i felt like i actually knew the radio, so dont stress it.

yeah the menu thing drove me nuts too when i first got mine. i think its been maybe two years now and i still occasionally go to the wrong place looking for something. you kind of just build muscle memory eventually. the waterfall sold me on it too honestly, tried going back to a buddy's older rig at a field day thing and felt completely blind without it