so ive been on 20 meters pretty much every evening this week and its just wall to wall FT8 which honestly i dont mind but it kind of makes you wonder where all the SSB guys went. band conditions have been pretty decent lately too, been getting into europe pretty regularly around 0000z which is unusual for me this time of year.

anyway the main reason i posted is someone at our club meeting mentioned Icom is supposedly releasing something new, like a mid range HF rig, but nobody had any real details. has anyone seen anything official or is this just rumor mill stuff. i looked on their website and didnt see anything but sometimes those announcements hit the forums before the official pages update.

also heard there might be a special event station for some kind of anniversary coming up next month but i cant find the callsign or details anywhere. anyone know what im talking about or am i misremembering something from the newsletter

yeah the FT8 thing on 20 is real, its been like that for months honestly. i still find SSB activity if i look around 14.225 or so in the afternoons but you gotta be patient. the band has been doing some weird things lately, i had a contact into japan last tuesday at like 2pm local which i was not expecting at all.

on the Icom thing, ive seen some chatter on eham and one of the facebook groups about a possible successor to the 7300 or maybe something between the 7300 and 7610 price wise. nothing confirmed though. Icom tends to be pretty tight lipped until like two weeks before they actually ship. i'd just keep an eye on the usual sites, DXZone and hamradio360 sometimes pick this stuff up early.

the special event station you're thinking of might be the one for the anniversary of a particular ARRL division, i vaguely remember seeing something about that but i deleted the email like a dummy. check the ARRL website under special event stations, they list them all there.

im pretty new to HF, just got my general like 3 months ago, and i actually started on FT8 because it felt less intimidating than jumping on SSB with everyone listening lol. but reading your post makes me want to try finding some SSB contacts, maybe i'll give it a shot this weekend if the band cooperates.

dont know anything about the Icom release sorry but now im curious too