so i've been kind of half paying attention to the hamvention coverage that's been floating around and it sounds like there's some interesting stuff happening gear wise. saw something about a few new handhelds from yaesu but honestly the coverage i found was pretty thin and i couldn't tell if it was actual new releases or just refreshes of existing stuff.

also apparently 10m has been absolutely cooking lately? ive been hearing guys on the cluster talking about EU opening up on 10 from the midwest in the afternoons and i keep missing it because im at work. been trying to set up some kind of remote situation but thats a whole other rabbit hole.

anyway curious what other folks have been tracking lately - new gear, band conditions, anything interesting going on in the hobby. feels like there's a lot happening right now with the solar cycle doing its thing and manufacturers actually releasing stuff worth looking at for once

yeah 10m has been something else this cycle. i worked 40 something countries on 10 in like three weekends back in the fall and i've been licensed since 1987 and honestly forgot how fun that band gets near the peak. the cluster doesnt even capture half of it sometimes - i'll just spin the dial and stumble into a pileup for some rare one that hasnt even been spotted yet.

on the gear front i think what your seeing from yaesu is probably just the FT-70 variants or maybe something in the WIRES-X ecosystem, they've been pretty quiet on the HF side for a while now. Icom has been the one making noise lately. heard some chatter about them working on something to slot between the 7300 and 7610 but i wouldnt hold your breath waiting on rumors. the 7300 is still a ridiculous value for what it does, hard to imagine them making something that actually obsoletes it at a sane price point.

oh man the remote setup rabbit hole is real lol. i spent about three months trying to get mine stable and there's always something - latency, the router rebooting, my HOA side-eyeing the antenna situation. but when it works its genuinely great, i work from home two days a week and just have the rig sitting there and can jump on when 10 or 12 opens up without missing anything.

hamvention coverage is always kind of chaotic honestly, half the "new release" stuff turns out to be stuff that was already announced months ago just being shown in person for the first time. i usually just wait for the actual reviews to hit YouTube before getting excited about anything