so ive been running a little Yaesu FT-450D for about three years now and its been fine honestly, no real complaints, but ive been eyeing the IC-7300 forever and theres one locally for sale, guy wants $850 for it, says its about two years old and he upgraded to a 7610. screen looks clean in the photos and he says the finals are good but obviously i cant verify that just from a picture.

my main thing is just HF casual operating, some SSB ragchewing on 40 and 20, occasionally poke around on 17m, nothing crazy. i dont do digital except maybe wspr every now and then just to see how propagation is doing. i know the 7300 has the whole direct sampling SDR thing going on inside and the waterfall display is supposed to be really useful for finding activity but coming from the 450D which is pretty basic in that department im not sure how much of a real-world difference ill actually notice day to day.

also the shack is in a small bedroom and RFI is always a mild annoyance — does the 7300 do anything notably different in terms of noise floor or is that more about my antenna situation (which honestly isnt great, dipole in the attic). anyway just looking for thoughts from people who have actually used one, not looking for the spec sheet stuff i can read that myself

had a 7300 for about four years before i moved to a 7610 and honestly that radio punches way above what you'd expect at that price point. the waterfall alone changed how i operate — i used to just tune around blind and now i can actually see where the pileups are forming or where a clear spot is on 40 at night. its hard to go back to a radio without one after you get used to it.

noise floor on mine was noticeably cleaner than my old 857D which admittedly isnt a fair comparison. the preamp and attenuator controls are really easy to get to which helps when conditions change. for attic dipole stuff you might still fight noise but thats your feedline and environment more than the radio — the 7300 will at least let you hear whats actually there instead of masking it.

$850 is pretty reasonable right now if the screen has no burn-in and the TX audio checks out. id ask to meet him somewhere you can hook it up to a dummy load and just key it up on a few bands, shouldnt take more than 10 minutes to verify the basic stuff. the finals on these are generally pretty robust unless someone ran it way outside spec for a long time.

yeah $850 sounds about right, seen them go for more lately. one thing i'll mention is check if he has the original box and the DC power cable because icom's stock cable on that rig is pretty thin for 100w sustained operation and some guys swap it out. not a dealbreaker just something to know about. also the menu system takes a little getting used to if youre coming from yaesu but after a week or so its fine