so ive been running an old TS-450S for like 8 years and i kept telling myself i didnt need to upgrade but after borrowing a buddy's 7300 at a field day event last summer i just couldnt go back. finally ordered one in january and its been sitting on my desk for about 3 weeks now.

first impression is obviously the screen, like everyone says. the panadapter alone has changed how i operate, i actually find myself just watching the band for a few minutes before i even key up which i never did before. the filtering is stupid good compared to what i was used to, especially crowded 40m conditions on weekday evenings when everyone and their grandmother is on.

one thing that did throw me off is the touch interface when youre wearing gloves or have cold hands in the shack in winter, it gets kind of annoying. my shack is in the garage and it gets cold. not a dealbreaker but worth mentioning. also took me a while to figure out the scope settings so it wasnt just a smear of noise, there are a bunch of ref level and speed adjustments that make a huge difference once you dial them in.

anyone else made a similar jump from older iron to something with a built in panadapter? curious how long it took you to really feel at home with it

yeah i went from a 746 pro to the 7300 maybe two years ago and honestly the learning curve wasnt that bad, give it another month and youll wonder how you ever operated without the scope. the thing that got me was realizing i needed to set the span narrower than i thought, i had it on like 500khz and everything looked like garbage. once i dropped it down to around 50 or 100khz for the band i was working it all clicked.

the cold hands thing is real though, i ended up just leaving a cheap pair of fingerless gloves near the radio. not ideal but it works. what antenna are you running with it?

I made a similar move but went from a Kenwood TS-590SG to the 7300 and honestly I go back and forth on whether it was the right call. The receiver on the 590 was genuinely excellent and I sometimes feel like people sleep on it because it doesn't have a waterfall. For casual ragchewing the 7300 is great but I've read some stuff about the 7300's front end being a little more susceptible to overload on a really active band compared to some of the older dedicated receiver designs. Haven't confirmed that myself but something to keep an eye on if you're near a strong local station. Either way it's a solid radio and you'll get a lot of enjoyment out of it.