Recently I sold my Elecraft KX3. While it was not a bad radio (except a few glitches like the poor speaker) it was mostly collecting dust. I do not do that many portable ops anymore after having built quite a mature remote station in JO73 so can do radio from my Cologne home, too, if I’m not locally at the station overhere. And if it really strikes me I still have a few other radios to take portable, be it my contest K3 or my good old venerable FT-817 …
As we got another special permit to use 4 m this year again during summer I now bought an Icom IC-7300 to try it out and see how it would perform especially on 6 & 4 m to have an option for future expeditions on these bands, too. I do have 6 m in the K3 (although it needs an external preamp, one of the very few design flaws in the K3) and I do run a 4 m transverter in the remote setup but when I’m local I prefer not to tear down the remote station, it normally stays untouched to make sure it all still works when back in Cologne. Enough justice to buy a new radio, isn’t it? 😉 Luckily I got a good deal from my prefered dealer so even saved a few Euros from selling the KX3. 😎
Currently having holidays I have enough time now to put it through its paces. Will be eager to see how it performs under strong Sporadic-E conditions and will also do some checks on HF. This is were the radio got some critics, i.e. too wide bandpass filters in front of the RX and thus overloads especially on big antennas. Will see and report back, stay tuned! 😉