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Author Topic: Xiegu G1M  (Read 1302 times)

N2DTS

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Xiegu G1M
« on: January 12, 2021, 07:37:41 PM »

I picked one of these little radios up and checked it out today.
Seems very well made, not heavy, sold 5 to 6 watts out, easy to read display.
The controls are fine once you learn how to work them, there is a chart in the owners manual.
Good audio, much better then the G90 with its nasty AGC.
Two filter choices for CW, ssb sounds good RX and TX.
Has a preamp, has AM mode reception (good audio), has a nice and usable spectrum scope with a few different setups for it, selectable CW tone, A/B vfo switch, tuning step size selection.
80, 40, 20 and 15 meter TX, general coverage RX.

Overall, very nice for $200.00.
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K1QQQ

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Re: Xiegu G1M
« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2021, 07:31:12 AM »

I picked up one a while back and yet to get into it. (use it)

Can't find reviews  BUT a few there are are BEWARE of the microphone connection. It can rip off the circuit board, etc.

Otherwise an economy
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K6AER

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Re: Xiegu G1M
« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2021, 10:08:00 AM »

In specific what was wrong with the audio on the G90? I have used the radio many time and found the audio just fine.
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N2DTS

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Re: Xiegu G1M
« Reply #3 on: January 13, 2021, 11:10:10 AM »

With the AGC on its horribly distorted.
The agc seems to act to bring the noise up and clip signals distorting them.
Try turning the agc off and using the RF gain and see how nice it sounds.

Two things bug me about the G90, the nasty agc action and poor AM modulation.
Otherwise it could be a fantastic radio.

The G1M sounds fine (good) as it should.





In specific what was wrong with the audio on the G90? I have used the radio many time and found the audio just fine.
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N2DTS

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Re: Xiegu G1M
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2021, 06:19:39 AM »

Heard KC8UGW doing a parks on the air SSB and gave him a call on the G1M and got a 5/5 report.
He was activating a park in Michigan.
My output power was 5 watts on a small gel cell battery.

Very cool!
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N2DTS

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Re: Xiegu G1M
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2021, 06:43:25 AM »



Great audio!
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N2DTS

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Re: Xiegu G1M
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2021, 10:57:42 AM »

Well, they fixed the G90 agc, it now sounds great on RX.
I did some checks on power use:

G1M 430ma RX, 1.9A TX 5 watts cw,
Nouveau 75 8o meter AM rig from four states qrp, 132ma RX, 1 A TX 5 watts carrier (20 watts pep),
G90, 640 ma RX, 3 amp TX 20 watts out.

TX draw will vary with power and modulation some...
The G90 is great, but a real power hog!
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N2DTS

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Re: Xiegu G1M
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2021, 01:47:32 PM »

Checked the MCHF clone (978), 331ma RX, 280 ma with the screen dimmed a bit, 2.2a 6 watt TX.

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N6YWU

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Re: Xiegu G1M
« Reply #8 on: January 29, 2021, 03:09:10 PM »

How much does the G1M weigh?
I only see the package shipping weight on their web site.
I found the size: 97*40*155, or about a centimeter narrower than an Hermes Lite 2.
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N2DTS

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Re: Xiegu G1M
« Reply #9 on: January 29, 2021, 07:39:01 PM »

I am unsure what the weight is, but its super light.
If feels lighter then two D cell batteries, heavier then one.
Its REALLY light.
No battery, no tuner....
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N2DTS

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Re: Xiegu G1M
« Reply #10 on: February 01, 2021, 06:13:08 AM »

The mcHF clone wins the power war, even with its larger bright color display.
RX on it is very good, but TX is not very clean.
OK for qrp but not something you would want to put into an amplifier.
That is from the design and firmware I think, leakage of signals around stuff and no/poor filters.
Some have made improvements in it.
The 978 clone has a nice big snap in battery, 3.8 amp hours and even without a built in tuner is quite heavy.
As heavy as the G90 I think.
RX is very good though...
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N6YWU

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Re: Xiegu G1M
« Reply #11 on: February 01, 2021, 10:18:06 AM »

The mcHF clone wins the power war, even with its larger bright color display.
RX on it is very good, but TX is not very clean.
OK for qrp but not something you would want to put into an amplifier.

The mcHF has a 16-bit audio ADC, compared against the Hermes Lite 2 with a 12-bit RF direct sampling ADC.  What's your comparison of the two for Rx?

Also, how did you measure the cleanliness of the mcHF Tx signal?  Is much spurious RF going out the antenna?  Or just lots of common mode stuff radiating from the case, power cord, mic cord, etc.
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N2DTS

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Re: Xiegu G1M
« Reply #12 on: February 01, 2021, 07:12:40 PM »

I looked at the mcHF with the Flex 6400m, along with other SDR radios.
It puts out a constant carrier on CW about 600 Hz away I think, quite strong, and various spurs that have nothing to do with power output levels.

I will take a picture in the future.

The RX is very nice, its got an audio line out, it tunes nicely, very easy to use, has sync AM that works very well, filters are good, display is very nice.
It can be overloaded, but its not as easy as most others, and when it does it does not act as bad.
It has really nice software and enough buttons and knobs to make it easy to use.
I think there have been improvements in the newer ones, or at least mods to remove some or most of the TX garbage, bypassing and maybe shielding....
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N6YWU

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Re: Xiegu G1M
« Reply #13 on: February 02, 2021, 09:07:08 AM »

Thanks.  I have a 2 year old non-clone mcHF (constructed by WD8BXS).  I think the mcHF transmits CW by sending a shaped audio tone through the SSB modulator.  So a spurious 600-750 Hz away is probably the SSB LO.  There's also a setting to offset the LO by around +-12 kHz, and a bunch of IQ balance compensation settings. I haven't been able to determine whether the LO spurious I see is just RF coupling across my test-bench, or is something actually going out the antenna jack.
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N2DTS

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Re: Xiegu G1M
« Reply #14 on: February 02, 2021, 01:26:02 PM »

Its going out the antenna jack.

Ok for qrp but maybe not into an amplifier.
Some pictures, the CW mode has a strong signal out as long as the T/R relay is in TX:

SSB TX me making a tone into the mic:


 tx:


CW, note the dots at the bottom of the screen and the signal next to it,


This is with very low signal going into the Flex and the mcHF into the dummy load.
More signal looks very nasty:
« Last Edit: February 02, 2021, 01:28:23 PM by N2DTS »
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