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Author Topic: kn990 20 watt sdr  (Read 267 times)

N2DTS

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kn990 20 watt sdr
« on: May 25, 2021, 07:16:43 PM »

Picked one up, fast shipping from China.
Nice screen, big radio, nice audio, nice TX audio as well, good AM modulation, strong ssb modulation, cw seems fine.

Hard to use, the waterfall/scope is not adjustable and it can be hard to see signals on it.
A lot of button pushing to change things and its not easy to remember where anything is.

There is one knob you can set to do whatever, power output, filter width, etc.
There seems to be no way to change the tuning rate, or the AGC.

Odd radio, its quite large, but does not have enough knobs or buttons to be useful, the screen is too small for all they put on it. It does not have an antenna tuner built in.
There is no way to adjust the screen brightness.

Band up and down buttons, they always seem to take you to the same spot no mater where you left the frequency or mode.
It does have memories you can load freq and mode/filter settings, but its some button pushing to get to it and back to the vfo.
The radio shows a vfo b but I could find no way to switch to it or use it in any way.

One mode on one band is easy enough, jumping around and adjusting things is a chore and not much fun.

The mcHF radios are a lot easier to use, but the TX side is not very good.
The G90 is easy to use and has a good TX but the screen is very small.
The KN990 works well but is hard to use and large.


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N2DTS

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Re: kn990 20 watt sdr
« Reply #1 on: May 27, 2021, 05:15:38 PM »

The receiver overloads easy it seems.
40 meters is a mess tonight from off freq strong signals...
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KX2T

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Re: kn990 20 watt sdr
« Reply #2 on: May 28, 2021, 06:11:48 AM »

It looks nice but in the end its another POS from China, maybe in another 5 years or soo they will get better at designing cheap radio's just like telescope optics they tried to copy Japan's leading hi end product called Takahashi which makes some of the best optics in the world but China is still not there yet. They are getting better but still have an overall CHEAP build and feel. They also had tried to copy OM power a few years ago but somewhere the company just faded away, it almost looked good until some were brought over here in the US but in the end cheaper parts and poor QC failed that amp.
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N2DTS

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Re: kn990 20 watt sdr
« Reply #3 on: May 28, 2021, 07:28:06 AM »

This is true, but its not a radio like a Kenwood or Icom, its more of a ham designed radio like the mcHF rigs that someone in China is building.

The Xiegu G90 is more of a 'real' rig and it works quite well and is good for the price.

I would not say the kn 990 is good for the price.

Not to say it does not work, and the TX side seems fine, great audio, cw is also ok but might have problems into an amplifier as I see funky ALC action on key down...

RX audio is great, the band scope is not much use.

The best ham made/designed radio so far seems to be the mcHF radios.
The one I have (China) has a nice built in battery but has some issues on the TX side with signal leakage and spurs.
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