Over all I gave it a 4.5 for interesting, 2 for useful as SSB radio.
I then reverted the QCX to CW where its still a 5, as CW radios go.
These rigs bring back fond memories I have of the TenTec Century 21 CW only transceiver, but with much better frequency accuracy and stability. Listening to SSB is also very pleasant with the 3 kHz or greater bandwidth.
I have not given up on SSB just yet. These are tests with the supplied speaker/mic in both PTT and VOX modes.
This is how traditional VOX works in most rigs. Traditional VOX has three controls.
a. Anti-VOX which feeds back audio from the speaker with the correct phase to cancel speaker sounds from activating the VOX
b. VOX sensitivity which is self explanatory. This seems to be the closest function to what is called the Noise Gate.
c. VOX delay which sets how long after a person stops talking the VOX disengages and returns the rig to receive
Neither the uSDR or uSDX+ have anti-VOX or VOX delay. With no anti-VOX, if the Vol is set high with Noise Gate = 0 and VOX engaged, the uSDX+ will immediately to into transmit mode and stay there. Turning the unit off will return VOX to its default which is off at which point the uSDX+ will stop transmitting. To avoid this, the Vol must be turned down. If the unit does not go into transmit mode, a capital “V” will appear on the lower right side of the display to indicate it is in VOX mode.
VOX related functions do not normally affect PTT operation. This is not the case with the uSDR and uSDX+ where the Noise Gate has a noticeable mostly negative affect upon PTT operation. The uSDX+ was tested with it’s speaker/mic in PTT mode instead of using the Wavetek to bypass the microphone. As might be expected from the Wavetek tests, Noise Gate = 0 is best, Noise Gate = 9 has lots of pulses.
Below, PTT mode, Vol = 6, Noise Gate = 0

Below, PTT mode, Vol =6, Noise Gate = 9

These are images for the uSDX+ with it’s speaker/mic,
Vol = 0, Noise Gate = 0, VOX = on

Vol = 0, Noise Gate = 4, VOX = on

Vol = 0, Noise Gate = 9, VOX = on. For some reason at Noise Gate = 9 the pulses diminished with VOX where with PTT is was much worse.

Vol = 0, Noise Gate =9, VOX = on, same as above with voice added

Vol = 6, Noise Gate = 9, VOX = on. Raising the Vol from 0 to 6 brought this but there was a vast improvement in the last image if the volume was backed down to 5.

It does not require a scope to see these full power pulses during receive. They can be heard in the speaker/mic sounding like ignition noise. The developers may be aware of this problem with pulses on transmit. The attached note is embedded in firmware version 1.02x. I suspect they cannot develop VOX further or solve the pulse problem because they have run out of program memory space.

It looks like for the cleanest SSB audio at this time, it is best to avoid VOX; use PTT with Noise Gate = 0.