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Reviews For: mcHF

Category: QRP Radios (5 watts or less)

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Review Summary For : mcHF
Reviews: 7MSRP: approx 300GBP
Description:
Small and inexpensive HF radio kit
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.m0nka.co.uk/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0075
N5ID Rating: 2022-04-08
Great little CW radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The receiver is excellent on both CW and SSB. The peak filter works great on CW and I am really surprised at the good audio quality. The noise reduction works well, the internal keyer and even the memory keyer works great! I actually like the receiver as much if not better than my IC-7300
G4YVM Rating: 2022-01-03
Excellent radio but the build is a challenge for sure Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Building this radio is not easy, cheap or guaranteed of success. BUT...if and when you succeed - and the community of builders really will help you - you have a radio of such quality and ease of use as to blow your mind and challenge anything else you own. If you fit the internal ATU you have pretty much radio perfection.
McHF is equal to or better than kx2, kx3, g90, and any base station you name. An SDR package the size of a brick.

Not for the faint hearted but my 5 stars are for the radios performance not your building skills
AE7YD Rating: 2020-12-31
Works great Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I had 2 Chinese copy before and both were a disappointment. Finally I was able to buy an original MCHF. What a difference. It has the automatic tuner build in and sometimes I have to push a little harder on the power button but nothing compared to the Chinese ones.
Receiver is excellent, the touch screen works (it didn't reliably on the Chinese ones). I couldn't be happier. OK a build in battery would be nice but a LiFe battery on the back works fine. This doesn't mean that every Chinese radio is bad, I have a SW-3B and a DR-4020 from Venus Technology and they work great, just to show I am not biased in my review.
N8NN Rating: 2019-12-28
Excellent QRP Radio for the Price Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I built the mcHF kit from M0NKA with the SMD parts factory installed. I got my case from China on Ebay. M0NKA also sells cases. This kit is not for a beginner because there are no step-by-step instructions, and you need to learn how to load the software. Delicate soldering is required. The end result is an amazing radio!

The receiver is highly sensitive and highly selective -- equivalent to most commercial transceivers. Operates on 80-10 meters, general coverage receive. The transmitter puts out 10+ watts on the low bands (adjustable) and decreases to about 4 watts on 10m. CW, SSB, AM, RTTY, PSK, FM. Two VFOs, split operation, built-in CW keyer, DSP filter, audio peak/notch, VOX -- just about ever feature you would expect for an HF transceiver. Decodes CW, RTTY, PSK to the display. Can be computer controlled for logging and digital modes. Does not have an antenna tuner.

I am very satisfied with the performance. It was a fun kit to build and operating it is even more fun!

If you are considering a Chinese knock-off of this UK radio, be aware that most, if not all of them, have older software and contain hardware that prevents software updates. Choose carefully if you get a clone.

PA3MET Rating: 2019-12-27
cool open source project (TX update) Time Owned: more than 12 months.
the mcHF -- I have built one that receives (no time to make tx work yet) pretty well.

add: TX now works too. The RX works fine even at around 7V. TX works fine and is well suited for FT8 as well as WSPR.

Very happy with it; especially the UHSDR formware which in fact is very well written. It also supports other small transceivers. It also will support the upcoming OVI40 which is something I am going to get as well.

No it has not an ATU and the power is limited but hey -- it's a very very nice rig. I would not trade it in for an 857 or 817.

K9OO Rating: 2019-01-16
UPDATE Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
In my original review, I had signals showing up on frequencies they didn't belong. Turns out it was a software issue. A later update fixed this and left everything else working great.

The battery issue was solved by a china distributor making battery packs to add to the radio. The battery in the pack swelled on me, so I fit a 10aa holder for rechargable batteries. the radio ran 2 hours receive only, and 2 hours @50% duty cycle at 2w. 4 hours on rechargable aa is more than I need.

Great little rig, generates lots of interest.
F6DUK Rating: 2017-05-24
Amazing SDR Radio kit Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I completed assembly last week end and run my first QSOs. Its definitely not a beginner a la Heathkit kit. Kit has all the SMD parts soldered you need to provide a couple of RD16HHF1 transistors and the case. (there is a nice fitting one on eb....com)or rather quasi fitting, you understand. Once all componnts are placed, bootloader loaded, firmware loaded, then wow, so many radio for that money, amazing, really. goes from 80m to 10m monitors and corrects drift from si570 LO.
73,s from Hubert F6DUK