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Reviews For: Venus SW-3B CW transceiver

Category: QRP Radios (5 watts or less)

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Review Summary For : Venus SW-3B CW transceiver
Reviews: 15MSRP: 188
Description:
3 band CW QRP transceiver
Covers 40,30 and 20m
5watts output
Built-in CW keyer
Product is in production
More Info: https://www.venus-itech.com/product/sw-3b-qrp-cw-transceiver/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
44.5154.9
GM0WEZ Rating: 2020-03-29
Rather good! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have a lot of kit single band QRP radios, but decided to buy this for SOTA and backpacking trips, thinking the extra bands would be helpful (they are!). I often do multi day trips in the Scottish highlands so weight is important.

It is nicely compact and feels solid and robust, really very good receiver and good CW filter, about 400Hz. Intuitive to use in the field, nice backlit display. The wide 8-15v supply range is very handy and gives you many power options. I use 3 x 18650 lithium cells in a holder. I think I would have preferred if this had been built in.

Receive coverage extends well beyond the amateur bands, and you can listen to SSB, albeit with 2kHz bandwidth filters. I tried listening to some AM SW broadcast stations and despite the narrow filters it is pretty clear, even music. Receives 5Mhz, it would be nice if it transmitted on 5 as well.

I'm using it with a home made tri-band end fed half wave made from Sotabeams picotraps and a toroidal matching unit as per G0POT's website. This is very light, easy to deploy and SWR seems to be constant in various environments.

Delivery was pretty fast and no tax/import duty to pay. (YMMV).

Pros:
Robust
Intuitive and easy to use in the field
>5W out
Wide DC input voltage
Extended receive
Costs only slightly more than a single band radio, and much cheaper than the MTR

Cons
No onboard battery option
No onboard SWR meter
A wee bit heavier than the MTR

AE7YD Rating: 2020-03-11
Surprisingly good selectivity for such a small radio. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have many QRP radios and for the price I didn't expect too much but after reading the review from AE5X I had to try one. Wow, what a surprise.
Easy to use, has RF and AF gain. Selectivity is surprisingly good. This evening I had a SSB station slightly below 7114 and a cw station that sounded
like a keyed oscillators from the 60's and still I was able to copy the station on 7114. Amazing.
And the support from Dale is outstanding.
Open it and you will see how clean and well designed it is.
I cannot resist using it everyday.
Update:
After using it for quite a while now I found that for me the side tone was a little too loud. I added a 10K 0603 resistor in parallel to C46 and now it is perfect.
I really love that radio and I am so pleased with it that I bought their DR-4020 to do SSTV and some ft8.
VK3XPT Rating: 2020-03-10
Incredible performance and great value Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I am new to CW but I'm not new to QRP portable operation. The SW-3B is a joy to use, all functions work as expected (or better).

- RX is great. The CW filter is around 400Hz, which is spot on (IMHO).

- SSB filter is narrow at around 2k but works well enough for casual SSB listening.

- TX performance is very impressive (I have measured over 5 watts at 12V, and around 1.5 watts at 8.5V on all bands). On air reports all say it sounds excellent.

- The build quality is better than I expected at this price. It's very nice inside, the PCB and overall construction is of high quality and the radio feels solid to hold. The UI is great and the screen is easy to read.

- Delivery to Australia was around 1 week. The company is very responsive to emails. What's not to like?

It's a great little radio.
K3ESE Rating: 2019-10-08
excellent little rig! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This radio cost $197, shipped, and arrived from China in 19 days. I measured 6W out on both 20m and 40m, and 7W out on 30m.

The audio is very good, and the receiver has both AF and RF gain pots, making it easier to separate signals.

It's easy to switch between the various tuning rates, and RIT is very well-designed, and easy to use.

I'm extremely pleased with this tiny radio, and it will now be my primary /P rig.
M0BVG Rating: 2019-09-02
Execllent Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Nice little QRP transceiver,and a great company to deal with.
Fast shipping,very impressed the lightweight,good receiving as well.
Highly recommended.