Let's first discuss what this is not - it is not a finished product, but a 'work in progress', an experimental rig with which you can participate in the development.
The Good
It has an excellent high resolution display (800x400) which is more than bright enough to be readily visible in direct sunlight. It has a very useful panadaptor and waterfall, with a span of either 50kHz or 100kHz. The audio quality from its diminutive internal speaker is surprisingly good, and even better if connected to a wide range bookshelf speaker. The noise suppression capability is amongst the best I've heard, certainly on a par with that of my Yaesu FTDX101D and the Icom IC-7300. The user interface is reasonably intuitive, if a little inconsistent. (Some menu items are adjusted with the MFK knob, others with the + and - buttons.) It has internal decoders for CW, BPSK, and RTTY. The microphone buttons greatly extend the utility of the control of the transceiver. It has an internal ATU that seems to be capable of matching to a wide range of loads.
The Bad
The internal battery is essentially useless. At an input voltage of 13.8V, the receiver current consumption is about 380mA, 10W transmit is about 2.44A, and 5W transmit about 1.86A. However, there must be an internal DC to DC converter because as the voltage falls, the current increases, and at the nominal battery voltage of 7.4V, the receive current consumption is a staggering 630mA, and 5W transmit is 1.7A. The maximum run-time I achieved in receive was about 3.5 hours, but if you transmit, and use FT8 for example, then you can expect very much shorter run-times. Why they decided to incorporate a 3 A-H internal battery mystifies me, when you would almost certainly use an external 12V gel-cell or Li-ion polymer battery.
There are numerous 'features' which either do not work, or are only partially functional even with the latest firmware version (17-January-2022). In my case the WLAN simply does not connect to my home router despite recognising it, nor to any other router I've tried. The Bluetooth function only connects to one of my 6 mice, and not at all to any of my Bluetooth headsets or speakers. The HOST USB port requires a USB 'A' to USB 'C' cable with a USB 'A' female to female adaptor, to which you can then connect a keyboard or mouse. However, the functions available to either the Bluetooth or USB mouse are so limited that it's not worth bothering. Only the tabs on the bottom of the display screen are active, and in the RADIO SETTINGS 1 only the TX power and AGC slope are adjustable, in the RADIO SETTINGS 2 only the RIT is adjustable, and finally in the DISPLAY only the RF FFT AV is adjustable. Why bother? Although the mouse cursor moves over the whole screen, you cannot select a frequency, or hover over a carrier and click on it to have the radio tune to that signal, or click on any of the display items, such as Preamp, AGC, NB, MODE to change them.
The CAT protocol appears to be an emulation of an Icom IC-7000, but there are no menu items that allow you to view much less change the device address, or set the TRANSCEIVE mode. The port speed is also fixed at 19,200 with no adjustment. Why anyone would actually choose to use this complex protocol rather than the simpler ASCII one mystifies me. At least with the ASCII protocol you can examine the commands and responses with a terminal program, rather than having to decode HEX.
And The Ugly
Sadly, when we allowed microprocessors, synthesisers, LCDs and other high-speed logic into our radios, we opened the door to all sorts of spurious signals, and this radio is no exception - it is plagued with them. Sufficiently so that the MW band is mostly unusable. Try tuning to 1.827110MHz for an example of a S9+20dB spur. Or, just to show that this is not a low frequency only phenomena, tune to 51.168MHz for a really nasty multi-spectral one. True, most of the spurs are either at or below atmospheric and man-made noise levels when using a good antenna, but even in this case many are clearly audible. When operating portable with a compromise antenna, then many more will be audible, and there are literally dozens of them.
The sensitivity is adequate. Xiegu state that it is 0.2uV/-121dBm for both SSB and CW, this is suspicious, because there should be at least a 6dB difference simply because of the different bandwidths. I measured my radio, and the mean value from 160m to 10m was -111dBm/0.63uV SSB, and -116dBm/0.35uV for CW. On 6m, it was -105dBm/1.26uV SSB, and -111dBm/0.63uV for CW. Not spectacularly sensitive, but bear in mind that incoming noise will, for the most part, determine what signals can actually be copied.
So, this radio is not a serious competitor to either the Elecraft KX2 or KX3, much less the Icom IC-705, but then, it costs far less than these radios. And it is certainly usable, despite its indifferent receiver. My best contact from Cyprus using the internal battery and 5W SSB was VK4KA, long path, using a Hexbeam antenna, as well as lots of European stations, so it is a fun rig to use. Nevertheless, my final comment is that if this rig were to be destroyed today, would I replace it with another? The answer is no, it's a nice enough rig, but for me, not that nice - hence only 2 stars.
Adrian, 5B4AIY |