Part of our The Xiegu G90: The Complete Guide.
People ask me why I still reach for the G90 for POTA when I own an FTX-1 and an FT-891. The honest answer is size. The G90 is genuinely small, and once you’ve hiked a mile in with a radio on your back, you stop thinking of that as a spec sheet number and start thinking of it as the thing that decided whether this trip was fun or a chore.
Why the Size Actually Matters
The G90 fits in a smaller bag than any other HF radio I own. That sounds obvious, but it cascades into everything else: a smaller bag means a lighter pack, a smaller battery gets you through a full activation because the radio sips less current than my other rigs, and I can set up on a picnic table, a tailgate, or a rock without needing a full field desk. For a lot of POTA spots, especially ones with a real hike attached, that’s the difference between activating and not bothering.
What’s In the Bag
My G90 kit is deliberately minimal: the radio itself, a random wire or EFHW antenna, a lightweight support (a painter’s pole or a convenient tree branch does the job), a small LiFePO4 pack, a logging notebook, and earbuds. No external tuner, since the internal one handles what I throw at it. The whole kit fits in a bag about the size of a small daypack.
20 Watts Is Plenty for This Kind of Operating
Twenty watts sounds low next to a 100 watt base radio, but for POTA it’s rarely the limiting factor. Right now we’re benefiting from an active solar cycle, so band conditions are doing a lot of the heavy lifting and 20 watts on a resonant wire will get you a solid activation. Worth remembering that as the cycle winds down over the coming years, weaker conditions may make QRP activations slower going, so don’t assume today’s easy contacts are the permanent baseline.
Setup Time
Because the tuner is internal and the whole kit is so compact, I can be on the air in under ten minutes from parking the truck to first CQ. That speed matters more than people expect, especially on activations where daylight or weather is working against you.