Tag: xiegu

  • My POTA Radio History: Five Radios, One Lesson About Carrying Less

    From an AnyTone 578 in an Armoloq cage, through a G90, an FT-891, and an FT-857D, to landing on the FTX-1 Optima. Here’s the actual radio history behind my current POTA setup, and why I kept swapping until it matched my shack.

  • Yaesu FT-857D vs FT-891, G90, FTX-1 Field, FTX-1 Optima, IC-7300 Mark II, and FT-817: Where Each One Actually Wins

    Part of our The Yaesu FT-857D: The Complete Guide. I get asked constantly how the FT-857D stacks up against the rest of the radios in my shack and go-bags, so here’s the honest rundown of where each one wins and where it doesn’t. Quick disclosure up front: I own and regularly use the FT-891, the…

  • Xiegu X6100 Review: A Touchscreen Portable Alternative to the G90

    Part of our Where to Spend Your Money guide. The X6100 is Xiegu’s more premium portable offering, built around a full touchscreen SDR interface and an internal battery, positioning it as a more self-contained alternative to the G90 for POTA and SOTA style operating. Touchscreen SDR Interface Unlike the G90’s small waterfall display, the X6100…

  • Icom IC-705 vs Xiegu G90 vs FT-891: Which Portable Radio Fits You

    Part of our Where to Spend Your Money guide. These three radios get cross-shopped constantly, and I own two of the three, so I want to lay out the real tradeoffs rather than just declare a winner. Power Output The FT-891 wins here decisively at a full 100 watts. The G90 sits in the middle…

  • FT-891 vs FTX-1 Field vs G90: Which Portable HF Radio Wins for POTA

    Part of our Getting On The Air: Modes, Operations, and Making Contacts guide. I get some version of this question constantly: which of my three portable-friendly HF radios should someone actually buy for POTA. I own all three, I use all three in the field, and the honest answer is that they’re not really competing…

  • Common G90 Problems and How I’ve Solved Them

    Part of our The Xiegu G90: The Complete Guide. The G90 is a budget radio and it occasionally acts like one, but most of the complaints I see online are either fixable in five minutes or aren’t really problems, they’re just the tradeoffs that come with a 20 watt QRP radio. Here’s what I’ve actually…

  • Building a Xiegu G90 Manpack: 20 Watts of Highly Portable HF

    My G90 build: an Armoloq cage, Armoloq RF relocation adapters, a Digirig for digital ops, and probably the best integrated tuner I’ve used on any field radio.

  • The Xiegu G90: The Complete Guide

    The Xiegu G90 is the radio I hand to people who ask me where to start with portable HF and don’t want to spend FT-891 or FTX-1 money to find out if they like it. It’s a 20 watt QRP transceiver with a genuinely useful built-in antenna tuner, and it’s small enough that it changes…

  • Getting the Most from the G90’s Built-In Antenna Tuner

    Part of our The Xiegu G90: The Complete Guide. The built-in tuner is one of the main reasons I recommend the G90 to people building their first portable HF kit. It’s not just a checkbox feature. It’s genuinely one of the better internal tuners I’ve used at this price point, and it changes what you…

  • My HF Radios: Four Radios, Four Very Different Jobs

    This is probably the most expensive post I’ve written. Here’s a rundown of the four HF radios I actually own and use, and what each one has earned its keep doing.

  • Xiegu G90 for Portable Ops, and How It Stacks Up Against the FT-891

    20 watts, a built-in tuner, and a waterfall display in a radio you can hold in one hand. Here’s how the G90 does in the field, and where it wins and loses against the FT-891.

  • G90 POTA Field Kit Walkthrough

    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…

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