We’ve spent hours searching for the best cheap HF transceiver and here are what we think the we can save money for the budget items. Some of them are Chinese HF transceiver and we are in favour of portable hf transceiver.
During ham vention I went to the MFJ booth and I picked up as a Jew g90. This is a pretty intriguing portable, a little bit higher than qrp radio and let’s check it out today.
So the quick details on the zg 90 is: it is an all hf band, portable 20 watt radio.
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It features an antenna tuner that takes anywhere from 12 seconds to 2 seconds, once it’s used to the impedance of the antenna you’re using for the frequency that you’re on tunes the radio and it features a very nice screen.
It’S not a touchscreen, but the details are fairly feature-rich.
It has a nice waterfall.
It has a nice SWR sweep for the antenna that you’re on and most of these are controllable and settable.
An interesting feature that the g 90 has right out of the box, that the zayed you company is coming out with the rest of their line is a CW decode mode, and it does pretty well important to note.
The g90 draws about 0.3 amps on receive in CW mode in 20, watts output.
I was pulling about 4 amps on transmit, so the zai Zhu Zhi 90 is a 20 watt, pretty portable radio with a built-in antenna tuner it supports all band.
Hf AM single sideband and CW modes.
Switching.
The Bands is a process of pushing the buttons on the top and modes or the buttons.
Next to it.
As of today, I own the zai Jiao x5 1:05 and now have the G 90 and they fit similar, albeit slightly different roles in kind of an outdoor portable situation.
These I do x5, 1, 0, 5, 5 watt output.
Qrp.
Only radio is a great little backpack.
Portable, it’s pretty rugged and you can just take it and go with the G 90 you’re going to need an external power source, but it still has that tuner.
It has the enhanced features for CW decode and that really nice very information-packed screen one of the most compelling aspects of this.
I jus g90 is its price point.
It’S actually four hundred and forty nine dollars today on the MFJ website.
That makes it one hundred and fifty dollars cheaper than the x5 one zero five, so for a hundred and fifty dollars cheaper, you’re, actually getting more functionality and a higher power output.
The only drawback of that is that you will have to supply your own power source likely some kind of lithium-ion battery. You may look at used ham radio transceivers for sale.
Although the front panel is pretty small due to its portability, the buttons being kind of a much smaller they’re, very easy to press, they have a really good tactile response and they are dual pressed.
So there’s a short press and then a long press for this hf handheld transceiver.
And if you push the function button that opens up a third option for setting up and changing different settings working your way around the radio is pretty simple.
You know the power button here.
The interesting note this light will illuminate when it thinks you are zero.
Bleeding a CW station volume control is at the top, if you short press volume that switches it to headphones.
Headphones allows you to output to the headphone jack on the side.
Otherwise it goes to the speaker below that is the multifunction knob.
If you single click that click that you get squelch control, in my case, though I have it set to control the scale of the waterfall right now we are in CW decode mode.
If you want to remove that pretty simple, you just hold down the key button and the waterfall comes back and that waterfall, oh those small, is actually really useful right.
Now it’s a little high, but if I drop down the waterfall you see it clears out and gives you a nice sea of blue with that.
If you click the vfo button, you’ll see that we’re moving through the steps for your control on the megahertz megahertz roll.
Here and she’d go up through the radio.
The three major dials on those I jus g90 are the V fo the volume control and the multi control each one of them have a press which activates a different set of settings.
The multi button actually has a menu system that you can apply different controls to it that will be default.
When you press it, you can control different aspects of the radio working around this small screen.
You still get a lot of information, the mode you’re operating in whether you’re in the A or B channel.
What your filter is, what your SWR is.
What your waterfall looks like when your signal and strength meter working around the top of the buttons pushing the function button illuminates the function, light which changes some of the keys on the side, for instance, this tune button.
If you hold it down Tunes the radio, but if you click it singly, it turns on and off the tune.
If you go to power that allows you to change the power output via the V fo and under the key or CW, you can change your tear speed your manual depending on, if your left or right, ambach or a straight key and lock actually changes.
The contrast of the screen under function and then power you get mic, gain input mic or to the side so, for instance, input mic.
You can change that to line which allows you to change the audio input if you’re doing digital, so, for instance, regular operation, you’re gon na be on the mic.
You’Ll switch it back when you want to use line for digital click, it again takes you back.
Hopefully double-click the function button should bring you back yeah, so basically you’re in standard operating mode.
When you can see you’re filtering, which is right, there we’re at 2400 kilohertz for filter size.
You can change that, though, and the easiest way to do that is switch your mode to CW, for instance, but if you wanted to change that further, the FL and FH allow you to change the left side and right side of your filtering for CW.
Usually, you want to drag that into about 400 kilohertz, that’s kind of a sweet spot.
Some of the features that I like in the x51 0-5 are also on the G 990, like the antenna sweep which gives you a graphical view of whatever antenna you have connected to the radio.
Now one thing that I have been looking for for a very long time is a icon.
7300, like data connection, I’d like one single cable to be able to connect to a radio.
A portable radio would be preferred to be able to do digital nodes out in the field now, while the g9e doesn’t have that single cable.
Yet it gets pretty close and it’s very easy to set up in a wsj ATX or anybody interested in my settings in wsj TX.
Here they are pretty straightforward.
Icom IC 7000 is the radio I use and it works pretty well.
The G 90 comes with a USB cable which connects to the front side port on the radio and that allows it to PTT.
In the back.
There is an ACC or accessory port which you can use to connect for audio.
I am using the c ii 19 adapter interface device that is also sold by MFJ.
It works with the x5 1:05 and works with the g 90.
That allows me the USB connection to PTT the radio and the audio interface to the c ii 19.
To connect to my computer with those two connections, i am able to work digital.
These are the cables I use to do digital.
I use a USB mic and input for speaker an ACC cable for the back of the radio, as well as the back of the C 19.
You have your USB cable for PT tiing, the radio, and then I have a splitter that goes from the stereo output of the radio on the side into a mic and speaker cable.
That’S all you really need to be able to do.
Digital notes with this way is a compelling radio because it is more power than a traditional qrp radio, not yet 100 watts, but it’s also much smaller and much cheaper.
So this is kind of like a solid recommendation for an entry-level radio for someone on a budget.
It has a standard PL 259, meaning you can use regular, full-size and Tenace without having to use an adapter by and large, I’m pretty impressed by it.
I think what separates this from the x5 1:05, if you are considering those two options, is that screen that screen?
As someone starting out in radio is really going to like seeing the information all up front on the screen, the way that the g9e shows you walking around the radio, you have headphone jack on the side of the face plate and the connection for USB.
In the back, you have a key, an i/o port and then the accessory plug, as well as your power and your PL 259.
What makes this also kind of more interesting in the functionality that you can technically deploy with it?
It comes with a serial cable and a Allen, hex key for disconnecting the front panel so that you could remote it technically like in a car.
So in some ways this is competing with qrp, radio and another way it’s actually competing with something like an ft. 8.
91 by Yaesu, in that you can also deploy this in a mobile application.
What I’d like to do at the end of all my videos is, give you a, would I buy it, or would I not buy it and really that’s an excuse for me to kind of suss out who I think the right person is for this radio and There are multiple people who this radio would be good, for.
One would be somebody who’s looking for something: that’s portable, not necessarily really ultra portable, like a qrp, 5 watt, tiny radio, but somebody who wants the information on the screen, plus the 20 watts someone that potentially would like this is, if they’re new to HF.
This would be a good introduction, HF radio, lots of information on that screen.
The price point is right where it should be and it has a tuner and that tuner is pretty good.
The last person is kind of a confluence of the qrp person, but somebody who wants to use digital modes may be out in the field.
This is small enough that you can take it onto the field without much fuss, and it still has 20 watts of output.
For using ft8 or something along those lines, I think this is a really good showing from zai Zhu.
I think they’re going in the right direction, with HF and they’re targeting an interesting area of the market, an introductory radio that has portable capability and a 20 watt output with an internal tuner, those scratch the itch for many people that are in the market.
If you find this radio interesting, the link will be in the description to go check it out at MFJ, which is probably the cheapest place, you’re going to find it in the United States.
Last update on 2023-03-02 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
