Boutique Radios
Did you realise these days you can buy more flavours of radio transceiver than ever before? Steve Ireland VK6VZ/G3ZZD investigates the rise of ‘boutique’ radio manufacturers selling online.
Steve Ireland VK6VZ/G3ZZD investigates the rise of ‘boutique’ radio manufacturers selling online.
Go back 25 years or so and there were a handful of manufacturers of readymade radios. We used to joke about most of us having ones made by ‘YaeCOMWood’, better known as the big three Japanese manufacturers Yaesu, ICOM and Kenwood (originally Trio).
The former ‘big two’ USA manufacturers of Collins Radio Company (Cedar Rapids, IA) and RL Drake (Miamisburg OH) had slipped away into history, along with their brother Heath (Benton Harbour, MI) and UK cousin, KW Electronics (Dartford, Kent). But the USA was still represented by TenTec (Sevierville, TN), whose compact solidstate transceivers had a loyal following, particularly in their home country.
These companies built transceivers in relatively high volumes in traditional factories, usually which belonged to them.
The Arrival of Elecraft
In 1998, a new competitor came into the market. Eric Swartz WA6HHQ and Wayne
Burdick N6KR formed Elecraft and marketed the K2 HF transceiver, named after the approaching ‘2K’ millennium. They created a fresh amateur radio business model based on (initially) producing low volumes of highquality products in a similar manner to the famous 1960s boutique clothing shops. This business model has had a huge influence on today’s ‘boutique’ transceiver makers.
The boutique transceivers include the mcHF (designed by Krassi ‘Chris’
Atanassov M0NKA, Birmingham UK) to Lab599’s Discovery-500 (out of Rubtsovsk, Altai Region of Russia) to XieGu Tech’s G90 (designed by BG8HT in Huan Province, China) to Mission’s RGO One (Boris
Sapundzhiev LZ2JR, Gabrovo, Bulgaria). Let’s first look at how Elecraft developed its business − please bear in mind this is primarily my personal interpretation of the company’s history.
Rather than initially spending lots of money on manufacturing facilities, the Elecraft founders opted to sell their K2 radio as a kit. Soon after launching the company at the Pacificon Hamfest in October 1998 by showing a mock-up of a K2, Elecraft sold the first 100 K2 kits as ‘Field Test’ units
Having seen the mock-up, read the excellent specifications and, with N6KR’s reputation as a designer of world-class QRP radios (NorCal 40A, Sierra, etc), those who attended wanted to get their hands on a K2 as soon as possible. Word spread quickly and US QRPers and kit-makers queued to be involved in the K2’s final development and testing. This approach was something new and exciting and, as Wayne N6KR has written, “has paid off time and again as we’ve released new products”.
The way it worked was if you were an Elecraft field tester, you got the thrill of building and using the K2 and providing feedback to the manufacturer about its performance, knowing this was shaping the radio’s production version.
When Elecraft announced the K3 in 2008, radio amateurs across the globe (including me!) clamoured to be field testers, owing to the K2’s excellent performance and the superb specification announced for its successor.
When the K3 was ready for production, the way to make sure you got one as soon as possible was to make a deposit on the radio. This helped Elecraft to buy in the component inventory necessary to build the initial production run of the radio and meant your place in the lengthy queue to buy the radio was assured.
Now this approach only worked because the K2 was such a good performer, a great radio to build and (last but not least) Elecraft’s support and interaction with builders and users was superb.
Some radio amateurs were initially surprised about Elecraft’s decision to sell the K3 as either a modular level kit (i.e. complete and tested boards) or ready-built − a major move away from the K2, which was a component level kit. But all of a sudden you could buy a cool Elecraft radio and have the company do all the hard work for you!
This refinement of Elecraft’s original approach certainly worked with me and a lot of contesting and DXing acquaintances. Right from the start K3 sales boomed and kept on booming, with over 10,000 of the K3 and its K3S successor being sold. Like the K2 you were able to add new or upgraded modules to the K3, as your ambitions and budget allowed.
When the K3S was introduced in 2015 you could upgrade your original K3 to this specification/function level by buying new modules.
Fast forward to 2021 and Elecraft has been considered a mainstream radio manufacturer for at least a decade. These days you could even say ‘YaeCOMwood’ has become ‘YaeCOMelewood’. What has also changed is radio enthusiasts the world over have studied how Elecraft established itself as a major power and set up companies to hopefully follow in its footsteps.
The Successors
Let’s look at the radios some of these companies are currently marketing. I’ll make a general comparison of the radio’s specifications without going into too much detail − you can have fun doing that yourself after reading this article!
mcHF makes its Mark
One of the first of the new breed of boutique radios was the mcHF [2] open-source Software Designed Radio (SDR) transceiver, introduced by Chris M0NKA in 2013, Fig. 1.
This uses classic direct conversion techniques on both receive and transmit, with Inphase/Quadrature signals (I/Q) being fed into a WM7381 audio codec followed by a 32-bit STM32F407 digital signal processing (DSP) unit, providing most of the radio’s functionality.
The mcHF has apparently had about eight software/firmware versions (currently Version 0.8) and is so well thought of it has reportedly been cloned − and then the clone has been cloned [3]! As Oscar Wilde once said, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”
Having an SDR product that is ‘open source’ − where its design is publicly accessible − is a noble idea but does mean copying can occur. In a similar manner I recall some female fashion college friends being horrified after discovering their designs illegally on sale at some London boutiques and market stalls only days after they were shown at a college exhibition.
The mcHF covers the 80 to 10m amateur bands, with general coverage receive from 2 to 30MHz. Measuring 190 x 69 x 45mm, the compact radio provides SSB, CW, AM and FM modes and is reportedly capable of decoding PSK, RTTY and PSK on its colour LCD display.
Its transmit RF power has been reported to be adjustable up to 10+ watts on the lower HF amateur bands, but decreasing to about 4W on 10m [4]. Power consumption at 12V is 360mA on receive, rising to 3A on transmit. The mcHF has two VFOs, enabling split operation, with DSP providing 300/500Hz CW and 1.8/2.3kHz SSB filters with adjustable passbands. Other nice features include a built-in spectrum scope (with waterfall display), computer control, a CW keyer, voice-operated switching and audio peak/notch filtering. And Alexey
UT0UM is now offering a companion internal ATU: www.mchf.at
Originally the mcHF was sold as a kit but in the last year or two, ready-built versions have been available in the USA. In October 2020, this service was reported as being expanded to include other countries, but since the second wave of Covid-19 has been affected by delays in securing some components and a backlog of orders. Contact mcHF via its website for the latest ordering status/information.
As of February 2021, an mcHF kit costs between £297.30 and £314.30, including a metal case. Alternatively, you can buy a kit (partly assembled boards) without a case for just over £244. If/when available, a fullybuilt radio can be purchased in Europe for around £390. There is an excellent mcHF@ groups.io builder/users support group with almost 800 members − a good place to check out what its owners think about the radio’s assembly and performance.
From Russia with Love: Lab599’s DiscoveryTX-500
While I haven’t been fortunate enough to get up close and personal with an mcHF, my friend Lee VK6TY has purchased a Lab599 Discovery TX-500 [5], Fig. 2, which shows the relative size and appearance the Discovery TX-500 and an ICOM IC-705.
Both radios − along with the mcHF and the Xiegu G90 (to be discussed later) − share what I would call a ‘Swiss Army Knife’ identity. They have a huge amount of functionality in a very small package and are designed to be, if required, operated outdoors. That being said, to me all have distinct identities to match the various modern breeds of radio amateur.
The mcHF has a flat-on-its-back militarytype utilitarian profile, which is shared by the Discovery TX-500. However, whereas the very British mcHF softens this with its cosy, colour LCD, the Discovery TX-500 is all ‘mil-spec’, sharp edges, splash-proof and monochromatic display. I can see the mcHF finding a home in Tony Robinson’s backpack as he walks Offa’s Dike in a gentle drizzle, whereas the Discovery TX599 would be buttoned down tightly inside a camouflage trouser pocket while its owner (Daniel Craig or Vlad Putin?) battles their way to the top of Scafell Pike in a rainstorm.
Fig. 1: USA ready-built version of original mcHF. (Photo: m0nka.co.uk) Fig. 2: ICOM IC-705 and TX-500 at VK6TY. Fig. 3: Xiegu G90. (Photo: Tecsun Australia) Fig. 4: Boris LZ2JR displaying the Mission RGO One. (Photo: lz2jr.com)
Fig. 5: Close-up of RGO One. (Photo: lz2jr.com)
As we shall see, the technical specifications of the mcHF and the Discovery TX-500 have some general similarities but the latter offers more in terms of functionality, only comes readybuilt and in terms of build, judging from photographs, could be said to be a bit like a 4WD to the mcHF’s SUV.
However, you pay for this stronger build − the price of the Discovery TX-500 (from PileupDX.com) is 890 Euro (about £785), making it almost twice the price of a readybuilt mcHF (providing one is available). That being said, the ICOM IC-705 (160m to 70cm) costs around £1,300 and the Elecraft KX2 (80 to 10m) is about £950.
The Discovery TX-500 also has broader coverage than the mcHF, offering you the 160m and 6m amateur bands in addition to 80 to 10m, while its general coverage receive runs from 0.5 to 56MHz. Modes offered are SSB, CW, digital, AM and FM, with the advertised receive power consumption (100mA) less than a third of the mcHF, but on transmit the consumption of the two radio is similar, in the range of 1 to 3A. The TX-500 also uses a 32-bit processor for the DSP and has a high contrast and relatively low-power consumption monochrome 258 x 128 pixels LCD, providing a 48kHz-wide ‘real time’ bandscope.
Like the mcHF the TX-500 also has the well-established QSD (sampling detector) SDR architecture − as incidentally do the Xiegu G90 and the KX2. On receive the Discovery TX-500 uses a switchable low noise preamplifier, giving the radio a claimed sensitivity (minimum detectable sensitivity) of −136dBm, plus an attenuator for very strong signals. Four adjustable bandwidth digital filters are available, along with I/Q output, automatic notch filtering, adjustable noise reduction and noise blanking.
On transmit, the TX-500 power output specified is variable from one to 10W PEP. The radio comes with adjustable CW sidetone/transmit offset, a speakermicrophone, three-band transmit audio equaliser; two adjustable digital filters and a DSP RF speech processor.
The low profile (90 x 207 x 21mm) case of the Discovery TX-500 is moulded aluminium, whereas the mcHF case is sheet metal. But the former weighs in at around 0.55kg, which appears to be lighter than the mcHF, and has folding stands so it can be stood at an angle on an operator’s table.
The controls and sockets on the Discovery-500 are tightly fitted into the case. While the radio isn’t waterproof in the complete sense, it seems very much splash-proof and weatherproof in a way none of the other boutique radios discussed here appear to attempt.
There is an active user group for the TX500 at Lab599@groups.io.
An Original from China: the XieGu G90
Next up is the G90 [6] from XieGu, a company that has built a good reputation for cheap and well-performing low-power transceivers over the last five years or so.
As Phil Salas AD5X noted in his ARRL QST review [7], the G90 looks rather like a miniature version of an ICOM IC 706MKIIG, measuring 120 x 45x 210mm. But the radio − like the others discussed so far − uses a direct-conversion QSD SDR architecture with a 32-bit DSP/central processing unit.
The G90 appears aimed at those of us who prefer to use a bike or a car rather than a small backpack for their portable operation and lack the dogged Tony Robinson or adventurous James Bond gene. Weighing in at 1.7kg (including microphone), the G90 puts out from one to 20W RF and includes a built-in antenna tuner and speaker. The G90 also has a detachable front panel, which can connect to the radio’s body using an included one-metre long DB9 cable, so is suitable for mobile operation.
As you can see from Fig. 3, the G90 has a generally similar number of front-panel controls to the mcHF and TX-500 − in this case, three knobs and 13 push buttons. The features the radio comes with are broadly similar to its two predecessors, apart from the aforesaid increased power, antenna tuner and speaker.
The G90 transceives from 160m to 10m on SSB, CW and AM as standard (you need to buy the £30 Xiegu CE-19 Expansion Interface to connect the radio to your PC to operate the digital modes) and has general coverage receive of 0.5 to 30MHz. It is also capable of split frequency operation and has a 4.57cm colour LCD screen, panadaptor providing both band and waterfall displays, receive preamp/attenuator, noise blanker, variable bandpass filters, speech processor and SWR bridge. When it comes to CW operation, the G90 has a built-in keyer and a decoder.
In terms of power, the G90 needs an external supply of 10.5V to 16.5V. Although Xiegu states this needs to be capable of 8A for 20W RF, tests by the ARRL Lab show that at 13.8V DC input only some 4 to 4.5A is necessary for this RF output. The standby/receive current is around 750mA.
One important point to consider here if you plan to use a radio for SSB operation, having 20W rather than the (potential) 10W output of the mcHF and Tx-500 is a serious bonus. Don’t forget, this means an extra 3dB of signal − which is like going from a dipole to a 2-element Yagi. To me, 20W is a more practical power level for portable operation than 10W or, even worse, the 5W used by most QRP operators. In these days of low sunspots. With small but powerful LiPo batteries readily available, why sacrifice 3 or 6dB of transmit power, which is likely to mean fewer contacts.
Note the G90 has a user group: XieguG90G90S@groups.io
Back to the Future: the Mission RGO One
So far the boutique radios we've looked at have used SDR architecture and are solidly aimed at the amateur with contemporary tastes who likes to have a small radio capable of many communication modes, with a panadaptor/bandscope and high interconnectivity to a laptop/tablet. Mission’s RGO One comes from a rather different standpoint. Here you need to think old school Sean Connery in an Aston Martin DB5 but powered by a high-performance Tesla electric engine.
The RGO One, Figs. 4 and 5 − as its name phonetically suggests − takes its inspiration from the famous Argonaut series of radios produced over several decades by Ten-Tec. In terms of architecture, the front-end is unashamedly analogue and superheterodyne (9MHz Intermediate Frequency with down conversion to 134kHz for its AGC circuitry), but the back end has dual CPUs for front panel and motherboard control, both field programmable by USB, and USB CAT control.
No built-in bandscope but crystal filterbased selectivity that can slice-and-dice weak CW and SSB signals from heavy QRM (thanks to a 4-pole variable bandwidth Jones filter, which follows the 9MHz 8-pole roofing filter and first IF amplifier), plus audio that has been said to sound classic Kenwood. Yes, I have just gone misty-eyed.
One particularly nice touch − in addition to the Jones-type filtering, which I love on my old TT Argonaut V − is an H-mode mixer, originally designed by Colin
Horrabin G3SBI, with the reputation of being the most large-signal-proof mixer designed.
The RGO One is 200 x 80 x 194mm and weighs 2.67kg. It has a colour-selectable back-lit LCD display. Buttons (15) and knobs (5), including one concentric RF/ AF gain control, are heavily in evidence, so those of us who hate menus will be happy.
Although a kit is planned, Mission has opted for initially selling a factorybuilt and aligned radio for just over £690 (790 euros), which covers 80 to 10m. If you want to work 160m, then a receive bandpass filter costs you a further £43 and an internal ATU adds a further £123.
Like all the three previous radios, the RGO One has an excellent online user group at RGO-ONE@groups.io where the radio’s chief designer or one of the company’s chosen field testers will quickly answer any queries. This approach, pioneered so successfully by Elecraft, has now been not only adopted by the boutique radio makers, but to some extent by YaeCOMwood.
Conclusion
This article should give you a taste of the large number of boutique radio transceivers currently being made in relatively small numbers and sold over the internet by quite small companies. As you can see, some are highly innovative. If you buy one and join their online user group, there is a genuine opportunity to influence the radio’s development and have a lot of fun.
Note that some boutique radios offered are more of a ‘work in progress’ than others. Carefully consider before making a purchase whether the radio actually has all the facilities you require now, rather than them being promised for the future. Also, what do the existing users say about it?
All radio manufacturers make promises about new additions. My view is it is easier for a company to deliver them if it is a relatively large-scale organisation because of the sheer size of their workforce and facilities. On the other hand, this delivery can be true of boutique manufacturers too. You never know − one of these manufacturers could be the new Elecraft!
These radios are relatively low-cost but keep in mind that sometimes a company’s bubble may burst, particularly in these rather uncertain times. One of the keys to assessing this risk is to look at the company’s record, or have actually bought something from it before.
This is one reason why I’m looking forward to the boutique QRP Labs QSX transceiver kit being sold. Its designer
Hans Summers G0UPL announced the original concept over two years ago and having watched his company online and built one of its QCX transceivers during this period, I am pretty excited. That being said, part of me also really wants to try an mcHF, a Discovery-500, a G90 and an RGO One right now!
References
• [1] The Elecraft History by Wayne N6KR is a fascinating read. See: https://tinyurl.com/5bhzmt5j
• [2] For more details about the mcHF, see:
www.m0nka.co.uk/?page_id=2 • [3] https://tinyurl.com/yb99x8fy
• [4] See N8NN review at:
https://tinyurl.com/3ctua2a9
• [5] For the Discovery TX-500’s specification, see: https://lab599.com
• [6] For the Xiegu G90’s specification, see: https://tinyurl.com/yp3n965w
• [7] You can download a copy of the QST review by AD5X at:
https://tinyurl.com/2ews3kxj
• [8] https://tinyurl.com/4ys7hae7
• [9] For specifications of the Mission RGO One, see: https://lz2jr.com/blog
• [10] For information about the QRP Lab’s QSX, see: www.qrp-labs.com/qsx.html