On a Budget
Daimon Tilley G4USI takes a canter around the various HF transceivers available at budget prices.
Daimon Tilley G4USI takes a canter around the various HF transceivers available at budget prices.
In many senses I think this particular instalment is going to be the hardest to write and do justice. Why do I say that? Well, because there is a truly enormous range of new and used equipment in this sector. So, in deciding how best to construct this article I returned to the notion of ‘on a budget.’ This term is clearly very open to personal circumstance − we all have varying budgets. What might seem like an expensive purchase to one of us, might actually be a frugal purchase from the point of view of the purchaser.
I decided to deal with this dilemma by setting myself a price limit for this article. I intend to look at new and used options, starting from as low as £40 up to £1,000, and I will divide the article into new and used rigs in those price ranges. I know that for many people £1,000 is an awful lot of money, so I have only included a small selection near that budget point (actually there is not much available) with the majority of the options we will look at coming in at, or below, £500.
Now, I am sure some of you are already wondering how you can possibly get on HF effectively at the lower end of this budget but, believe me, it can be done, and done well. Indeed, for £40 I will get you on the air on a single band with a superb kit, and for just over £100, I will get you on the air with a multi-mode rig that will cover 80 through to 10 metres, effectively, without lifting a soldering iron! Interested? Read on.
The first thing I will say here is that if you ever needed a reason to learn CW, then getting on HF on a budget is absolutely one of the top reasons. The simplicity of design and construction of CW rigs compared to SSB means that there are many kits available to build that are excellent performers and will bring you hundreds of contacts simply and cheaply. But, if your fingers will never touch a key, don’t worry, there are still plenty of options.
So, to quote Lewis Carroll, I will adopt the King’s advice from Alice in Wonderland: “Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
New Equipment - not Kits
Not everyone is willing to wield a soldering iron in anger. So, what is available as an offthe-shelf, brand new package?
£800 - £1000
The choice here is a little limited. Right on the edge of £1,000, depending on the retailer, then the excellent Icom IC-7100 is available as a true shack-in-a box HF, VHF and UHF transceiver. Moonraker currently seem to be the cheapest for this rig at £999.95, although at the time of writing they were out of stock. This is a lot of rig for the money, and if I was looking to spend £1,000 this would probably be my choice, with the bonus of VHF and UHF into the bargain.
Below that, there are a few options I have researched. If you want a traditional rig from one of the ‘big three’ manufacturers, then the Kenwood TS-480SAT has to be high on the list at a shade over £800. Covering the HF bands and 6 metres, with a built in ATU, the rig is ideal as a base station or mobile piece of equipment with its removable head unit.
Perhaps you might like to try SDR functionality. The Elad FDM-Duo is a quality SDR transceiver covering HF and 6 metres. This is a QRP rig though, emitting just 5W, but has the versatility of being able to be used as a standalone rig, with its own control panel, or being operated through your computer to make best use of its SDR features. The current price is approximately £974, but if you want more than 5W, you need to factor in at least another £500 for a 100W amplifier.
Sticking with the QRP theme, the excellent Elecraft KX2 portable transceiver is available for £950, giving 10W out on the nine HF bands. Be aware, though, that this is for the basic rig and the cost of extras is high. It is an extra £80 for the microphone, £75 for the internal battery, £40 for the charger and £240 for the internal ATU. If you wanted one with all these goodies you are well over the £1k budget at more than £1,400.
It is interesting to note that Yaesu does not currently have an offering in this price range.
£500 - £800
In this price band, only Yaesu from the ‘Big Three’ has a presence. Until very recently, the FT-450 fitted in here as a good base station option, but this has recently been discontinued.
Yaesu have two offerings in this price point. First, the FT-891, a very compact HF and 50MHz offering that covers HF and 6m at a full 100W. When I first returned to the hobby, this is the rig I purchased, and I have to say it is a very good option at
Photo 1: The Icom IC-7100.
Photo 2: The QRP Labs QCX+ CW transceiver.
this price. I used mine for about two years before selling it on. I found its features to be good, with very good DSP (digital signal processing) functionality and I made a great many contacts on it with SSB, CW and digital modes. I confess that I did find it a bit tricky to get all the menu settings right to make digital modes work correctly, but once this was done, no further adjustment was required.
In my experience, if you don’t mind menudriven rigs, this would be an excellent choice. My main reason for sale was that I found the lack of knobs and buttons a bit frustrating. I found that when I wanted to change bands I mis-pressed the button and changed modes instead, or vice versa, but that was just a personal thing.
Also in this price range is the venerable Yaesu FT-818ND. This rig covers HF, VHF and UHF in a tiny box, which even has space for internal batteries. The rig has a huge following and has been around in various forms for many, many years. If you want a small and compact rig that can ‘do it all’, then this could be for you. Given its size, you will need to have decent eyesight to use it and be dextrous around the tiny buttons. The main downside from my point of view was the lack of DSP and 500Hz CW filtering. If you want narrow CW filtering, you have to pay about another £120 for a Collins mechanical filter. I reviewed this rig in detail in the December 2019 edition if you wish more information, and the current price is about £600.
At £650, the Ailunce HS2 transceiver is available. An SDR transceiver, this rig gives transceive from 160m to 70cm, and receive from 300kHz to 1.6GHz. Impressively it can operate from 5V to 32V DC and boasts built-in Bluetooth, ATU and USB sound card. Power output is claimed at up to 20W on HF and 6m, reducing to 5W at V/UHF. However, one review on the Moonraker website, claims power was below 9W on HF. It sounds as though it has a lot going for it but, on looking at the manual and pictures, the biggest potential downside is the lack of a VFO knob! Frequency changes seem to be either by direct frequency input using the keypad, or by using a left or right arrow button to tune. This could be really inconvenient unless you are controlling the rig from a computer. There is a mobile phone app for remote control available.
The Lab599 Discovery TX-500 will be available from pileupdx.com later this summer. It is a wonderful looking and very robust QRP rig that has just been CE approved. Reviews from those parts of the world who already have the rig are very impressive and this could be well worth a look if you want a robust portable QRP rig. The anticipated cost of £800, though, probably plus import duties, make this quite an expensive choice. pileupdx.com
Under £500
There are still some good options for a fully featured HF transceiver below £500, although they are typically QRP options. So, what is available?
Well, in this portion of the market there are some very good Chinese offerings, particularly from Xiegu, who have three great choices in the market.
First is a rig I own myself. The Xiegu X5105, at just under £500, is a compact 5W portable transceiver with a lot going for it. Covering HF and 6m, the rig boasts an internal battery and an internal ATU that will literally tune just about anything. It also has a good SWR scanning feature, which you can use as a mini-VNA (antenna analyser.) With the latest firmware, this a very robust and reliable rig, which I enjoy using as a portable station. It has travelled Europe with me and is very easy to use. I recommend it.
Also from Xiegu is the G90. This is amazing value at £390 and is an SDR transceiver giving 20W on all HF bands (no 6m coverage). With a bright but small TFT screen the rig provides a spectrum display and also has an excellent builtin ATU. The rig looks a little utilitarian but has a detachable front panel. Reports from others in the various online Xiegu communities have been excellent, with many finding that 20W is perfectly adequate for plenty of good contacts and makes life a little easier than with 5W. The only issue to be aware of really is that for digital modes, many find that some extra cooling is required. After-market stands with cooling are available, but a simple PC fan is all that is required if wanting to use digital modes at full power.
The final offering from Xiegu is the G1M. A tiny all-mode SDR QRP transceiver operating on the 80, 40, 20 and 15m bands at 5W, but still boasting twin VFOs, built-in keyer and general coverage receive and at a tiny £240 price brand new!
These Xiegu rigs are available from a number of places, including online auction sites, etc. However, my personal recommendation would be to buy from the UK importer, Sinotel UK, as their customer service is regarded as first-class by the Xiegu community.
I am delighted to say that Sinotel recently agreed to send me the G1M and G90 for testing and review. They arrived just as I was concluding this article, but early results are very encouraging and I will be writing a review of the Xiegu stable for this magazine very soon.
At this point it is worth mentioning the Minion SDR transceiver. This ten-band QRP multi-mode SDR rig has quite good reviews and is available from www.qrpver.com in the Ukraine for £275 fully built and ready to use. The company also has some other HF offerings too. www.qrpver.com
If you don’t mind being limited to 10m on HF (conditions are picking-up!) then there are quite a few 10m multi-mode rigs
Photo 3: The Yaesu FT-891. Photo 4: The Xiegu G90.
available for around £150 - £200. Offerings from Anytone (AT-5555N) and Alinco (DX10) are just two. I have no experience of these rigs, but I suspect they are derived from CB transceivers, and the DX-10, for example, also has a CB channelised display.
My final offering in this category, although there are some other options, would be a fully assembled and tested single-band QRP transceiver from the excellent QRP-Labs.com. I have reviewed both the QCX and the QCX Mini kits in this magazine (Oct and November 2019, and May 2021) but these rigs can be brought fully assembled if you wish, for £70. You really won’t find a better single band CW transceiver at this price, in my view. www.qrp-labs.com
New Equipment, Kits, all under £150
A kit usually requires you to add and solder some or all of the components to the board, but there is one exception that I know of, and that is the uBitx from HFSignals.com in India. I reviewed version 3 of the uBitx in my articles in August and September 2019, when I built it into a ‘go-box.’ The rig is now at version 6 with a number of improvements. The biggest selling point here, is for those who don’t have the confidence to build a kit. No soldering is required. You just plug the cables together onto the finished board and the only tool you need to use is a screwdriver! HFSignals.com
The basic kit is £112 but does not include the enclosure, speaker and a few other bits that you probably already have lying around. The full kit is £148 and comes with everything you need for the finished rig. Power output varies a little by band but it provides up to 10W out on all HF bands from 80 through 10m, with general coverage receive, dual VFOs, SSB and CW modes with built in CW keyer, touchscreen, and it is good on digital modes too. Being an open-source project, there is a large maker community and many mods to improve an already good rig are available.
Revisiting the QCX Plus and QCX Mini from QRP labs, these can both be purchased as kits for £39 and you can add the optional enclosures for another £17 for the Plus and £14 for the Mini. I promise you that you would be amazed by these rigs. In my first review of the original QCX rig for 40m, after build, I switched on and worked 13 countries in 30 minutes in a contest! In terms of construction, I recommend the QCX Plus for beginners as it is mainly through-hole components and there is plenty of space on the board to work. The QCX Mini, while having many SMD parts already fitted, is a much more fiddly build and I managed to blow my second one up in smoke when fitting it into the tiny enclosure, as tolerances between components and the boards and case are minimal. I don’t say that to put you off the Mini, just to be aware of it, if you are new to construction.
There are plenty of other CW-only transceiver kits available and here are a few websites for you to consider to widen your choice: www.qrphamradiokits.com are based in Spain and provide a number of good quality single and multi-band kits both for CW and SSB at good prices. www.qrpkits.com are another US supplier of amateur radio kits and accessories.
And finally in this section, there are some single-band digital transceivers available for FT8 and the like. The website qrpguys.com in the US provides an ‘AFPFSK Digital Transceiver III kit’. This kit, for $80, allows 5W of digital modes on any band from 160m to 10m by means of plugin modules (one per band). It is supplied with band module kits for 40, 30 and 20m as standard and you can buy PCBs for another four bands for an additional $10. This kit is interesting in that it uses SSB, whereas a number of other digital-only kits use DSB. QRPGuys have a good reputation for quality, but shipping can apparently be quite slow as it is very much a part-time business.
qrpguys.com
Other examples of this genre are the Phaser, a US kit from midnightdesignsolutions.com, and the FT8 transceiver from www.qrvtronics.com at just $45.
midnightdesignsolutions.com www.qrvtronics.com
I should say at this point, that while there are many excellent value kits in the US, you need to be mindful of shipping costs and any import duties, which can significantly increase costs.
The Used Equipment Market
Well, there is a complete myriad of choice here, from all of the ‘big three’ manufacturers, depending on how far back in their lineup you are prepared to go. First, let’s look at some of the issues you might want to consider when buying a used HF rig.
Reviews
The bonus of buying a used rig, apart from reduced cost, is that it is very likely that there will be a preponderance of reviews available to help you make your choice. For this purpose I find the ‘reviews’ section of the eHam.net website to be a complete treasure trove of user information and views. I refer to it more often than many other sites if I am looking to consider a used rig. There is hardly a model in existence that will not have at least some user reviews on this site. Users can rate their experiences up to 5 stars and write detailed descriptions about their use of the rig. My advice is don’t buy a used rig without first looking at the reviews on this site! eHam.net
Facilities
The further back in time you go, the fewer ‘bells and whistles’ will be available. For example, do you want DSP facilities, CW keyers, twin VFOs, etc. Is an internal ATU important? Do you want an internal PSU, digital display, and so on? Once again eHam reviews are your friend here, but also a number of manufacturers do keep data on discontinued models (at least recent ones) on their websites. Another useful reference when assessing a used rig is the rigpix website (below). Here will find pictures of the rig, some basic specifications and sometimes a link to the manual.
Spare Parts/Reliability
The older a rig gets, then the more likely it is to need attention at some point in its life, but it does not necessarily follow that it will need it in your ownership, or indeed at all. Again, internet resources will give you a sense for the longevity and servicing needs of older rigs. A more recent issue has been the discontinuing of modern transceivers because the manufacturers themselves are no longer able to source the parts needed to build them – the Yaesu FT-450D is an example. This is a risk for you the purchaser of course. What if you have a part failure and cannot source a replacement? That is a risk, of course, but you need to assess how likely it is, with many transceivers giving decades of service without a single issue.
Nonetheless, you should consider that if it breaks, can you, or someone else, fix it?
Honesty and Integrity
It is a sad fact that not all sellers are honest, and there are reports of a number of scams where people have purported to be genuine amateurs selling gear that does not exist! Caveat emptor. A little due diligence can help here, though, and there are simple steps you can take to protect yourself. If buying second-hand, I always try to engage the seller in a conversation, electronic or otherwise, to help assess their bona fides, ask for their callsign, etc. You also need to be aware of the risk of sellers being a little economical with the truth and not identifying known faults. Ask lots of questions and see where the conversation leads you. On this issue, my advice is never to pay by PayPal Friends and Family. Using this service is a popular request with sellers, to prevent them having to pay a 2.5% service charge on the sale price. Whenever I see this, I always offer to pay the asking price (or price agreed) plus 2.5%. This way, the seller is not out of pocket, and I can pay using PayPal Goods and Services, which gives me some consumer protection.
Where to Source the Equipment
The options are many and varied. Obviously, there are the well-known auction sites, the magazines, including PW, and sales by word of mouth, from other club members, etc. There are also some retailers who specialise in used equipment and who usually have an online presence, as well as the main retailers who often have used equipment advertised. Buying from these sources can give you a little more peace of mind, but ensure you are clear about warranties, service facilities and so on.
On the subject of warranties, just beware adverts that say “...there are still ‘x’ months of manufacturer’s warranty remaining.” I know for sure, for example, that Yaesu warranties only apply to the first owner and are not transferable. Other manufacturers will have their own policies and you should check that out.
I have had quite a lot of success buying from Facebook groups. There are a number of Facebook UK amateur radio groups for buying and selling gear. Again, beware the scammer, but I have made several successful purchases this way.
So, having considered all of those issues, and having decided to go ahead and buy a used HF rig, what is available? For this final part of the article, some two months ago I decided to keep a note of all HF rigs that I saw for sale used at under £500 and to list them by price here. I do not intend to go into any details about each of the rigs, as they are too numerous, but instead I refer readers to the resources I have already listed. So, buckle up, here is a trip down memory lane!
To Conclude
So, to conclude this instalment of the series, I hope I have demonstrated that the HF bands are for everyone, regardless of budget. There really is something for everyone. The quality and capability of modern kits is excellent, but for those not confident in building, you can buy readyassembled kits, or simply plug together the uBitx, or buy used commercial gear. I hope you have found this article informative and I hope to see you on the bands. In the next instalment of the series we will be taking a look at budget HF antennas.