I have owned my G90 for year and a half. While I don’t have that many hours of transmit time on it, I have monitored the bands quite a bit, and I am really happy with the radio. The screen is bright enough that I can see it easily in sunlight when I have operated outdoors.
Since I do dial around a lot (I listen way more than I talk), I wonder how the rotary encoder will hold up over time, but so far it is working ok. I added one of the larger VFO knobs that are available on eBay, and that makes spinning around the bands a bit better than the stock knob.
The stock mic audio is pretty good. I have video from friends and it sounds natural and quite good. I did order an Icom 8 pin modular to Cobra 4 pin mic adapter, so I can try running an Astatic 575 on it, but that is a day or two away, but it should work. The stock mic does have some nice functionality on it though, especially the band buttons which allow you to change bands from the mic. And you can engage the tuner from the mic too. Convenient if you want to put it in the mobile.
The internal tuner is amazing. It hasn’t choked on any antenna I have yet. Pretty much everyone says the same thing about the tuner.
The receiver is quite good. I am running a West Mountain Radio CLRspkr DSP speaker with it, and the receive audio (with the speaker) is generally better than my friend’s Yaesu FTDX3000. We have compared RX signals of DX stations via video, and when you account for his higher end radio, and Hex beam, versus my $450 radio and ground-mounted Chameleon MPAS antenna, the G90 RX is very impressive (and the $200 West Mountain speaker helps out a lot !).
Xiegu has continued to make improvements and correct issues via firmware, the most recent (V1.75) added NFM to the radio, which is very cool ! While there is no CTCSS capability for working 10m repeaters, it did add another mode of operation. They also added some function changes to the multi function dial, so instead of using the MFD for 100 kHz steps like I usually do, I can quickly change it to adjust the squelch if I am operating 10m FM, or some other function, based on how I am operating. Saves a few steps of going through the menu.
The radio can get warm with long keydowns, but I have the companion H-1 stand with cooling fan, which helps a lot, and provides a good viewing angle in the shack. I haven’t used the G90 in the mobile, but the detachable faceplate would make installation much easier.
I have had a few glitches with mine, but nothing that reloading the firmware didn’t fix. Mostly I might have a loose connection in the short power cord jumper on the H-1 stand, where I can loose power sometimes if moving the radio or reaching back behind it. This seems to cause the firmware to get corrupted and I will get a “Lost Comms” message on the display. Reloading firmware gets things squared away, and I am currently testing to see if I can determine the exact cause of this loss of power. I think it will be an easy fix. At the moment, bypassing the power from the H-1 stand, and just going to the radio directly is working fine, so my suspicions about the short power jumper may be correct. If memory serves me, I only encountered this issue after I bought the H-1 stand. The power connectors Xiegu uses are called mini Tamiya connectors, and aren’t the beefiest connector.
I had also bought the Xiegu XPA125B amplifier, but had a few issues with it, and was able to return it for a refund. It was a nice amplifier, but there are still some design issues Xiegu has, so I would not recommend it.
The biggest issue was getting an “ALC out of control” message while on 80m, and seeing well over 140 watts out with a 1 watt carrier. That is probably a smoked final waiting to happen, and I didn’t want to be a test case. Other issues involve their 12m filter cutting out at 24.900 mHz, while the band goes to .990, and a few other oddities that I am not sure they will address, due to the price of the amp.
Yes, many people will argue that buying a G90 and the XPA125B is the same as (or more than) buying an IC-7300, and that is true, but I own the G90 and it does a good job for my needs in the shack, and I can easily grab it and go portable too. For 10/11m purposes (where I talk most to some friends), I just run an old 100w Palomar 225 blue face amp into a resonant antenna. Otherwise, I will have to stick with 20 watts on the other HF bands, but thats ok for me.
If you grab the radio for $425 or less, it is a very good radio, if you don’t mind 20w output.
