Hi Lea,
had a similar journey. Also have the 817. But the 817 is still consuming too much energy in RX mode for SOTA. 400mA is too much. KX2 is better, but it costs a lot more… also an option the thruSDX with a lower energy consumption.
73s
Ingo DH5ST
Hi Ingo,
I’m sure you will have worked out by now that the price of a few homebrew 4S Li-Ion 18650 batt packs is far far far lower than the price difference between a FT817 vs KX2.
73, Lea
Or use one of these and change the connectors. The FT817ND runs off these 3S packs for hours without a recharge!
(It fits into the battery compartment).
That £16 battery costs £30 to ship to the UK!
Hobbyking has a UK warehouse - so shipping shouldn’t be that much, my earlier link was to the European warehouse and importing stuff into (or out of) the UK since BREXIT has become uneconomic - with the shipping/customs charges.
Just looked and there is only stock in the EU and Global (Singapore) warehouses, so you’d need to wait until they restock in the UK.
73 Ed.
Unfortunately Hobbyking has closed its UK warehouse.
And if you are in the UK they don’t offer anything from the EU warehouse. Brexit keeps on giving.
There’s always a way… find SOTA person who lives in EU who is visiting Friedrichshafen rally, you pay them and they buy battery and get it shipped to their home, they bring battery to FN Rally, You collect battery from them in person when you go to the rally.
Hi
I am seriously thinking of buying an G90 but have two reservations.
If it breaksdown out of warranty can it be fixed in the U.K.?
Has anybody had any experience with getting a G90 repaired.
They specs. say it will work (with reduced output) down to about 10.5V.
But what is the quality like. Any Chirp when you go below 13V?
I once got a 551 RPRT (Chirp) with a FT 100 when it wasn’t getting its full 13V due to a voltage drop in the supply cable.
I have several 3S LiPos for my FT 817 but they only give a nominal 11V (9.6V - 12.6V)
Having listen to the output 551 was a bit cruel 555 - 557 was more like it.
Dave
GM4NFI
I ran a G90 when I first started portable ops and never had it fail on me once. the worst part of the radio is its weight which still is not to bad. I made tons of contacts with it from summits and loved it. but with Rocky Mountains weight is key, and I went qrp portable and did some sota kit weight loss.
Hi David,
If bought new through a registered Xiegu retailer (who would be Sinotel in the UK) any problems occurring within the warranty period will be handled through the dealer. Here in Germany, I bought through Radioddity who have their EU warehouse in Berlin and when a pushbutton failed after a couple of months the complete radio was replaced free of charge within a few days. So my experience has been good.
For the price, the G90 is a very good portable radio. I have run my G90 on the old 3S 2.5Ah LiPOs that I had for my FT817ND however, I would not recommend that approach these days while the price of a 4AH LifePO 12.8v battery from Eremit is €35. I do not run CW however, only SSB, so whether at lower voltages the radio “Chirps” I cannot honestly say.
73 Ed.
I have limited experience with the G90. I ran one for about 3 weeks and had regular issues with the antenna dropping out. Turns out that when it was built, they just left two wires touching the inside of the antenna bulkhead connector. A slight bump would cause a disconnection. I returned it. A year later I tried again and got one with serious solder making the connection solid (which is the normal construction). My first was just a “5pm Friday” build.
Compared to the 891 (as someone mentioned a few years ago), it’s about half the weight of the 891, more so when you factor in not needing an external tuner. I looked into the radio initially when my IC7100 had a “magic smoke” issue. Got it as an emergency replacement because it was cheap and well… Amazon has a killer return policy if I hated it… which I did since it was the one with the bad antenna connection. Beyond that, I thought the radio was good. Can’t speak to the CW decode’s accuracy.
One of the guys in my local club uses the G90 for field work quite regularly and loves it. He’s made a lot of contacts at our “Micro Field Days”. He does SOTA as well, not sure if he uses this for it or not. He does a lot of 2m.
No, according to the manuals the G90 20 Watt TRX is 1.63 kg and the FT-891 100 Watt TRX is 1.9 kg. The G90 is very heavy.
73, Peter - HB9PJT
I need to fix my kitchen scale then. Might have been with the tuner attached then. I remember it weighing in at around 8lbs. Now if only my bathroom scale was only off that much…
I purchased a FT-891 back in May of this year and haven’t looked beck since. Operation is with a 4Ah or 8Ah LifePO4 and an EFHW or a resonant linked inverted V half wave dipole.
I work VK, ZL JA @ 10 watts and EU stations @ 20 watts, all SSB.
For 10 km+ hikes I pack an IC-705.
73 Andrew VK1AD