Hi all,
Let me share the first impressions I got from this rig.
I only did a few QSOs from home with a compromised antenna and only did two activations with the TX-500 yet, so it’s too early for a comprehensive review, but let me elaborate about my personal experiences so far I had, by doing only SSB.
I received this transceiver nearly two weeks ago (the first EU batch), but realized after some tests that it doesn’t TX on the 60-meter band. Bummer!
So I wrote Lab599 about this finding. After some email exchanges, they swiftly created a hot-fix firmware supporting the 60-meter band for this EU batch. Why am I always the one who finds the bugs first, but of course only with other’s people software 
…
The main points:
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Very robust, (probably) water resistant and light (compared to the FT-817/818). Unfortunately, I could not test it yet in heavy rain. Yesterday, when I was activating in the Vosges, I mostly saw dark clouds, but never got really wet. The first activation where I hoped for rain, hi.
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Low current consumption in RX-mode, so it does not get warm in the shadow. But it can get pretty hot when transmitting with the full 10W output power and exposed to the sun. Therefore, I don’t know if it’s a good idea to pack the LiIon batteries to the rear heat dissipation surface, even with some air gap. Let’s see how they will tackle this challenge.
I used an external 2Ah 4S LiFePo4 (about 25Wh, see image below) that weights about 200g for both activations, including my stress-tests. At the end, the battery was completely drained and its low-voltage protection circuit switched it off.
I tested the temperature limits of this transceiver under the sometimes strong noon sun (at nearly 48 degrees North) with several minutes of TX in FM: it got very hot but didn’t stop transmitting. Quick cool-off after stopping TX and moving to the shade. -
Easy and self-explanatory menu/settings system. Quick to tune around, etc. But beware of some settings, e.g. never set the notch filter to type 2 (high-performance filtering mode, provides lower signal processing latency) or you will have a hard time to understand your QSO partners (e.g. the 60m QSO with @DD5LP).
After disabling the notch filter, or setting it back to type 1 (standard mode, provides high quality filtration), all sounded fine again. -
A lot of settings to tweak with, like the mic gain, the compression, RX and TX audio equalizer and the RX and TX filter settings. I still have to find the optimal values.
Thanks goes to @HB9CYV for sending me two videos with my voice on the 60-meter band! Chris preferred the FT-818 sound (no dynamic compressor, but slightly modified ALC; I bought it new like that) due to more bass and more natural sound, but I personally like the punchy sound of the TX-500. -
To me the RX-audio is adequate when using the standard speaker-microphone. I would prefer a bit more bass, but it’s fine for SSB-voice, even music sounds OK.
I didn’t hear any hiss noise, as @SP2RM was concerned about.
Next time, I’ll try it with a headset. -
The measured SWR that is shown on the display seems very optimistic when using my resonant EFHW. I didn’t carry my antenna analyzer with me, but I had the feeling that the values were too good to be true (showing between 1.0 and 1.3 on the resonant bands).
Since I don’t have SWR anxiety, I even transmitted with a terrible SWR of about 10 with F/PA3FYG/P (@PA3FYG) on the 17-meter band (I intentionally set it non-resonant for this band), who was on a nearby summit. The power output on the display was looking pretty low and I fully trusted the protection circuit of the final stage. We both exchanged 5/9, but honestly, we were only separated by about 20km distance. -
What I don’t like is the glare display. For outdoors, I prefer a matte screen. The display has good contrast and is well readable under direct sun, but one has sometimes to change the angle to not get blinded by the bright sun light.
The following picture shows this effect:
@K6EL: I would be really interested in the QST product review, but I’m not an ARRL member.
73 Stephan, HB9EAJ