QRP Head 2 Head Episode 6: Xiegu G90 vs Lab599 Discovery TX-500 

They just had this on sale for $999 a couple weeks ago at HRO. I was very tempted. I have a KX2 and an IC705. The KX2 is at the mothership getting repaired. I've seen just enough stories of people having a problem with these and parts being unobtainable and being stuck without their radios for months and months that I got cold feet. All radios can have problems but if I spend a grand on a radio I want to know that it can get fixed. I probably should have just bought the damn thing anyways. It looks awesome!

Totally agree, my TX500 is hands down the best field radio I have (and I have the KX-2, IC-705, TR-45L as well) All are fun and have their own personalities!

Thanks, Evan. Had my hands on a TX-500 at HRO last fall and I was very impressed. If I had a true lightweight field need, it would be my choice.

At twice the cost it better win!

Loving the series! I have the TX-500 and love it. Granted, I don't have much experience with it yet. I've only used it once on SSB and was able to hit Georgia from Ohio for a POTA contact. Can't wait to learn CW good enough to get this baby out in the field. Looking forward to the next video. The other radio will have a built in mic, speaker and ATU, but not nearly as rugged or quite as good on the receive, but the shack-in-the-box for a radio that costs about 50% more money should difficult to beat. Can't wait to see how they compare. 73

Those are my first and third HF radios and I agree, your next radio (maybe the KX2) is my newest. We'll see how that goes.

The demo didn’t seem to sound as the g90 . Maybe the noise you had made the different. From your demo I would say the g90 is heads above the TX500.

Thank you. I also had G90 a few years ago. Did a few modification like add XT60, replaced EC11 encoder to Bourns, add spark protection, etc. One the other side G90 had issue with AGC - it was very painful to use G90 using headphones. The AGC was so terrible that after 10 minutes a had a headache. Finally I sold G90 after two years of usage. It seems like Xiegu a fixed AGC in recent firmware updates. But when I sold G90, I was able to buy TX500. For now this is my primary RIG for fields and I can say that I am happy with it during portable operation =)

I ment the 599

More money...better radio. Simple.