American-made HF radios

Status
Not open for further replies.

prcguy

Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2006
Messages
15,233
Location
So Cal - Richardson, TX - Tewksbury, MA
Can I ask if you've considered a US made HF radio?
prcguy


But not all Chinese companies make junk. Look at Hytera [not Tytera] radios. Great quality, very rugged, with a US distributor. Chinese companies can make any quality they choose to make. When a US company chooses to make a product in China, they can specify they want the quality to be the same as the US made part. Of course when a Chinese company chooses to make a product, they can put ZERO quality in the product, because they know a certain percentage of the American population will buy that product, and not care that it is junk. The blood leaves their brain, & goes to their wallet, which prevents them from making valid decisions. My next HF radio will not be a $10,000 Icom, Kenwood, or Yaesu, but it will be an Icom Kenwood, or Yaesu.
 

prcguy

Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2006
Messages
15,233
Location
So Cal - Richardson, TX - Tewksbury, MA
I have a TT Eagle and can tell you its a joy to own and operate. Much different than operating a Yaesu/Kenwood/Icom and the human interface is a completely different experience plus extremely good receive performance and fantastic transmit audio.

For large ticket items like new HF transceivers I've gone US made for the last several I purchased including the TenTec Eagle, TenTec Omni VII, Elecraft K3 and Elecraft KX3. These radios will not end up in the trash can when the warranty is up like many offshore made radios will.
prcguhy


 

AK9R

Lead Wiki Manager and almost an Awesome Moderator
Super Moderator
Joined
Jul 18, 2004
Messages
9,293
Location
Central Indiana
Folks, I've moved your posts about American-made HF radios to a new thread. Let's keep the old thread about CCR test results. Thanks.
 

N4KVE

Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2003
Messages
4,103
Location
PALM BEACH, FLORIDA
Has anyone compared the Tentec 599 to the Kenwood 590, or 590SG? Interested in SSB, don't care about code, & ease of use, not having to go 6 layers into a menu.
 

prcguy

Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2006
Messages
15,233
Location
So Cal - Richardson, TX - Tewksbury, MA
I borrowed a friends new Kenwood TS-590S for a few days and compared it to my TT Eagle and Elecraft K3 and KX3. The 599 is a very nice radio but its very hard to get really good transmit audio without connecting a computer and diddling with the internal TX equalizer which is not accessible from the radio front panel.

After getting the 590S TX audio in fairly good shape using a Shure 526T mic I noticed it had excessive IMD on transmit and the TX BW was wider on voice peaks than is necessary and it will cause a little interference to people 5KHz up or down.

The TS-590S has a very good receiver and rated a notch or two above the Eagle on critical contest radio type specs. Using an external speaker I did prefer the Eagle on receive and with the right amount of RF gain it gives the illusion of listening to a squelched but full quieting FM signal. Stations will just pop in and out of a very quiet noise floor where I didn't get quite the same pleasant effect with the TS-590S.

Comparing the TS-590S to the Elecraft radios is a different story where the K3 and even the KX3 have a much more capable receiver with superior DSP noise reduction. For weak signal stuff I was able to fully copy a very weak 10m station on the Elecraft KX3 where it was maybe 50% copy on the TS-590S.

The only complaint I have with the TenTec Eagle is its got the stupidest auto antenna tuner ever made. It does tune over a very wide range but it can take 20 or 30 seconds to get there. Otherwise the Eagle has virtually no frills, but a lot of people like that. Just plug it in, make a few adjustments and it will perform really well.

I have zero complaints on the Elecraft K3 and KX3, they are very high performance radios and would be hard to beat in any technical category. In my opinion at the K3 level you are swayed by looks, human interface and other personal choices in competing radios since you are at pretty much the end of the line in current performance.

I've dealt with various companies with warranty and general repair service including Icom, Yaesu, TenTec and Elecraft. Elecraft is at the absolute top of customer service with TenTec running a close second, but TenTec has changed hands a few times within the last year and I hear their repair prices have gone up and there is some uncertainty with the new owners. On the other hand Elecraft will bend over backwards to help you and their repair prices are a bit more reasonable for out of warranty work.

Dealing with Icom and Yaesu are a different story and are much farther down on the satisfaction scale with Yaesu being on my s#!t list for being completely unreasonable and way out of line on repair charges.
prcguy

Has anyone compared the Tentec 599 to the Kenwood 590, or 590SG? Interested in SSB, don't care about code, & ease of use, not having to go 6 layers into a menu.
 

prcguy

Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2006
Messages
15,233
Location
So Cal - Richardson, TX - Tewksbury, MA
The menu system is very comprehensive but for me its very easy to use. You should only need to get into the menus to initially set the radio up as you like, then anything I could ever use has a front panel knob or button. I'm sure many people operate the radio as received from the factory without ever getting into the menu.

Some buttons and knobs have dual functions like press in a knob to go from IF BW to IF hi-lo cut, then the same knob will change the value of your choice.

I have several HF radios running continuously for a good 4 to 8hrs a day, every day and the K3 is my favorite. I can run the RF gain wide open (highest sensitivity) then engage the DSP noise reduction and enjoy a very quiet noise floor while being able to receive the weakest signals on the band. I can run for hours like this with no fatigue and I've not heard another HF radio with DSP noise reduction like the K3.

Another thing I do with the K3 is operate it remote from my iPhone or laptop using a $270 accessory called the PIGREMOTE. Every function of the radio is available on a laptop or iPad and a limited feature set is for the iPhone. I left the house once and forgot to select the rear panel mic input from the PIG but found it was not a problem. I could go deep into the K3 menu remotely and make the changes from my laptop and get on the air from across the country.

In fact I have it running in the background of the Macbook Pro I'm typing on now on the east coast of the US while the K3 is running on the west coast and I'm listening to local conversations there. The PIGREMOTE will work on a few other radios like the Kenwood TS-590 so its not unique to the K3.
prcguy



Excellent comparison. I'm basically a 20, & 15 meter guy on SSB. Does the K3 have a deep menu to learn?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top