Cheap radio, cheap performance: Here's why I'm sending the Chinese uSDX/uSDR back.
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- Опубликовано: 19 дек 2021
- This is a simple unscripted video of my thoughts about the Chinese uSDX/uSDR transceiver before I sent it back to the distributor. Click here to read my accompanying post on QRPer.com:
qrper.com/2021/12/ive-sent-th...
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Thanks for watching!
73,
Thomas
K4SWL 
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Thanks for the heads up. I was going to purchase but was worried about the low cost and assumed it was junk. Thanks again.
Great to watch a review of someone who actually does outdoors operations
Thanks for the warning.
Thank uou for your information, I'll keep my ft817nd, I also have 40 m, wonders lab, 2.5 watts and a build in matching unit. I almost ordered one today 14th. Thanks again.
I bought my (tr)sDX assembled. It came on 20 meters when plugged in.
I have the same overload issues with the one I received yesterday. I'm sending mine back, too. PLUS there's other minor aggravations.
Pressing the mode button to do mode settngs also changes the frequency decimal place. I don't understand why there's not another way to change volume / frequency without those methods also changing the frequency decimal place adjustments.
Part of the time the decimal place for frequency moves in one direction and at other times the decimal moves in the other direction. And I don't know why.
Sometimes mine will suddenly begin to transmit a series of dits OR dahs as soon as I press the frequency knob and it often won't stop transmitting within a few seconds. A screen message says, "Check the PTT button" Sometimes pressing the PTT button stops the transmission and oter times I have to unplug the power to stop transmission.
Sometimes it's hard to get the rig to return to RX.
Mine did change fzrom 20M to 40 M via the mode change, and the rig sounds OK on CW signals of weak strength when it's tuned to their frequency. The audio is just OK, I didn't use headphones to listen. A strong CW signal on band (even when it's a decent distance from the weak signal) washes out the weaker signal because of the overload issues.
I wish my (tr)uSDX worked as good for me as the ones did that I watched videos of POTA.
You are right. It's worth sending back.
You gained a sub for this video. I've seen dozens of videos about this device. Oddly not one negative or complaint in any of the videos. It's odd to me because obviously people have complaints about it even if they really enjoy it. Thanks for honesty
Good to know!
Thomas good luck, I am fighting with TZT and Aliexpress, not holding my breath getting my money back, seen a number of Buyer Beware videos and I have also done one..Cheers Fred
On bootup, what firmware does it show on upper right. Whould be “w” or later.
So yeah, unfortunately I no longer have it.
I bought one from the Chinese, but it does not work in ssb for transmission, zero for a 50 ohm antenna equivalent. Works only in the telegraph, gives out from two watts at 10 meters to eight watts at 80 meters in the telegraph. I don't have a diagram and I don't know what's wrong with it. Can you tell me what could be the reason? Thanks in advance..
Sadly, I have no advice at all. Perhaps someone else can chime in with a comment?
My experience with this is TOTALLY opposite of yours. It's absolutely worth the $130 I spent for mine. It is a little clunky at first. But once you're familiar with it, it's fine. I own a lot of cool little gadgets and this is one of them.
That's great to hear. I understand the latest versions are much improved, too.
what do you think of SW-3B QRP CW transceiver, CW only ?
I haven't tried it yet. May do so at some point, though!
Hi Dom, I'm very happy with mine so far. Dale, the seller, is very good to deal with. The receiver is quiet, rig is small and compact, voltage range is wide. I've set it up at home to check it out running on 8 AA batteries into an end fed with some nice results. I have a couple of videos you can check out. here's one: ruclips.net/video/4X2Dg9K-jFo/видео.html
@@ve3sif thank you Ron ! It same to be a good rig for sota \ pota, it is why my interesting for this little one ... Do you have pay the import tax ( duty ) ? Is the shipping from China is fast ?
FB on review. Can you narrow the receive signal filters?
I think you can, but it's essentially an audio filter only if I'm not mistaken.
So what are you choosing in its stead?
I never really had a need for the uSDX, it was more about exploring if a radio this cheap could actually satisfy a field op. In the end, I think the better versions (better QC versions) could work. Mine, however, would not.
What’s the spec of the 13.8V input, does it say?
So I no longer have it to check. The radio came with no documentation either. Not sure what the tolerance was.
Were you using the DSP filter for CW?
It's been so long, I can't remember now...
Thanks for the review! Saved me about $150-200. Questions. 1) What are "activations" such as " CW Activations" or "summit Activations?" Does this mean that someone is operating on CW or a hilltop? Not trying to be dense but I don't think I've ever heard that phrasing. 2) Does any eBay, Bangood, Amazon, etc. seller offer the real deal open source one and not one of these poor quality units? Thanks again.
Hi, Dave,
These terms refer to folks who participate in activities like Parks On The Air, Summits on the Air, Islands On The Air, and Word Wide Flora and Fauna. "Activators" go to the location (a park or summit), announce themselves on the respective spotting networks, and perform a radio "activation" of the site. Those at home (and other locations) that seek them out and make contact with the activator is called a "hunter" or "chaser." I'd encourage you to read the documentation with POTA and SOTA to get more detail.
As for the uSDX, check this out: qrper.com/2022/01/the-new-trusdx-qrp-transceiver-kit-by-dl2man-pe1nnz/
Cheers,
Thomas
It doesn't have a low band pass filter. You have to add filters.
Hello sir, i just wonder if you can help me with one thing,i want to buy this tranciver, even if its not the greatest, im kind of poor, so i must take what i can afford, but here is the question, do you know what is the difference between the first model and version 2? I will just use this as a first ham radio for listening, and to try to learn morse code, so i dont mind if its not the best out there.
Best regerds from Norway.
Hi, Jon, Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the differences between the versions. I would suggest you consider the (tr)uSDX as opposed to the uSDX versions. Here's more info about this model: qrper.com/2022/04/the-trusdx-five-band-qrp-transceiver-my-initial-impressions-after-a-cw-pota-activation/
@@ThomasK4SWL Thank you for the answer :)
What do u expect for a few quid, I've used much worse
Great review and advice. I recently grabbed one of these, and it seems to be a slightly updated, or maybe just different, version. The raspy audio is still there, but the menus are slightly different. The front-end overload is something I'm curious about, so I plan to take it on a POTA soon and test that. I enjoy trying to break it, lol.
You may very well have a version that's better than the one I tried. Very curious if yours overloads easily. Have fun breaking it! :)
@Thomas (K4SWL) Mine is black instead of blue, does that count? 😉
@@HamRadio2 Whew! Thank goodness you didn't get a red one!
@@ThomasK4SWL I got a red one. At least it has the virtue of being hard to misplace :)
I say one thing Thomas your very polite with your review of this particular radio, I bought one as well and used all sorts of colourful language to describe it's performance, a very expensive brick, I'm going to strip mine down and use the battery and case for other projects.
Ha ha! I must admit: the case is pretty darn robust. That's one of the few strong points. Otherwise, it's sort of worthless as a radio.
Great review, thanks for taking the time to review this rig. I bought one a couple of months ago. I agree with most of your review, but I do find the receive audio acceptable, especially using headphones. My huge complaint, and I've written this elsewhere, is the Menu system and rotary encoder is a POS...very frustrating to use, worse than most lowend manu systems, IMO. I'm keeping mine for a while....agn, tnx fer excellent review. 73/K6SDW
what did you expect from the design on the atmega 328 chip? it makes sense to assemble this transceiver on your own and not buy on aliexpress, the price tag is overpriced
En mi caso la modulación es muy mala en ssb , por lo menos en cercanía , 73
It's a open source radio that you can add filters to. You can add a better speaker. Add whatever you want.
Yeah, that's why I suggest if you buy one be prepared to do some upgrades. As-is, mine wasn't terribly useful.
Lot's of HAMs are having great success with this uSDX radio on RUclips. Oh well, you know.
Irrelevant now, but you can change bands by double clicking the knob.
Did you make a video about how to send it back to China?
Ha ha! Nope. The seller did, indeed, take it back and even pay return shipping if memory serves.
And next year they will sell the same radio as a 25W version, and the year after it's a 100 W radio and the battery will be 20.000 mAh
in the menu, it's possible to ajust power 0 to 5w ?
Perhaps someone else can chime in. I no longer own this radio so can't verify.
@@ThomasK4SWL Thanks
The problem is that people don't know enough about these qrp rigs to set them up correctly for operating. They work very well on a few watts, you just need to make a little effort and get outside.
Yeah, the big problem for me with this unit was the dirty transmitter. As I mention in the video, we hooked this up to a service monitor and confirmed that it doesn't meet any sort of spectral purity standard. I didn't feel comfortable operating it in the field with the spurs and harmonics it generated. It was *well* outside of FCC standards.
What a shame. When I first saw that radio, I considered getting one. I did see a RUclips video where it shows how bad the harmonics are. That stopped m e dead in my tracks. Like the Baofeng HT's, neither should be allowed to be shipped to the US.
It's a shame, it's a neat little radio. My YouKit's 4 band is clean, why can't other's do the same.
I have a table to spectrum analyzer and I also have a TinySA. For everything you do, you should consider getting a TinySA. But, since your buddy has what's needed to check harmonics, I guess it's easier to just put it on his work bench.
Good video, very informative. I hope enough hams watch it so they don't buy and put one of these on the air.
Barry, KU3X
It is a shame. Sounds like it's really "luck of the draw" with these and I was unlucky.
Wow! Interesting "features." The one I had, I changed the SO239 to a BNC & lowered the drive to the LM386 AF amp, which helped the volume control setting a bit. At which point I ran the AF gain at 11 and used a set of earbuds with an inline volume control. That worked out well enough. If I had been feeling froggy, I would have changed the no-name/no-color inductor cores in the LPF set just to try and tame the spectrum problems. I now have a different, non-battery version of this box with much better filtering. A much better build.
. . . By the way: that "volume below zero/turn off" function exists on the one I'm using now. Turns off everything, including the backlight. Then if I spin the encoder to the right, the radio turns back on. Given the one I have now doesn't have a power switch, this was a nice feature to discover. Thanks for giving me that hint.
. . . Nice video. Not too sure about the radio. It sure does make for a good fiddle box, for those who can deal with SMD and are willing to experiment with changing things up or down a bit. Stay safe & sane! 73 de W8IJN
Thank you for sharing these notes, Nils!
I'm in exactly the same position. Mine has no instructions, it doesn't work like any of the manuals they have sent me. Mine is going back also. It's junk. Nothing works like it should
I also purchased one and it has performed somewhat better than the one you purchased (and oddly enough I paid less for it ... about $155). However, it isn't exactly a stellar performer and is pretty much what I expected for the price. However, unlike my other more expensive radios (it would be hard for ANY assembled radio to be cheaper) I don't have any reservations about opening it up and perhaps doing a little surgery. I do have the feeling that your comments that build quality varies wildly from unit to unit is absolutely correct based on reviews and videos. Ordering one is sort of like buying a lottery ticket. NK5J.
"Ordering one is sort of like buying a lottery ticket." Spot on, Thomas! You're right about that. :) Thank you for the comments.
I've seen several warning reviews of this, but coming from you, I am completely convinced this is not a good radio to purchase since you actually go out and activate POTA and SOTA. On an unrelated note (sort of), I got my x6100 on Friday - although it's not quite ready for prime time POTA activations yet, the radio has lots of promise for it's price point. 73.
Thank you, Scott. Knowing you (and the fact you've owned and operated some great rigs) yeah, you would have been very disappointed. The RX is hard to deal with.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about the X6100!
@@ThomasK4SWL I'm hoping the next s/w update fixes the issues for CW ops. I am enjoying getting to know the radio while in the hamshack. It's too cold for my old body to be outside operating QRP right now anyway! Merry Christmas to you and family.
@@BikingHikingRadio Oh no, please tell me it's not sidetone latency.... There should be an X6100 sitting at the post office when I'm back home later this week. Josh at HRCC kindly sent it to me after he finished with his review.
@@ThomasK4SWL I'll send you an email. Can't wait to hear your thoughts when you get the x6100 from Josh.
@@ThomasK4SWL Thomas, I anxiously await your review. Here are my thoughts:
I have a X6100 and the rig is not CW ready in my eyes. The keyer is very difficult to use and you must be quite accurate with your timing or you will screw up. It seems to have the most trouble with true iambic keying sending extra dits or dahs instead of the appropriate combo. The CW tone gets horribly distorted with NR engaged and the memory keyer does not work at all! Finally, for me who lives near a major AM station, the BCI is horrible and renders the radio nearly deaf with out a BCI filter. For reference, my Elecraft KX2 and KX3 are immune to this interference. I’m sure most of the CW issues can be fixed with firmware, but the BCI cannot and hence I will alway need to use a filter. 73 DE KQ9L
My usdx works great even on 45m/ 11m !
I'm surprised with so many negative comments. I wonder how many nay-sayers even bought one. Made in China? Oh it must be junk. I bought mine when they were 150 bucks. My honest opinion, you can spend way more for a paddle or a mic. I've used this little bugger on CW and SSB.. I get good reports, it's a fun radio. You get what you pay for. A 2000 dollar it is not. Cheap fun it is. I never received any comments about dirty or unstable sig. and many ops out there today have monitor scopes.
They can see my signal. I'm sure I'd hear a comment about that. It's all fun and it's a hobby. BTW I have a RED one... hi
I'm convinced mine was one of the really bad examples. I just didn't want to roll the dice again. :) I've heard some some others who've actually gotten respectable results. They seem to be in the minority, but it does indicate a QC issue. If you're having fun with the radio, it's worth the money, I say! :)
Any ideas to check if they’re “clones”? I’m about to buy one, but there are different prices. 180€, 130 and 150. This concerns me, as I don’t know which one to buy. Many sellers to check from, and hoping the reviews are real.
I was looking at this, but was worried about spurious emissions. Looks like I was correct, the baofeng of QRP :( now I'm more worried these will be all over the bands causing more trouble than Chinese Over Horizon Radar interference. 73 de AI5DD
It wasn't designed by China. You can add filters to it which people do. Its lacking a low pass filter.
BAOFENGS are 20 bux and WORK. THE "SPURIOUS" transmission crap doesn't transmit beyond the room.
Ham Radio survives today because of Bo'fangs NOT snotty elitists who spent 20 times more on an unreliable Kenwood HT.
Yaesu is about the only reliable, affordable radio today. Icoms, Alincos, and Kenwoods are simply more expensive, prone to failure POS owned by old coot Elmer's too proud and stubborn to admit they were had!
Best RADIOS are American-made Legacy, Ten Tecs of old.
No flashy menus or lights. No "pretty waterfalls" (although you can download all that for free to a laptop or android phone)..
Anyone that buys one of these slave-made ripoffs is a copyright violator AND a TRAITOR!
Definitely a case of getting what you pay for.
Exactly. How cheap do radios need to get??! This is why baofengs have played a role in the death of FM repeaters.
Send it to Sherwood!!!
If I still had it, I would send it to Rob.
Everyone wants to buy a Lexus bur you can only afford a Kia. Just get from point A to point B. This unit works in real conditions. No disrespect but it does work.
Nice little, utilitarian looking QRP radio. Shame it's guts aren't that good. But some people like this little radio. To each their own!
Don t spect more for the money, I have made a lot of qrp qso s with it.
Due to class E characteristics, battery completely charged lasts a lot .
Making some config changes, improves behavior.
I think had I decided to keep it, I would have modified it for a cleaner signal and perhaps some front end filtering. Thanks!
Life is too short for cheap radios - 😀
I've got a 10 year old Bo'fang that works just fine. Both my Alinco and RS handheld lost PLL within 90 days to a year of buying them new. Alinco was repaired, received back, then got intermittent with the PLL again.
Sold it at a great loss. RS wasn't even worth fixing.
No one builds totally reliable radios anymore. Atleast Yaesu has the balls to back theirs with a three year warranty although I'd hate to have to use it.
My Bo'fang is working right now. Still taking a charge. If it croaked now, I'd try to find an original design UV5r to replace it with. For 25 bux. Again
Take your pikayunni spurious findings and smoke it! Probably doesn't have an effect 5 feet from the test bench and definitely isn't crashing repeators that some Fudd hasn't done maintenance on in 20 years! The same Fudds that want to take the hobby to the grave with them.
To make the microphone work, you need to open it and re-solder the white wires on the microphone circuit board.
Too much money for a poor radio. In any case I can't understand big expectations for such a project...Thanks for your review.
Honestly? My expectations were low, but this managed to go even lower. :)
What do you expect from a $150 radio??
Exactly. That said, The SW-3B, QCX-Mini, and now QMX provide incredible performance for the price.
Good luck getting your money back. Unless ebay has some money back guarantee.
Supposedly, the distributor will refund my money once they receive the return. We shall see.
ebay caters to buyers these days, even dishonest ones. One of the reasons I don't sell much there anymore.
@@ThomasK4SWL Thomas, just curious if you received your refund ?
@@jamesrospopo3137 I did indeed! In fact, they even reimbursed the return shipping. That impresed me and made me happy I padi "extra" to get the unit from a reputable seller.
There are a number of reviews on this radio and most of the other reviews are positive compared to yours. Cheers VK2DDD.
Keep in mind this review has some age on it now. The version that was released immediately after this review had major improvements, I'm tol. By now, it's probably been upgraded even further.
yeah, it is cheap, but it works good enough for 100$! if you have 1000$ to spend for something better , OK go ahead!
nice reviews.. thats makes sense anyway. 73
Such a shame. It tics all the boxes for me, size, power output, etc. The only problem is that it is so poorly made that it’s most useful function would be a doorstop. The company missed a golden opportunity for a few hundred $ could have turned out a real gem.
I honestly think even a $25 investment more (per unit) in the components would have yielded a much better radio.
The problem with a lot of these cheap radio's is that they are cheap. Cheaply designed with little thought towards the UI, use the minimum components to barely make them work and thrown together. The number of cheap RF PA's being sold with no output filtering scares the life out of me.
Scares the life out of you? Your life must be pretty exciting if that's what scares you.😊
@@21kiwi24 If the filters aren't there, then there is nothing to filter out the X-Rays that come out of the back of the radio. You know what the effects of X-Rays on tissue are, don't you?
@@rjy8960 I sure do.....and the effects on tissue from the volume of X-rays not being filtered is below anything that would even begin to matter. And even if they did, at no point would they be anywhere near what would be naturally occurring and being directed towards you from the earths sun at any given time, even after ionosphere and atmospheric filtering. Wait...how many X rays did you think are being emitted by a QRP radio at the absolute upper limit?
@@21kiwi24 I get most of my excitement making silly comments and reading the responses that they get.
Had you built this yourself would you have been so unimpressed?
I would have never built it myself. I would have asked you to build it, Mark. Then I would have REALLY complained about performance! Hi hi! Hope you and the family are well, OM.
The frequency stability of these Chinese radios is also poor.
I cannot agree with your review. What did you expect for such funny money? For example, the ft817nd was a scandal ..... at the beginning a poor speaker and an even worse battery ... and it cost a lot of money (I bought a new one). Here you bought a radio that matches the price for a few cent
. For me, this is just a "base for modifications".
Good points, although my experience with the first FT-817 (from the first production run) was excellent. Yeah, if you read the accompanying post you'll note that I agree it could be modified by the user for better performance. The point of my review was that quality varies greatly from unit to unit. I've heard from some users who were quite pleased, although they're in the minority. My unit suffered from overloading from normal S9 signals in-band. It really made it difficult to use even for casual contacts. The audio squealed and noise floor was very high. The QCX-Mini, on the other hand costs less--it's a kit--but has stellar performance. It appears the (tr)uSDX kit costs less and also performs much better. I also have an SW-3B that costs the same as this uSDX and its performance is pretty imporesive. In 2022, you can achieve acceptable performance for under $200. Pretty amazing times we live in! :)
Junk ... I tossed mine in the TRASH ...
These radios are junk. Noisy audio, Mine would RX on SSB but could not transmit. Total garbage. G7VFY
Theoretically these items are supposed to meet FCC specs before they are allowed to be sold in this country. and I'm sure they are close enough to get through. and as one other fellow said "you get what you pay for". So one should keep that in mind when you buy this type of product. I bought a Baofeng talkie years back when they came out. I could not believe the audio quality on both Tx and Rx. fabulous! spurs? yep legal yep put it on a scope and it was close but there. so with that one for what I paid for it. ($38.bucks!!) it does the job and I'm happy with it. I watched few other videos of the one you showed here and they seemed to work well. but no one gave them bench testing. just field So bottom line Cavet Emptor, be aware before you buy and your threshold will be more in tune to what you get. thanks for an honest, opinion and evaluation. CUDTL OM! Oh! add maybe 2 more watts. I keep trying and you are just a tad in the noise for me to even try on 40m most times. I think an extra watt or two and we're in your log more often and vice versa. thank you so much for all your activations and videos we enjoy them immensely. 73 de Ellis WA1RKS.
Seems the only people that talk down about cheap radios are the ones who went out and paid ridiculous money for a radio that does the same thing.
@@Johnyrocket70 yeah, im beginning to see that myself.