Xiegu X6100 HF Radio Transceiver, 10W Full-Mode SDR, 4" LCD, Wireless

It's a good radio at that price point. Pretty easy to get set up. If using with solar some charge controllers will cause some noise. Overall a good radio for portable radio operations. Small size and one wire for audio/cat for data mode.

I have been a ham for a long while and I wanted to build a portable HF rig that I could take with me when camping, hiking and other outdoor activities. I looked at a lot of options and I decided to try the Xiegu X6100. Lots of reviews for this radio on YT, some good, some not so good. Bottom line is it is a SDR radio running on Linux. That says a lot and many people are looking into how it can be made better and even hacked to run a completely different software. Out of the box it seems to be a good radio, the receive seems to be quite sensitive, the user interface is easy to understand, the landscape and waterfall work well, and it has a built in tuner plus swr sweep. And it has a built in sound card so you can hook up to your computer with just one simple cable. I have not done any TX with it yet but all the reviews say it will do exceptionally well even on 5 watts and pretty much around the world on 10 watts with the right conditions. Especially on digital modes. All in all I expect this to be a fun and rewarding radio with lots of options coming down the road.

FINAL EDIT: I tried jumping on the 10 meter (29 MHz) band. Got the SWR down to 1.1:1 and hit the PTT button. DEAFENING static feedback through my headphones (S/P in headphones mode). Some kind of faulty wiring inside the unit. It's yet another defective radio I've bought. This product DOES NOT work as advertised, DOES NOT work on all bands, and IS NOT a deal as it WILL NOT perform as advertised. I couldn't even get Amazon to exchange the item, refund only. Zero stars - would not recommend. ************************** I'm using it with a JPC-12 antenna and a short length of RG-8x (15 feet). All contacts are 20 and 40 meters, SSB voice on the 5-watt internal battery! Drawbacks - documentation and battery life. The former is more lacking than the latter. Yes, you'll get a couple birdies. I've never had a radio that didn't. They're temporary, so spin the dial and go back. It's a QRP rig. Edit: Bluetooth will pair and connect to a speaker, but it won't pipe the sound out. So that feature is useless. As the internal speaker is *almost* useless, you'll want to use a wired speaker or earbuds. You'll need high-bass earbuds because you'll need to keep the radio setting on speaker. Switching the unit into headphones mode barely gets you any audio. I dinged them a star on that one. Advertised features need to actually work! I'd give it 4 stars... But the documentation sucks and a 3,000 mAh battery is lacking. Then factor price. I would expect more from both at $490 USD. And I would expect Bluetooth to work for an external speaker. But no, I'm keeping it! I do love it and would buy one again! 73!

I'd been wanting one of these for a long time. I finally decided on an impulse to go ahead and purchase. Boy, I'm glad I did. It came well packed and in perfect condition. I powered it up and it came to life. I love that four inch color display. I was worried that there would be a steep learning curve, but it's actually quite intuitive. If you've been thinking about buying one of these, I wouldn't hesitate. It's such a great little QRP rig and a fantastic value.

You will need to update the firmware as a first priority. Follow instructions carefully and do the factory reset at the end. I also recommend The Radio Today Guide to the Xiegu X6100. The 4 inch display is nice and would be nicer if it were touchscreen. The CW decoder is useless. All I get is gibberish. Battery life is pretty minimal. Plan on a two hour session with just the internal battery if you are operating SSB or CW on POTA or SOTA.

It's no secret that since the arrival of the Xiegu X6200, the X6100 has been selling at a tempting discount, but is it really the value you are looking for. Truth be told, a lot of early reviews for the x6100 were not favorable. This portable SDR radio by Xiegu is definitely a mixed bag. With a fully charged battery, I found the radio can stay powered on for up to 3 hours. The X6100's internal battery recharges fully to 8.4V in about 4 hours. My X6100 arrived with a well written (slim) manual that explains many of the radio's features. Other items this radio ships with include a full featured keypad microphone, the X6100's battery charger/power wall wart, a data transfer cable, and an extra DC power cable suitable for use with an external power source. The X6100's, easy-on-the-eyes, 4" color screen is a big selling point next to price. The LCD screen has a resolution of 800x480 and is bright and beautiful. The display includes all the operating information you could possibly want or need. The radio's digital noise reduction filter is surprisingly good. The rig's small speaker can be made decently loud and sounds okay at normal volumes. The X6100 includes a built in ATU and a useful SWR analyzer. Without reviewing every feature of the radio, I'd say that it's a reasonably full featured radio. If you are someone who would never consider paying thousands of dollars for an ICOM or Yaseu alternative, this QRP radio might satisfy your itch to own a radio in this compact form. The X6100's software has matured since its original offering, but it still suffers from annoyances that can't be overlooked, such as noticeable birdies on all bands. UPDATE: I still like the looks and portability of the radio. The ATU and DNF work well. Battery life is decent. Frustratingly, the radio generates many birdies on receive, as discussed in other reviews. Honestly, I haven't made a single contact with the radio, likely due to a poor antenna set up and my location. While the radio has likeable features and doesn't cost a fortune to own, I can't recommend it. If you're looking for a reasonably priced solid POTA radio, I'd recommend looking at the FT-891 instead. If you need a portable radio with a built-in ATU then the FT-991A might be the way to go.

*Edit* Customer service offered me a full refund just from seeing this, but I declined. I do like the radio and the issue is not enough for me to think it isn't worth what I paid. Great to know that Radioddity is paying attention to customers though! Super neat radio, has a random issue where the thing transmits constantly in CW mode and I couldn't figure out why. I could find absolutely NO info on this error/defect happening to anybody else, and had no idea how to fix it, but somehow customer support knew exactly how to make it quit, but not why it did it. I can't have the dual frequency enabled when in CW mode which is odd, but at least it's not a "return the radio" level of defective I guess. Sucker DOES get hot though, not worryingly so I guess.

So far I really enjoy using this radio. Checks all the boxes for me. Recommend it.