New Wouxun KG-Q10H Quad Band Amateur HT

[SteveShannon]

13 minutes ago, Lscott said:

I ran an Icom IC706GMKII mobile for a number of years in a van. That worked rather well. When the van got destroyed in a rear end accident I got another new one. It's never been used and still in the box. It has the MARS/CAP mod I believe.

The FT-817 hasn't been used in a few years. I need to program up the AT- D578UV III Plus with the Bluetooth remote speaker microphone and stick it in the new ride. Just been too lazy to do it.

Would you like to sell the 706mkIIG?

[Lscott]

9 hours ago, Sshannon said:

Would you like to sell the 706mkIIG?

I’m going to hang on to it. It’s one of the smallest DC to daylight multi mode radios I’ve seen that can do 100 watts PEP on HF through 6M. It also has a remote face plate option too. It also has the optional high stability reference oscillator installed and I think the 1.8KHz SSB filter too.

I’ve been thinking about just setting it up as a base radio 

[axorlov]

Looks like mechanical filters are still available for IC-706, while for FT-817/857/897 they are gone gone gone forever. Not available even at astronomical price. I recently bought Collins 500Hz filter for FT-817, just the filter part, and will have to roll the board on my own. 2KHz SSB filters are unobtanium now, although maybe not needed that much.

[Lscott]

6 hours ago, axorlov said:

I recently bought Collins 500Hz filter for FT-817, just the filter part, and will have to roll the board on my own.

There are some decent Chinese PCB houses out there that can manufacture the blank board for a cheap price. This is one we used at work here for making some quick prototype boards.

https://www.pcbway.com/

You just need a PCB layout package that can generate standard Gerber files.

A number of people have used KiCad to do their own boards. It's used for a number of public domain projects.

https://www.kicad.org/

Before that the favorite was Eagle. However it has some significant limitations with the "free" version that KiCad doesn't.

https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-install-and-setup-eagle/all

Were I work we use Altium Designer for schematic capture and PCB layout work. The projects and part libraries are cloud based. All you need is the software loaded on your PC and Internet access for the license server and the cloud server. Then you can work from anywhere as a team partner.

[SteveShannon]

7 hours ago, axorlov said:

Looks like mechanical filters are still available for IC-706, while for FT-817/857/897 they are gone gone gone forever. Not available even at astronomical price. I recently bought Collins 500Hz filter for FT-817, just the filter part, and will have to roll the board on my own. 2KHz SSB filters are unobtanium now, although maybe not needed that much.

Maybe this will help.  There’s a ham in Poland who makes boards that accept the filters.  See this article.  The updated board is discussed near the bottom.

https://qrper.com/2022/09/how-to-assemble-a-narrow-cw-filter-for-your-yaesu-ft-817-ft-818-ft-857-ft-897-an-affordable-yf-122c-equivalent/

 

[SteveShannon]

7 hours ago, Lscott said:

I’m going to hang on to it. It’s one of the smallest DC to daylight multi mode radios I’ve seen that can do 100 watts PEP on HF through 6M. It also has a remote face plate option too. It also has the optional high stability reference oscillator installed and I think the 1.8KHz SSB filter too.

I’ve been thinking about just setting it up as a base radio 

I absolutely understand. eBay has several but many of the reasonably priced ones are “shipped from Japan” and I just don’t understand the pitfalls enough to do that.  

 

[Lscott]

24 minutes ago, Sshannon said:

I absolutely understand. eBay has several but many of the reasonably priced ones are “shipped from Japan” and I just don’t understand the pitfalls enough to do that.  

 

I've purchased stuff on eBay from some Chinese sellers, a few from Canada and once from Ireland. In all cases the seller took care of the paperwork. The most frustrating thing is when the package sits in the foreign country's  export house for days. Then when it arrives here it sits in a custom clearing house for a week or two, if you're lucky, before it clears. So far I haven't had to contact customs or pay any additional import duty on purchases outside of the US.

I have seen several IC-706MKIIG's for sale at swaps. Most were really beat up but a few looked OK. If you go that route DON'T buy anything EXCEPT the 706MKIIG model! The older ones had various issues including poor sensitivity. I liked mine and the limited DSP features they had worked well for the era.

 The disappointing thing is the power on UHF was a max of 20 watts. However I didn't find that a huge issue. I had some mobile power amps, Mirage and RF Concepts, that did 10 watts in and 100 watts out if I ever needed more power. 

IC-706MKIIg.pdf RF_Concepts_RFC-4-110_RFC-4-310_user.pdf D-1010-N.pdf

[SteveShannon]

Thanks! I was also concerned that the band coverage for a version made for the Japanese market might not match the United State’s band plans.

[Lscott]

36 minutes ago, Sshannon said:

Thanks! I was also concerned that the band coverage for a version made for the Japanese market might not match the United State’s band plans.

Even if it didn't doing the MARS/CAP mod will fix that problem.

IC-706MKIIG Frequency Expansion.pdf

[Lscott]

I checked and there is more info for a Japanese specific frequency expansion mod for that model, IC-706MKIIG.

One guy was nice enough to check the power output on his radio after doing the US version mod. While the radio will transmit way out of band the output filters really roll off the power past a point.

There are another mod for the radio to increase power output.

IC-706MKIIG Freqequency Mod Power Output.pdf IC-706MKIIG Transmit Power Mod.pdf IC-706MKIIG Japanese Version Frequency Mod.pdf

[SteveShannon]

21 minutes ago, WRXE944 said:

Could you please explain the Xiegu 6100 in more detail for me?

I am confused to its reference to being a "SDR" radio: does that mean I must bring a laptop with me for portable operation?

No, it means that the front end of the receiver used a “software defined radio” IC, rather than a superheterodyne analog front end. Software, actually firmware, runs in computer chips to provide filtering or other signal processing. 
Basically the radio is a computer. 
However, you can connect a computer to it to get additional functionality or to work some of the digital modes. 

[SteveShannon]

2 minutes ago, WRXE944 said:

Other than included rechargeable battery, it seems to me that the Yaesu FT-891 is a much better buy than the Xiegu 6100; for about the same price, you get up to 100 watts output.

Another advantage of the Xiegu is that it has a built in automatic antenna tuner (antenna match) and a prettier interface, but I agree that the FT-891 is a better radio. 

[KokomoWX]

The KG-Q10H can now be unlocked and cover GMRS and MURS.

[WRYS709]

2 hours ago, KokomoWX said:

The KG-Q10H can now be unlocked and cover GMRS and MURS.

I thought the Wouxun’s were unbreakable!

CB too?

[WRUU653]

On 11/15/2023 at 10:11 AM, WRYS709 said:

 

CB too?

It is unknown at this time. Mel is working on the beta in Chirp still. 

[WRYZ926]

I am interested in the KG-Q10H and KG-Q10G so I will be watching this thread. Right now I have a Baofeng GT-5R dual band and an Explorer QRZ-1 dual band along with a couple Baofeng GMRS HT's and am looking into getting better HT's.

[back4more70]

On 11/15/2023 at 11:11 AM, WRYS709 said:

I thought the Wouxun’s were unbreakable!

CB too?

My KG-UV9D Mate will transmit on GMRS after a CHIRP modification.  Not sure about MURS yet.

[WSCU465]

I find it amazing that they actually add 6 meters on a hand held.

 

[WRYZ926]

I finally bought a KG-Q10H. I've been happy with it so far. It works well on 2m and 70cm. I have only been able to talk to people within a few miles on 6m but it works and sounds god. I have yet to try out 1.25m since no one around uses that band. It definitely performs better than the Icom IC-T10 I have.