Xiegu G7250 Review: How Good Is This 100W HF Radio?

Xiegu has spent years building a reputation on small, affordable, low power radios. The G90 is probably the one most hams know, and I've used mine a lot. The Xiegu G7250 is a different kind of radio. It's a full 100 watt HF transceiver that also covers 6 meters, built around a big 7-inch touchscreen, with the control head separating from the RF unit so you can put the part with the knobs where you sit and the part that makes heat where it fits.

Radioddity sent one over, so I put it on the bench and went through it button by button. This article covers what the G7250 is, how the front panel and menus are laid out, the filters and noise tools, the SWR scan and tuner, and the handful of things I'd change. If you just want my take, skip to the pros and cons near the end.

What the Xiegu G7250 Is

On paper, the G7250 lands in the same conversation as the mainstream 100 watt base radios. Radioddity lists HF coverage from 0.5 to 30 MHz and 6 meter coverage from 50 to 54 MHz, with up to 100 watts out on HF and 90 watts on 6 meters. Modes are SSB, CW, AM, narrow FM, digital, and wide FM, and there's even FM broadcast reception from 78 to 108 MHz.

Under the hood it's a direct RF sampling SDR, meaning the incoming signal is digitized and processed through an A/D converter and FPGA rather than a traditional superheterodyne chain. Radioddity rates receive sensitivity at 0.25 microvolts on SSB, CW, and FM, with an MDS of -138 dBm.

A few hardware choices stand out for a radio at this level:

• Split design. The 7-inch control head and the RF main unit are separate pieces joined by an included 15-pin link cable.
• Two antenna ports. There are two SO-239 connectors, selectable from the radio, and both cover HF and 6 meters.
• Built-in USB sound card. Radioddity says one USB cable to the computer handles FT8, so there's no separate digital interface box like the Xiegu CE-19 or DE-19 to buy.
• Built-in antenna tuner with memory. Specified for a 20 to 150 ohm matching range, with stored settings recalled when you come back to a band.
• Anderson Powerpoles. I like that the power connection uses Powerpoles. That's the standard in most shacks, mine included.

If you've ever stacked a G90 on top of an amplifier to get to 100 watts, the pitch is obvious: one radio, one power connection, and a screen you can actually read.

Filters, Notch, Noise Reduction, and Noise Blanker

Xiegu used one consistent rule for the receive tools, and I wish more radios did this. Push a button once and the function turns on or off. Hold the button and you get its adjustment panel on the screen.

Notch filter. Hold the button and you can choose auto or manual notch. In manual, you set the notch position with the adjustment control, and you can switch it on or off from the same panel. Touch it again and the panel goes away.

Noise reduction. This is a really nice noise reduction. I turned it up during the video so you could hear the difference, and it pulls the hiss down without making the audio sound like it's coming through a tin can. The level is adjustable, and it switches on and off with a single press.

Noise blanker. Same deal. Press to toggle, hold to set the level. That's what you reach for when there's impulse noise like power line buzz or an electric fence ticking away.

Radioddity also lists a 50 Hz narrow filter for CW along with built-in CW and digital mode decoding. I didn't dig into CW in this video, so I'll leave those for a future look rather than guess at how well they work.

Press once to turn it on, hold to adjust it. Once you learn that rule, you know how to run every receive tool on the radio.

Menus: Quick Settings, M1, and M2

Holding the quick button brings up quick settings, but most of the deeper settings live behind two buttons labeled M1 and M2.

M1 and the Band Stack

Press M1 and you get a page of general settings, with a Next button that takes you to a second page. My favorite setting here is the band stack. You can leave it on ham bands only, or switch it to all bands. If you're into shortwave listening, the all band option lets the band buttons take you to broadcast stations as well, and with general coverage receive from 0.5 to 30 MHz there's plenty to listen to.

M2, the Waterfall, and Receive EQ

M2's first page is where you set up the waterfall. You can adjust the span, which is how much frequency range the display shows, and the waterfall gain. I'd turn the waterfall gain up from the default setting. It made weak signals stand out a lot more for me. The next page holds the receive EQ settings, and you can tailor the audio separately for modes like AM and FM. There are a lot of settings in there to play with.

The Voice Keyer

There's a call button that lets you record your voice and transmit it as a canned call, which saves your voice when you're calling CQ over and over. To use it you need a microSD card in the radio, since that's where the recording is stored. Radioddity's listing also notes the card is an extra, so plan on supplying your own.

The System Menu

The system menu is where you format the SD card, set the radio up on your network, and set up a Bluetooth connection if you want to use an app with it. You can also set the backlight level for the brightness you want. I only went through these menus on camera and didn't test the network or app side, so I can't tell you yet how well they work in daily use.

SWR Scan and the Built-In Tuner

This is the part that impressed me most on the bench. Press the APP button and choose SWR scan, and the radio sweeps the band and plots the SWR curve on the screen. No separate antenna analyzer needed.

To make it a fair test, I connected a 20 meter vertical whip and moved to 40 meters, where that antenna has no business working. With the tuner off, the scan showed about a 9:1 SWR, which is exactly what you'd expect from an antenna that far off resonance.

Then I switched the tuner on and ran the scan again. The tuner brought it from 9:1 all the way down to about 1:1. It didn't cover the full band, but it covered a pretty good portion of it, and the scan made it easy to see where the match was good.

For context, Radioddity specifies the tuner's matching range as 20 to 150 ohms, with a new tune taking up to 10 seconds and a stored setting recalled in as little as 0.1 second. A 9:1 mismatch is beyond what that range suggests on paper, so I wouldn't count on it with every badly mismatched antenna. But on my bench, with my whip, it got the job done. Being able to scan before and after tuning is the best part. You aren't guessing whether the tuner found a real match.

Power, Mic Gain, and the Microphone

Power output, like volume, is set with a knob. Like I said earlier, you really have to turn it if you want to go from 5 watts up to the full 100. More on that below.

Mic gain has its own adjustment, so it's easy to tweak if someone tells you your audio is low or hot. The included multi-function hand microphone has a nice button layout and feels like decent quality, not an afterthought. Radioddity rates the radio for microphones from 200 ohms to 10k ohms if you'd rather use a desk mic.

Radioddity lists 25 amps maximum draw on transmit and 1.2 amps maximum on receive from a 13.8 volt supply. That means a properly sized power supply. A small 10 amp supply that was fine for a 20 watt radio won't cut it at full power.

G7250 vs. G90: Which Xiegu Should You Get?

Plenty of people looking at the G7250 already own a G90, or are trying to decide between the two. They aren't really competing for the same job.

The G90 is a 20 watt radio with a 1.8-inch screen and a compact body that's easy to throw in a bag. I took one from a sealed box to Field Day contacts and it's still a great portable rig. The G7250 gives you five times the power, a screen you can read from across the desk, 6 meters, two antenna ports, and a built-in USB sound card. In exchange it's a bigger, heavier radio that needs a much bigger power source.

If you're backpacking or every ounce counts, the G90 still makes sense. If you want one radio that covers the home station and the occasional trip where you can drive close to where you set up, the G7250 is the more capable radio by a wide margin. And it saves you from building a G90 plus amplifier stack to get to 100 watts. Radioddity notes the G7250 isn't designed to work with the Xiegu XPA125B amplifier, so don't plan on carrying that over.

Xiegu G7250 Key Specs

Conclusion: The Xiegu I'd Put on the Desk

The G7250 feels like Xiegu listened to what people wanted from their smaller radios. The big touchscreen waterfall, the consistent press and hold controls, a noise reduction that works, and a tuner and SWR scan that turned a mismatched whip into a usable antenna on the bench all add up to a radio that's pleasant to sit in front of. It's a well thought out layout, and a lot of what I'd want is right there on the screen.

It isn't perfect. The knobs need too much turning, the voice keyer depends on a microSD card you supply, and there's only one receiver. None of those are dealbreakers, and the knob issue is the kind of thing firmware could improve. For anyone ready to move up from a 20 watt radio without stacking an amplifier, the G7250 belongs on the short list.

What do you think of the G7250? Would you take it over the G90? Let me know in the comments on the video. I read them all.