It's always a good day at the lake, and it's an even better day when there's a new radio to open. Normally I take a radio and use it for a week or two before I review it. This time I did the opposite on purpose. I brought a sealed Xiegu G90 from Radioddity out to Field Day, opened the box on camera, and worked through the whole thing for the first time in the field. No prep, no manual study beforehand, no settings dialed in at home. If a radio is going to be sold as a portable HF rig, this is the honest way to find out how it handles that job.
The G90 has been around for a while and it's a popular radio for good reason. It's a 20 watt HF transceiver covering the 160 through 10 meter amateur bands, built on a 24-bit SDR architecture, with a color spectrum and waterfall display and a built-in wide-range automatic antenna tuner. That last item matters more than it sounds. An internal auto tuner at this price point is rare, and for field antennas that are never quite resonant, it's the difference between operating and fiddling.
Xiegu has also kept updating the radio since its release. The unit I received ships with Anderson Powerpole connectors on the power cable instead of the older style connector. That's a change the radio community asked for, and they listened. Powerpoles are about as universal as DC power gets in this hobby.
This article covers what's in the box, the portable antenna and power setup, the first power on, a walk through the controls, and how it did making real Field Day contacts.
What Comes in the Box
The G90 package is complete enough to get on the air without hunting for extras. Inside the box:
- The G90 transceiver itself. Compact, solid, and clearly a step up in build quality from what its price suggests.
- A multi-function hand microphone. One detail I liked immediately: the mic cord is detachable and snaps into the microphone body. Mic cords wear out, and being able to replace just the cord instead of the whole mic is a smart touch.
- The power cable with Anderson Powerpoles. As mentioned, the current production units come with Powerpoles pre-installed.
- A programming/CAT cable for connecting to a PC.
- A comms cable for the detachable display head, which can be separated from the main body for flexible mounting.
- The operating manual and warranty card. The manual deserves a mention on its own. It's genuinely detailed, which is not something you can say about every import radio.
Portable Antenna and Power Setup
For power, I ran the radio off a generic 20Ah LiFePO4 battery. Normally I would crimp ring terminals onto the power cable and run a Powerpole pigtail off the battery, but in the spirit of Field Day I wanted to make it work with what I carried out there, so alligator clips it was. Not elegant, but that's field operating.
For the antenna, I brought out the HF010 portable vertical, which I've done a full review of on this channel. The ground at the lake was hard and rocky, so instead of the ground stake I mounted the antenna on its tripod. The antenna gets preset by length using the included tape measure and instruction card: for 20 meters, the telescopic whip extends to 228 centimeters with the coil scale set to 1, and the ground radials get set to 300 centimeters using the white tags marked every meter. From there, the G90's built-in autotuner handles the rest of the match.
That combination, a preset antenna plus a wide-range internal tuner, is exactly the kind of pairing the G90 was designed for. Get the antenna close, hit the tune button, and operate.
First Power On: Walking the Controls
Since this was my first time turning the radio on, I walked through the controls the way any new owner would. Here's what stands out.
Receive and Tuning
The radio came alive on the first press of the power button with good speaker volume, and the band was busy. Pushing in the tuning knob changes the tuning increment so you can move in smaller steps when zeroing in on a signal. There's also a secondary knob for quick tuning that doubles as a multi-function control for adjusting receive bandwidth, which I had set around 2.65 kHz for SSB.
Bands, Modes, and the Tuner
Band buttons are on the top of the head unit for jumping directly between bands. Mode selection cycles through AM, narrow FM, CW, digital, USB, and LSB. The tune button engages the automatic antenna tuner whenever the SWR is off. One thing that impressed me: after jumping down to 40 meters without re-adjusting the antenna at all, the radio was still receiving great. The receiver on this thing is genuinely good.
Power and SWR Protection
Hit the power adjustment and you can dial output anywhere from 1 watt up to the full 20 watts. There's also a configurable SWR protection threshold. Set it to, say, 2.6, and the radio will refuse to transmit if the SWR is above that. That's cheap insurance for the finals when you're running improvised field antennas.
The Rest of the Feature Set
The G90 also has an attenuator, a noise blanker with adjustable level and width, adjustable AGC, voice compression on a dedicated CMP button with an on-screen indicator, and CW/QSK settings behind the key button for the CW operators. A tap of the power button turns the screen off while leaving the radio running, holding it powers down, and the lock button doubles as a display background toggle. On the side there's a standard headphone jack, and pressing the volume button switches audio between the speaker and headphones so you don't bother the people around you.
Making Real Field Day Contacts
Up to this point I was receive-only, since I was operating alongside the Ridge Amateur Radio Club and couldn't just start transmitting on my own. But once we brought the G90 into the cabin and put it on the air as part of the club's 2 Alpha South Carolina operation, it started logging contacts on 20 meters right away: stations in Kentucky, South Florida, and northern New Jersey among them, all in typical rapid-fire Field Day exchange style.
The radio held its own in that environment. Stations came back to us, exchanges completed, audio reports were fine. For a 20 watt radio on a portable vertical, that's the job done.
Out of a sealed box and into the Field Day log the same afternoon. That's a fair test, and the G90 passed it.
The One Thing I Don't Like
I'll be hyper-critical here because somebody should be. The transition from transmit back to receive is slow. In a fast exchange, the other station starts replying the instant you unkey, and by the time the G90 has switched back to receive, you've missed the first syllable or two of what they said. During a casual ragchew you'd barely notice. In a contest-style environment like Field Day, where every exchange is compressed, it costs you. More than once we had to ask for a repeat on information we would have caught with a faster turnaround.
It's not a dealbreaker, and it may be something firmware can improve over time since Xiegu does release free firmware updates for the G90. But if contesting is your primary use case, it's worth knowing about going in.
Xiegu G90 Key Specs
Coverage
Transmit on the 160 through 10 meter amateur bands, with general coverage receive from 0.5 to 30 MHz. Operating modes are USB, LSB, CW, CWR, AM, and FM.
Power Output
Adjustable from 1 to 20 watts. Per Xiegu, the supply voltage needs to be between 13.8 and 15 volts to reach the full 20 watts, so plan your battery setup accordingly.
Built-In Auto Tuner
A wide-range internal automatic antenna tuner, which is unusual in this price class and a genuine asset for portable antennas that aren't perfectly resonant.
Display and Architecture
A 1.8 inch color TFT with a ±24 kHz spectrum and waterfall display, built on a 24-bit SDR architecture with adjustable DSP band filters that can go as narrow as 50 Hz in CW mode.
Detachable Head
The display head separates from the main body and connects via the included cable, which opens up mobile and tight-space mounting options.
Warranty
Radioddity backs the G90 with an 18-month warranty on new units.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Xiegu G90?
The Xiegu G90 is a portable 20 watt HF transceiver covering the 160 through 10 meter amateur bands, with general coverage receive from 0.5 to 30 MHz. It uses a 24-bit SDR architecture, includes a built-in wide-range automatic antenna tuner, and has a detachable front panel. It's available from Radioddity for around $465.
Does the Xiegu G90 have a built-in antenna tuner?
Yes. The G90 includes a wide-range internal automatic tuner. Press the tune button and it will automatically match the antenna if the SWR is off. For field and portable antennas, this is one of the radio's biggest practical advantages.
What comes in the box?
The transceiver, a multi-function microphone with a detachable snap-in cord, a power cable with Anderson Powerpole connectors, a programming/CAT cable, a comms cable for the detachable head, a detailed operating manual, and a warranty card.
How much power does the G90 put out?
Output is adjustable from 1 to 20 watts. Xiegu notes the supply voltage must be in the 13.8 to 15 volt range to reach the full 20 watts. The radio also includes a configurable SWR protection threshold that blocks transmit above the value you set.
Is the G90 good for Field Day and portable use?
Yes. It's compact, runs happily from a 12V battery, and the internal tuner pairs well with quick-deploy field antennas. In this test it went from a sealed box to logged Field Day contacts in a single outing, running off a 20Ah LiFePO4 battery and a portable vertical.
What are the downsides?
The most noticeable one in actual use is a slow transmit-to-receive turnaround, which can clip the first syllables of fast replies in contest-style exchanges. Xiegu also notes it's normal for the G90 to run warm during extended use, which is why cooling accessories like the Radioddity G90-H1 exist for it.
Conclusion: A Fair Test, Passed
Taking a radio you've never powered on out to Field Day is not how the review playbook says to do it, but it's the most honest test of a portable rig I can think of. The G90 went from sealed box to preset antenna to logged contacts in one afternoon, with no head-scratching moments along the way. The controls are laid out sensibly, the most-used functions live on hardware buttons, and the receiver is better than a radio at this price has any right to be.
The transmit-to-receive delay is real and worth knowing about if fast exchanges are your thing. But weighed against a built-in wide-range tuner, a proper spectrum and waterfall display, 20 watts of adjustable output, and a package that includes everything you need to get on the air, it's a complaint, not a verdict.
There's more coming with this radio. I plan to show off additional features and pair it with an external amplifier in a future video, so if the G90 is on your shortlist, stick around.
Get the Xiegu G90
The Xiegu G90 is available from Radioddity, an authorized Xiegu dealer, with an 18-month warranty on new units.
Shop the Xiegu G90 at Radioddity