It has been nearly 30 years since I laid out a wad of cash for a new radio. At that time, it was for a Ten Tec OMNI VI Option 3 Plus. There was a great deliberation about that purchase! But we have some tools today to guide us through the process.
If you use Rob Sherwood's Receiver Test Data as a guide, the very top of the list is dominated by Yaesu. The FTdx101, the FTdx10 and the FT710 seem to have some really awesome specs. Costing more than a IC7300 several Yaesu radios enjoy a good market position.
One piece of eye candy of the FTdx10 is the 3D spectrum display, and you can have this jewel for about $1500 from DX Engineering. With that small sum for a high-performance rig, it should be a piece of cake to bamboozle the XYL that it was low in cost and therefore a real bargain.
Elecraft has a couple of radios near the top grouping like the K3S and the KX3. So that is good to see. Noteworthy is that a KX3 (a QRP Radio) costs more than an ICOM IC7300.
The Hermes Lite 2 with an outboard amp will set you back about the same cost as the IC 7300. But with the Thetis software you have a radio to compete with the more costly offerings!
[Read the eHam review of the HL2 here.]
All of us need a break from the brash billionaire bosom buddies* and what better way than radio shopping. A data point for you. The Omni VI Option 3 Plus radio cost $2500 in 1998. The value of a 1998 dollar in 2025 is $1.96 and that $2500 today is $4900. So, for 1/3 the price you are getting one hell of a bargain for a FTdx10. The startling fact is that the Big Dawg, the FTdx101 can be had for $4300 -- still way less than the Ten Tec priced in 2025!
Them that know can make it go. BTW all of the named radios in today's blog have the SDR topology. SDR is upon us and the performance is the witness that you need to get onboard or get left out. Who in the world feels good or proud that you are 40 Hz low?
Absent from this post was a suggestion to scratch build an SDR as sadly there are few homebrewers left these days and from that set an even smaller number who could pull off a homebrew SDR.
73's
Pete N6QW
* I did have three more "b's" in that string, but wisdom said "keepeth thy mouth shut" as all of us rightly are frightened that the government will get us! No one is safe or immune from those who presently control the levers of power. Anyone concerned that we no longer have the freedom to express an opinion.