Melting Eardrums - A quick comparison between the Xiegu G90 and the Icom IC-706MkIIG

It's HF net night. 

Normally a neighbour is melting my eardrums on 80m by 7.30pm. The Xiegu G90, with the volume at zero will still crackle with his voice coming through. Notch it up slightly.. with headphones plugged in.. and you can make him out from 5 feet away. If you had the headphones on when he speaks, you won't for long.

Tonight I've swapped over to the IC706. The band is rough as guts to me. It's 30 over with static. There's just been solar flares reported. 

The neighbour's voice was heard across the house.. I'd left the G90 on frequency.. with the volume at 2. I turned it off. The same voice on the IC706 was straight off the mark far more balanced.. despite the gain being at 100%, the noisy antenna and average conditions (the neighbour was complaining of similar things). I could hear some other locals.. without needing to change the volume. This alone just made the investment worth it.

I've discovered the DSP functions and how to adjust at the noise levels. At level 8, I'm cutting out a stack of noise and hearing a voice that I can bearly hear at level 2. The comparative noise reduction on the G90 doesn't do this much this well. I'm not saying I've got a clue what the chap talking is saying.. I can't, there's still too much noise.. but I could hear him better. I've also managed to cut some of the noise down to a tone that bothers my tinnitus a little less.

The two nets I hear back to back are my bench mark; the first is run by said neighbour. If he's talking to people I'm not hearing then I know I need to do more. This old Icom seems to be a good start. The filtering is better. The AF balances a lot better despite having the RF flat out. The G90 has some great features, but there are certainly some "digital" features of this Chinese radio that just don't compare with a rock solid Japanese radio.