I was interested to know how my RS-918 (a mcHF SDR HF radio clone) performed with FT8 compared to my new IC-705.
I have done a series of test. Very non-technical tests, without any promise if this is the truth. But it was possible to repeat the results several times. I have done the following:
- RX test: 10 minutes with one radio, switch antenna and then 10 minutes with the other radio. Then counting number of received stations.
- TX test: 10 minutes with one radio, switch antenna and then 10 minutes with the other radio. Then counting number of stations that could RX my signals.
- Test done on 20 meter (14 MHz) and 40 meter (7 MHz) band during day and evening time.
- 5 watts output was used. The RS-918 needed a little PA calibration to reach 5 watt.
- The tests has been repeated three times on both TX and RX.
RX:
What I can see is that the number of station received are similar, in the image below the RS-918 actually received more stations but in the other tests I could not say that one of the radio was better than the other.
TX:
In all tests, the IC-705 performed better. The output (5 watts) is the same but it seems that the IC-705 have some more punch in the modulation. I do not know, I have not investigated this further…
So, for some ”local” FT8 contacts in Europe I can use the RS-918 but if I would like to hunt some DX I will use the IC-705 with 10 watts.
