Choosing Your First HF Radio: IC-7300, FT-891, G90, and IC-705 Compared
The antenna comes first
Before any shopping list, one piece of housekeeping. On the HF bands, results are decided roughly in this order: propagation, then the antenna, then your location and noise environment, and only then the radio. Swap a mid-range transceiver for a flagship behind the same antenna and the difference in your contact count will be small. Replace a random wire draped out of the window with a properly resonant sloper and the difference will be large.
So on a limited budget, give the antenna system a real share of the money. Experienced operators often suggest spending somewhere in the range of 30 to 50 percent of the radio’s price on the antenna system. That ratio is not precise, but the direction is right: plenty of newcomers spend four figures on a transceiver and then refuse to spend a few hundred on an antenna that would actually radiate the signal.
The specs that actually change your day
When you narrow it down to the radio itself, only a handful of things shape the daily experience.
- Output power. 100 W is the mainstream and the “no regrets” baseline. 20 W is QRP territory: it works fine when propagation is open and leaves you sidelined when it is not. 10 W is for portables.
- Built-in antenna tuner. If your antenna is multiband and non-resonant, an internal tuner saves you the cost and the cabling of an external one.
- Built-in USB sound card. For FT8, WSPR, Winlink and friends, a single USB cable that carries both audio and CAT control beats an external interface box every time. This matters more every year.
- Screen and operating logic. Touchscreens are intuitive but bulky; menu-driven radios are compact but you have to learn the paths. This one is personal taste.
- Power requirements. Nearly all of these radios run on 13.8 V DC, and a 100 W HF rig pulls roughly 20 to 25 A at full transmit. Size the power supply for that number, with margin.
The usual suspects, and who each one is for
Icom IC-7300 — the general-purpose pick. 100 W on HF and 6 m, a 4.3-inch touchscreen, an RF direct-sampling receiver with a real-time spectrum scope and waterfall, and a built-in antenna tuner covering 1.9 to 70 MHz. One USB cable handles audio and CAT, so digital modes are plug-and-play. It draws about 21 A at full power and weighs 4.2 kg, so it is a desk radio, not a backpack radio. The user community is enormous, which means answers to your questions are a search away. Street price in the US has been around $1,000 (2026 listings). If you plan to sit at home and work the world for years, this is the “you probably won’t regret it” choice.
Yaesu FT-891 — the compact 100 W. Same 100 W output, but in a 155 × 52 × 218 mm, 1.9 kg chassis that fits a car or a narrow shelf. The receiver is a genuine triple-conversion design with 32-bit DSP, and a single native USB connection provides rig control through a virtual serial port. The catch is operation: it is menu-driven with a small display, and it takes a while to feel natural. It has no built-in tuner, though Yaesu offers the optional FC-50 and supports the ATAS series of tuning antennas. Full-power transmit draw is about 23 A. Around $650 street. If space is tight or you are mounting it in a vehicle, this is a very reasonable answer.
Xiegu G90 — the budget entry. 20 W of SDR on HF (receiving 0.5–30 MHz), a 1.8-inch color display with spectrum and waterfall, a detachable front panel, and a built-in wide-range automatic tuner rated to about 5:1. It pulls roughly 6 to 8 A on transmit and weighs 1.63 kg. Twenty watts does not sound like much, but hung on a ten-meter wire in decent conditions it works Europe and Japan regularly. Its weaknesses are power and screen size. Xiegu’s own EU store listed it at €499 (about $570) in 2026, with other dealers around $450. It suits two people: the strictly budget-limited beginner, and the operator who already owns a base radio and wants a second one for the field.
Icom IC-705 — the portable specialist. 10 W on 13.8 V (5 W on the internal BP-272 battery), covering HF plus 50, 144, and 430 MHz, with D-STAR, GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth in a 1.1 kg package. POTA and SOTA activations are practically what it was designed for, and full-power transmit draws under 3 A, so a modest battery runs it all day. Around $1,300 street. As your only radio it is hard to justify; as your second radio it is close to perfect.
Yaesu FT-710 Field — the step up. 100 W, a built-in high-speed tuner with 100-channel memory, a 4.3-inch touch panel, the AESS speaker system, and receiver metrics (RMDR 113 dB+) that sit well above the entry class. Price and size both move up a notch. It is for the operator who already knows they are staying on HF and would rather buy once.
Matching the radio to the situation
- Fixed station at home, one radio for many years: IC-7300
- Limited space, vehicle installation, or a tighter budget: FT-891
- Just starting out, tight budget, want the tuner included: G90
- Mostly POTA and SOTA, often carried in a pack: IC-705
- Buy-once mindset with receiver quality first: FT-710 Field
Questions worth asking before you pay
“Do I really need 100 W?” No. 100 W is margin, not a visa. When the band is open, 5 W works surprising distances; when it is closed, the extra watts rarely rescue you. Buy power for the situations you will actually operate in.
“Do I need a tuner?” It depends on the antenna. A resonant single-band dipole or a properly trimmed EFHW barely needs one. A multiband non-resonant antenna basically cannot live without it.
“Is used gear acceptable?” Yes, especially for classic models with deep parts and documentation. Two cautions: confirm the specific model is approved for amateur use where you live, and test actual power output and receiver sensitivity before handing over money if you can.
“Is more power always better value?” Not after you count the power supply. A 100 W radio wants a 30 A-class supply; a 20 W radio will run all day from a small battery. In the field, that difference decides how long you stay on the air more than 5 dB ever will.
References
- Icom America — IC-7300 HF/50 MHz transceiver product page and specifications (2026)
- Yaesu — FT-891 HF/50 MHz All Mode Mobile Transceiver product page and specifications (2026)
- Xiegu — G90 HF 20 W SDR transceiver product page, xieguradios.com (2026)
- Icom America — IC-705 HF/50/144/440 MHz multimode portable product page (2026)
- Yaesu — FT-710 HF/50 MHz SDR transceiver product page (2026)
- HamRadioRVing — “Best HF Radios for Beginners (2026)”, hamradiorving.org (2026)