r/amateurradio•
ThyDankest2

Building my first HF station, need help selecting hardware!

QUESTION

After getting my Canadian license around 5 months ago I'm finally getting around to setting up my own HF station. After a couple weeks of research I've come to the conclusion that the radio I want (at least to start) is the Xeigu G90. This decision was based on:

  • I expect to primarily be doing digital and CW
  • Something portable for POTA and to bring up to the boat
  • Can be controlled by a PC and has IQ out for a Panadapter
  • SDR architecture
  • Waterfall (even though it is quite small)
  • Affordable (I still need to buy all the other stuff)

I know that it is recommended that beginners start with 100w as it is much easier to get your signal out and heard however from what I read that is primarily when operating voice and not digital/CW.

Now, what I still need to decide are a power supply, antenna, accessories etc.

For the power supply I was looking at the Jetstream 30 Amp Power Supply available at Radioworld. Affordable and meets the needs of the G90, however it is one of the cheapest supplies they have and I'm not sure how heavily that correlates to its quality. For portable operation I have an EcoFlow River Pro (EF4 Pro). It has an accessory socket rated for 13.6V at 10 amps so it should be good to power the G90 if i take it anywhere.

Now for the antenna I'm not so sure, I know I want a wire that I can throw into trees with a rope and that I want access to at-least 10-40m, the more bands the better. I've looked at both DXCANADA and Radioworld but there are just so many options to choose from and everyone seems to have their own opinions.

Lastly are accessories, the g90s antenna tuner appears to be more than enough in most cases and it has a built in SWR analyzer so I assume I wont be needing those for now. That leaves coax which is more of a necessity than an accessory but I cant image that will be hard or expensive to get a hold of. Anything I'm missing?

Please share any recommendations or insights! Ideally it is something available from a Canadian store. Thanks in advance!

Posted Dec 3, 2025, 2:02 AM UTC

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