Xiegu X6100 HF Radio Transceiver, 10W Full Mode SDR Radio Supports BT with 4" LCD Screen

Good news! Now that the Xiegu X6200 has arrived, its predecessor, the X6100 is selling at a deep discount. I've been closely following reviews for the X6100 since the beginning, and truth be told, a lot of those early reviews were not favorable. Flash forward 2 years, and a number of firmware updates later, and this little radio rocks! With a fully charged battery, I found the radio can stay powered on for up to 3 hours, (with minimal transmitting and screen off.) The X6100's internal battery recharges fully to 8.4V in about 4 hours. My X6100 arrived with a well written (slim) manual that explains many of the radio's features. In addition, an updated 149 page operating manual is available online for download. Other items you'll find in the box, include a full featured keypad microphone, the X6100's battery charger/power wall wart, a data transfer cable, and an extra DC power cable suitable for use with an external power source. The X6100's, easy-on-the-eyes, 4" screen is the darling of this radio. The LCD screen has a resolution of 800x480 and is bright and beautiful. The display includes all the operating information you could possibly want or need. The radio's digital noise reduction filter is surprisingly good and compares very favorably to my FT-991A's DNF. The rig's small speaker can be made decently loud and sounds quite pleasing at normal volumes. The X6100 includes a built in ATU and a very useful SWR analyzer. Without touching on every feature of the radio, I'll just say, at its current bargain price, you can't beat the value. For a guy who would never consider paying a thousand dollars for the ICOM alternative this compact QRP radio is a dream. In my opinion, the X6100 has matured into a capable and currently very affordable QRP radio. If you are considering adding the X6100 to your shack, now is the time to snap one up before they are gone. 5 MONTH UPDATE: I still like the looks and functionality of this little portable radio. The ATU and DNF work well. Battery life is decent. It has a good receiver except, now I'm clearly aware of the many birdies the radio generates, as discussed in other reviews. That's very disappointing. Honestly, I haven't made a single contact using the radio, likely due to a poor antenna set up and my location. I am leaving my review at 5 stars because the radio has likeable features and doesn't cost a small fortune to own. However, knowing what I know now, I would seriously recommend skipping the X6100 and buying something with a better design like the FT-891 or FT-991A. If ultra portability is your priority the FT-891 is the way to go. If you need a portable radio with a built-in ATU then the 991A is the way to go.

Been working fine for over a year now. Internal battery doesn’t last to long. Besides that its a good product

You will need to update the firmware as a first priority. Follow instructions carefully and do the factory reset at the end. I also recommend The Radio Today Guide to the Xiegu X6100. The 4 inch display is nice and would be nicer if it were touchscreen. The CW decoder is useless. All I get is gibberish. Battery life is pretty minimal. Plan on a two hour session with just the internal battery if you are operating SSB or CW on POTA or SOTA.

Great radio as advertised does so many things I haven’t figured them all out yet very clear signal

FINAL EDIT: I tried jumping on the 10 meter (29 MHz) band. Got the SWR down to 1.1:1 and hit the PTT button. DEAFENING static feedback through my headphones (S/P in headphones mode). Some kind of faulty wiring inside the unit. It's yet another defective radio I've bought. This product DOES NOT work as advertised, DOES NOT work on all bands, and IS NOT a deal as it WILL NOT perform as advertised. I couldn't even get Amazon to exchange the item, refund only. Zero stars - would not recommend. ************************** I'm using it with a JPC-12 antenna and a short length of RG-8x (15 feet). All contacts are 20 and 40 meters, SSB voice on the 5-watt internal battery! Drawbacks - documentation and battery life. The former is more lacking than the latter. Yes, you'll get a couple birdies. I've never had a radio that didn't. They're temporary, so spin the dial and go back. It's a QRP rig. Edit: Bluetooth will pair and connect to a speaker, but it won't pipe the sound out. So that feature is useless. As the internal speaker is *almost* useless, you'll want to use a wired speaker or earbuds. You'll need high-bass earbuds because you'll need to keep the radio setting on speaker. Switching the unit into headphones mode barely gets you any audio. I dinged them a star on that one. Advertised features need to actually work! I'd give it 4 stars... But the documentation sucks and a 3,000 mAh battery is lacking. Then factor price. I would expect more from both at $490 USD. And I would expect Bluetooth to work for an external speaker. But no, I'm keeping it! I do love it and would buy one again! 73!

I love this little radio but it has its problems. Birdies as others have pointed out. Wi-Fi is flaky, labeling most everything as “Hidden AP”, though eventually I was able to connect (I think). Bluetooth doesn’t seen to pick up anything; in Scan mode it’s labeled OFF, and when I press the button to turn it ON the only option is EXIT. I believe I have the latest version of the firmware (APP V1.1.9, BASE V1.1.8, both uploaded in September 2024)—the latest being v1.0.7 according to Xiegu’s website; hopefully there will be firmware update fixes soon. Meanwhile I can live with the shortcomings for portable work, but they are annoying.

I have been a ham for a long while and I wanted to build a portable HF rig that I could take with me when camping, hiking and other outdoor activities. I looked at a lot of options and I decided to try the Xiegu X6100. Lots of reviews for this radio on YT, some good, some not so good. Bottom line is it is a SDR radio running on Linux. That says a lot and many people are looking into how it can be made better and even hacked to run a completely different software. Out of the box it seems to be a good radio, the receive seems to be quite sensitive, the user interface is easy to understand, the landscape and waterfall work well, and it has a built in tuner plus swr sweep. And it has a built in sound card so you can hook up to your computer with just one simple cable. I have not done any TX with it yet but all the reviews say it will do exceptionally well even on 5 watts and pretty much around the world on 10 watts with the right conditions. Especially on digital modes. All in all I expect this to be a fun and rewarding radio with lots of options coming down the road.

*Edit* Customer service offered me a full refund just from seeing this, but I declined. I do like the radio and the issue is not enough for me to think it isn't worth what I paid. Great to know that Radioddity is paying attention to customers though! Super neat radio, has a random issue where the thing transmits constantly in CW mode and I couldn't figure out why. I could find absolutely NO info on this error/defect happening to anybody else, and had no idea how to fix it, but somehow customer support knew exactly how to make it quit, but not why it did it. I can't have the dual frequency enabled when in CW mode which is odd, but at least it's not a "return the radio" level of defective I guess. Sucker DOES get hot though, not worryingly so I guess.