ANOTHER LOOK AT THE HL2 PLUS.
Following on from my initial review of the Hermes Lite 2, here’s a revisit, some two and a half years later. I recently purchased the new (Mk2) version of the Icom IC-7300 and it got me thinking about value for money and in particular whether the £1350 radio would bag me more contacts than the diminutive HL2 which costs a whopping £1000 less!
Now obviously, the 7300 is a 100W radio and the HL2 is a 5W radio, so I will be running the latter with a 25W amp and I’ll run the 7300 at the same power level. I’m keen to know how the two receivers compare - not so much in terms of receiver sensitivity, but more in terms of effective Noise Reduction, because at the end of the day, noise reduction has become one of the most important considerations in the electrically noisy environment we call home.
The 7300 Mk2 is Icom’s latest iteration of their famously popular budget base-station and by using the might of Icom’s design team, it has supposedly improved the RX & TX characteristics. By comparison, the HL2 uses a cheap AD9866 Cable Modem chip and you have to wonder how it achieves such high performance levels. The HL2 also benefits from Pure Signal adaptive transmission pre-distortion which is normally only found in very high-end transceivers.
My own Hermes Lite 2 is the PLUS model which has an extra companion board providing the following additional features…
- Adds a headphone socket with a sidetone in CW mode.
- Adds a microphone jack to the front panel with PTT.
- Adds an Iambic Keyer to the key jack on the front panel.
- Adds a dedicated Hardrock-50 interface with bandpass switching.
- Adds a dedicated AH4 ATU control interface option.
- Adds a local speaker output with sidetone in CW mode.
- Adds an On/Off power switch option.
- Greatly reduces latency in both CW and SSB.
The HL2 is part of an OpenSource project which facilitates the use of a very wide range of software including SparkSDR, SDRconsole, SDR++, piHPSDR, PowerSDR, Thetis and many more. The majority of people choose to use Thetis with the HL2 and there is one version of Thetis in particular which has been modified by MI0BOT. This special version takes advantage of the differences between the HL2 and Apache Labs radios and it introduces some new features. The very latest version (at the time of writing) is V2.10.3.12.
My home location (like many others) is blitzed with unwanted noise and I generally struggle to hear all but the strongest signals - it’s the reason that I spend so much of my operating time outdoors in the countryside. I often wonder how good it must have been for hams a few decades ago, before there were dodgy Chinese switched-mode power supplies, broadband hash, LEDs and solar panels!
As much as people criticise these antennas, you have to applaud their performance given the locations/situations that they are frequently expected to work from. And although this antenna is sold as an 80-6M, it easily tunes at 160M and while it’s a dummy load on SSB, at least it gets me FT8 contacts on the top band - happy days!
The antenna is shared between the IC-7300 and the Hermes Lite 2+ using a high quality switch from Cross Country Wireless. With the 7300 I use an external speaker (Icom SP38) and with the Hermes I use the computer’s speaker (Bose Mini II). I did my utmost to level the audio output of both radios so as not to influence my decision on which signal sounded the clearest. If anything, the Icom should have a slight advantage due to the fact that the computer speaker (Bose) has a softer (warmer) sound than the more clinical sounding SP38.
I have conducted comparisons on all of the bands over the course of a few weeks, during the day and the night. I’ve made contacts on SSB and used my own ears to determine which radio provided the most audible signal. I have also conducted FT8 comparisons on all the bands too and allowed the factual signal reports to be the judge.
To eliminate any Common-Mode currents (and reduce noise), I have a LINE ISOLATING CHOKE installed from RFCOMMS. This is a high quality unit and using such a choke is always a good idea when using 1/4 Wave verticals or end-fed wires.
Thankfully, there were plenty of Contests on over the test-period, which meant that the same people were constantly calling, allowing me to repeatedly switch between radios. As much as I hate to admit it (considering I’d spent £1400 on the Icom), the Hermes came through time and time again when it came to the simple test of making out the callsign of a weak operator on SSB.
Having the ability to tweak the myriad Thetis settings makes a huge difference - it’s the software which makes this radio special and in particular, the DSP - it really is good. I cannot think of another radio which has noise reduction as effective as the humble HL2 (and I’ve owned some pretty fancy models).
With the Icom (and any other radio I use in the shack), I tend to control noise with the RF GAIN more than the DSP, but when the signal is really weak, that’s not an option. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not saying that the Icom’s noise reduction is useless - I’m saying that the HL2’s is outstanding.
NR2 uses an NPE algorithm and sounds superb at the default settings, but there’s nothing to stop you experimenting with the settings if it’s not quite ‘hitting the spot’, but in all honesty, you’re unlikely to improve on all the hard work put in by the developers. If you do want to play around, be sure to make a note of the existing settings and apply the NR2 before the AGC.
Thetis has a lot of settings that you can play around with and that can be great fun and great frustration at the same time. If you go too far with your experimentation, you can make a right mess of things, so it's always a good idea to make backups. There's lots of help and tips online, none more so than ON7OFF's superb YouTube channel.
If you don't want to spend your precious time finding the perfect setup, you could always download someone else's instead and use it as a starting point for further refining to suit your personal preferences and voice characteristics. The one I like is from Kurt (ON7OFF)...
So, after spending a great deal of time (according to my wife at least) switching between one radio and the other, I can "Hands On Heart" say that there's very little difference between the £350 Hermes and the £1350 IC-7300 receivers in everyday use. I will admit that I'm not one for breaking my neck trying to dig out the faintest of the faintest, so if you are, you may come to a different conclusion.
Let's remember though, I started with the question "Will the 7300 bag me more contacts than the HL2". The answer was no!
I love the IC-7300-2 and I think it's worth every penny of its RRP. It offers so much for so little and IMHO it beats the competition with its amazing feature-set. But when it comes to out and out Value For Money, the award has to go to the HL2.
Okay, so there's a matter of 100W vs 5W but even if you add a MICRO PA100 you'll still only be paying around 40% of the Icom's cost and to many people that's a BIG consideration. Let's not forget though that the HL2 needs a computer, where the 7300 is a standalone radio.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - every ham should have a HL2 in their shack!
Oh and we've not even touched on the HL2's Pure Signal capability!! I'll write another post on that in a few days time. Thanks for reading.
73, Tom, M7MCQ.
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6 comments:
The new variant is awesome but not for portable use.
Interesting comparisation Tom. I never owned an SDR radio like the Hermes. I can't say if it is something for me. Would be great to listen to it at someone else their station. 73, Bas
Hi John, I think the Hermes is fine for POTA but impractical for SOTA. Thanks for visiting.
73, Tom, M7MCQ.
Hi Bas, hope you are well. Try to find someone local who has one. You will be impressed (if he knows what he’s doing with the software).
73, Tom, M7MCQ.
Thanks to a friend, I have the first HL2+ in Cuba.
I had heard so many good comments about this radio from my friends in the USA that I became interested in it, but at the same time it seemed to me that such comments were exaggerated. Today I can say that my friends were right about the HL2+ and Thetis tandem.
Since I got it, my IC-7300 hasn’t been turned on again. And mind you, I’m not saying it’s a better radio than the Icom, but it has given me enormous satisfaction even though I only use it in SSB and CW with its mere 5 watts, my MFJ tuner, and my 40m dipole at 8m high fed with open line.
I think I may have already bored you, and I still have much to say about this little giant. 73 de CO7RR.
Hi Joe, thanks for visiting the Blog - it's appreciated. Yes, the Hermes is an amazing radio indeed, thanks to the NR2 and the Pure Signal.
Have you looked at the QRP-LABS QMX+ as well?? Another fabulous piece of equipment which incorporates Polar Modulation!
73, Tom, M7MCQ.
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