Ever since I started this website I have been waiting for the opportunity to recommend an inexpensive QRP rig, especially for beginners in ham radio and Morse code.

However, before doing this, I believe it is equally important to disrecommend certain types of rigs in general and certain specific pieces of junk that have become available all in the past two years.

First, let me say that the less you spend on ham radio these days, the more you will get out of  the right rig for your needs.  This contradicts an important law of economics, but it seems that ham radio is fast becoming the exception to this law.  Here's why.

The more expensive a radio becomes, the more bells and whistles it must be equipped with to justify the expense.  These often include waterfall displays, audio filters and endless cascades of menu functions that are designed to tweak, but often do little of anything and eventually go unused just like half the capabilities of your desktop computer.

Now, there is nothing wrong with bells and whistles so long as they  can be repaired or replaced when they break down.  However, every typical 100-watt rig manufactured these days operates from a CPU, just like your desktop, and these CPUs are notorious for lasting two years and a month, which is one month longer than the manufacturer's warranty.  But unlike your desktop, which most likely has an easily replaceable CPU, the CPU in your modern 100-watt ham radio is microsoldered into the motherboard just like many of the other peripheral electronics.  In other words, for the average appliance operator, there's just no fixing it when it breaks down. This is not to say that there aren't CPUs that last forever, just like in most desktops, but these will never be the ones that get installed in your 100-watt rig.

If you're just starting out in ham radio or CW, here's the question you should ask yourself:  Do I want to carry on Morse code communications with other hams, using a simple reliable radio with a good quality CW receiver for under $200, or do I want to splash around with mermaids under my $1500 waterfall?   If the answer involves the less expensive rig, here is what I recommend.

First, stay way from all of the junk coming out of China, being sold on eBay and Amazon including, this piece of junk,  and this piece of junk.  Don't let all the red, white and blue fool you.  Yeah, most of these things are now being handed off to a freight forwarding company in California, but the one or two-month delivery time makes obvious the fact that they are first being shipped from China.  I own about a dozen of these things and not one of them works right.  In each case, when I persisted in returning them for a refund, even at my expense, the seller eventually refunded my money and told me to hold onto the unit.  This is not to say that 60% of these units don't work perfectly fine. But when you buy a radio, do you expect it to have a 40% chance of being dysfunctional in some way or another?  Junk!

Now, this is where you want to be in the world of CW ham radio: www.qrp-labs.com. 

The QRP Labs, QCX radios are definitely the most outstanding products to come along in the past 10 years, in terms of performance and product support.  They function flawlessly with a full 5 watts of output power.  The receiver end is surprisingly quiet with little to no white noise.  Even my IC-718 isn't as quiet when best filtered.

But most of all, as you can see, the price of these little radios is phenomenal:  $78 for the kit with enclosure and $123 assembled.   With $15 more for FedEx shipping, you absolutely cannot beat this price with a whoopin' stick.  If you do not have the technical skills which will allow you to troubleshoot your personally built kit, I strongly recommend that you pay the small difference and order the company assembled unit.  These assembled units involve a wait, but who cares if you don't happen to get high on solder smoke. 

I'm particularly fond of the QCX mini series.  But what makes me confident about this  company is the fact that there has obviously been a huge amount of effort in putting the whole concept together, which gives it an appearance of excellence, bar none.  It's not just people cranking out radios.  Compared to most of what's out there in terms of design, QC and support, it seems more like an offering of redemption.

For example, with the above junk radios, you can't even get a user's guide on how to operate the thing.  The manufacturers rely on voluntary YouTube demos.  When it comes to user instructions, we all know the illiteracy that is endemic with present-day manufacturers of just about everything, including products sold under US dealerships.

By contrast, just have a look at these assembly instructions for the mini.  Whoever put these instructions together should be standing right behind Bob Dylan for the Nobel Prize in literature.

These guys are serious!