Some of you might have been seeing my posts on the Facebook group, but I think I'd shared my though on the transceiver here as well.
As the leading SOTA activator in Taiwan, I think it is definitely one of activator's dream radios, sturdy body, weather-proof, nice screen for both indoor or outdoor, and most importantly, it has perfect user interface, functions that needed for filed operation is very easily accessible.
However, my experience with my particular unit is kind of a rollercoaster.
I ordered directly from Lab599 and I asked them to ship it without the box in order to avoid some tax and customs issues. I ordered in September, Lab599 shipped it in late October and after almost 100 days, it finally arrived Taiwan. The delay was of course due to the pandemic.?
Although radio was packed in multiple layers of bubble wraps, upon arrival I discovered that the BNC connector was dented, and after powering up I found the "B" icon is always there and the radio couldn't remember any of the user settings. I open the radio and found a broken socket for the CR2032 battery. The Lab599 team is very responsive and helpful, they offered to send me a replacement unit but I may have to wait for another 90+ days for it to arrive. They also sent me video instruction on how to replace the BNC jack and the battery socket and promised that doing that on my own would not void my warranty, I opted the latter and installed new jack and socket, problem solved.
Just when I though my TX500 was about to sail to a new life, I encountered another?swirl. After several QSOs on phone and FT8 at home, I took it for its first field operation yesterday, I used a load GP with adjustable coil, at first everything went well on 40-meter band, and then I switched to 20, tune my antenna to perfect 1.0 SWR and began to TX on FT8. All of sudden, my own FT8 TX came out from the speaker with the monitor off, I stopped and only to find out the speaker is not working anymore, there is just no sound coming out, I tried reset, re-flash the firmware, taking the internal battery out and put it back on, as well as using the headset adapter to rule out the problem on the speaker-mic, but the radio just went dumb, even the internal buzzer for the key beeping became silent. The RF capability? (TX and RX) seem to be intact judging form the panadapter and the FT8 QSO that followed.
I have contacted the Lab599 on this matter and I think I may have to get and wait for the replacement afterall. But again, nice radio! I hope this is just an??individual incident.
