Moonraker

06/09/2026

"Nobody builds radios anymore." Three hams just spent a month proving that wrong. 🔧📻

Quin K8QS, Tom WA9TDD and Stu WA5US set out to find every ham "rig" kit in existence — transceivers, receivers, transmitters you build yourself. The final count: 50 kits from 17 different makers, including 35 transceivers. For-profit companies and club projects alike, from modest beginner sets to serious performers.

They made a short video walking through each company, and — better still — a free expanded PDF of notes covering all the makers and many more products than the video could hold. A genuine public service, months in the making.

Why it matters: building a rig is the cheapest honest way into this hobby, and the deepest. When you've soldered it, aligned it and fixed it, you don't just own a radio — you understand it. That used to be the standard path into ham radio, and it's clearly not going away.

50 kits is not a hobby dying. It's a workshop door open wide.

So — have you ever built your own rig? What was it, and does it still work? Sunday is for stories. 👇

https://www.moonrakeronline.com

06/09/2026

IC-7300MK2 owners — this one's for you. New firmware is out. ⚙️📻

Version 1.03 landed on 4 September, and it's not cosmetic. Two changes, both worth having:

The headline fix: a problem where signal quality could deteriorate under certain conditions has been improved. That's the heart of what a transceiver is FOR — clean signals in, clean signals out. If you've ever chased an intermittent audio artifact and blamed your antenna, this may have been the culprit.

The quiet one: changes to the controls around the clock's backup operation. Mundane on paper — until you remember how much a modern rig remembers: band stacks, memories, time-stamped recordings, contest configs. Reliable clock backup keeps all of that behaving.

Updating is the usual SD-card routine: download the ZIP from Icom's support page, copy the firmware file into the IC-7300MK2 folder on your card, then Menu → SD Card → Firmware Update. Before you start, back up your settings — and after it's done, check the version screen.

How to check you have it: Version Information lives in the OTHERS set. After updating you should see Main CPU 1.03 (with DSP Program 1.01, DSP Data 1.00, FPGA 1.02 beneath it). That's your confirmation the update took.

Running the world's favourite compact HF rig — or thinking about it? The IC-7300 MK2 is in stock at £1,359.00:

https://moonrakeronline.com/icom-ic-7300-mk2-hf-50-70-mhz-transceiver

Already updated? Let us know below if you can feel the difference — and 7300-family veterans: what's the one feature that keeps you loyal? 👇

06/09/2026

Last call on two metres — the RSGB 144MHz Trophy closes at 1400 UTC (3pm UK) today. ⏱️📡

If you've been watching the contest from the sidelines, here's the secret nobody mentions: you can STILL join in.

The 6-hour sections let you pick your own operating window — any continuous six hours (or split segments with breaks), serials starting from 001. Start mid-morning and you'll still be inside the closing bell. All modes count — SSB, CW, FM, even the digital modes — and every kilometre of every contact scores.

And remember whose airtime you're sharing: this weekend runs together with the IARU Region 1 VHF contest, so the whole of Europe is on 2 m at the same time. Your 100 watts and a bit of wire can genuinely put new countries in the log on a Sunday.

Already been on? Then the debrief starts now: what was your contact of the weekend — the furthest, the luckiest, or the one that got away? Drop it in the comments with your locator. 👇

Logs go in within 7 days via the RSGB contest site — and if you enjoyed it, the next 2 m fix is never far away.

https://www.moonrakeronline.com

05/09/2026

NEW SERIES: FIRMWARE FRIDAY. ⚙️📻

The weekly round-up of what's new in radio firmware and software — the updates that actually change how your rig behaves. No rumours, no three-month-old news: if it's in here, it shipped recently.

No.1 comes with two:

XIEGU X6200 — FIRMWARE 1.0.8 (out 29 August). The big one for CW operators: the keyer-macro function is BACK — pre-programmed CQ calls, contest exchanges and portable traffic at the press of a key, no more hand-keying the same message. 1.0.8 also fixes a bug where the transmitted CW speed didn't match your WPM setting, and an S-meter fault that could stick the display at −255 dBm. If you run the X6200's memory keyer in the field, this update is for you. Xiegu publishes a step-by-step upgrade tutorial alongside it.

FreeDV 2.4.0 (out 25 August). The open-source HF digital-voice project adds auto-start decoding — fire up the app and it's listening immediately — plus push-to-talk handling improvements and matching builds for FlexRadio and web-SDR setups (including Raspberry Pi and Docker packages). Free, on every platform, and the community around it is clearly buzzing.

That's the format: two updates, both fresh, both real. Next Friday, same slot — and if a week is quiet, we'll say so rather than pad it.

Running an X6200? It's in stock and on a bundle deal right now — £749.95, or £659.95 as the portable bundle:

https://moonrakeronline.com/xiegu-x6200-hf-50mhz-ssb-cw-am-fm-wfm-air-portable-transceiver

What are YOU updating this weekend — and which rig's firmware do you wish shipped faster? 👇

05/09/2026

It's here — and it's ours. Meet the Moonraker Atlas. 🎙️

Our own compact 10-metre mobile has just landed in stock: AM, FM, USB and LSB across the full 28.000–29.700 MHz, 15 W on SSB, and AI noise reduction with 15 levels to strip road and ignition racket out of your audio. It arrives as a complete kit — microphone, mounting bracket, fused DC lead — at just 0.7 kg, ready to bolt into the car or sit on the desk.

The timing is no accident. Operators on both sides of the Atlantic are reporting the first stateside signals of the season on ten metres — the band that sleeps all summer and wakes like clockwork each autumn. A 10 m dipole is about five metres of wire, and the Atlas is the most affordable 10 m multimode in our range.

And the licence maths works from day one: every UK licence level has ten metres — Foundation included, at 25 W. The Atlas runs inside that ceiling flat out, so it can legally be a Foundation licensee's first HF rig without turning anything down.

Want to hear what the fuss is about? Spin to 28.300–28.500 MHz USB through the middle of the day and see who the band has dragged in.

🔎 Moonraker Atlas 10m mobile — £99.95, in stock now
https://moonrakeronline.com/moonraker-atlas-10m-25w-mobile-transceiver

Where would yours live — car, caravan or shack? 👇

05/09/2026

You asked, Joel — and today there's finally a proper answer. 😄

"When you getting the 5200, Moonraker?" appeared under our new-mobiles
shootout post this week. The honest reply, right now:

The Icom ID-5200E has its own page on our site as of today. Price:
£744.00. Stock: not with us yet — Icom UK hasn't confirmed UK delivery
dates. Hit Notify Me on the page and you'll hear the moment it lands.

And it's worth the watch. The ID-5200E builds on the popular ID-5100E
and brings Icom's dual-band mobile properly into the connected era:

• 4.3-inch colour touchscreen with a real-time band scope and waterfall
• Independent dual-watch across two bands — FM/FM, FM/DV or DV/DV
• Built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for smartphone and PC integration
• Full D-STAR: Terminal Mode, Access Point Mode, DV repeater monitoring

Terminal Mode is the quiet headline for anyone without a local D-STAR
repeater: connect the radio to your Wi-Fi and reach reflectors across
the world straight from the shack or the car.

The radios will come through authorised Icom amateur dealers — and the
Notify Me list is how you'll know first.

The page: https://moonrakeronline.com/icom-id-5200-144-430-mhz-dual-band-transceiver

So — ID-5100E owner ready to move on, or is this your first proper
mobile? Tell us below, and thanks for the question, Joel. 👇

04/09/2026

Remember when Retevis meant "my first cheap handheld"? Have a look at what they've just grown into. 👀📻

The HS5 is a 100-watt HF + VHF all-mode SDR transceiver — and it's proper kit: a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen that stays readable in daylight, a 3D waterfall display, built-in Wi-Fi, and here's the headline: FT8 and CW encode/decode ON BOARD. No PC, no sound card dongle, no cabling spaghetti — the radio does it itself.

The spec sheet keeps going: all-aluminium anodised housing, built-in antenna tuner, low-noise amplifier with band-pass filtering, receive from 0.5 to 750 MHz, transmit HF through 30 MHz plus 2 metres, every mode from CW through USB/LSB to FM — and fully open-source software AND hardware for the tinkerers.

It's 5.5 kg of radio. This is not a handheld with ideas above its station.

Sharp-eyed readers may recognise the chassis — this radio has appeared under other names on its journey to market, and now Retevis has put its own badge on it and endorsed the first hands-on video, which landed this morning. The buzz across the CB and ham blogs is genuinely loud.

No UK pricing or availability from us yet — we'll tell you the moment that changes.

So, honest question: would you trust a budget brand's flagship — or does the big-three still get your 100 watts? 👇

https://www.moonrakeronline.com

04/09/2026

04/09/2026

Ten years old. Licensed. And now the proud owner of an entire ham station. 🎉

When Reynaldo passed his Technician exam in Arizona this month, the FCC gave him his call sign — KM7HFU. His club had something else waiting.

The Maricopa Amateur Radio Association presented him with an almost-new HF/VHF/UHF multimode rig, an automatic antenna tuner and a power supply — a complete station, donated anonymously on one condition: that it go to a deserving young person upon earning a licence.

And there was one more gift. A club member who collects and restores historic keys handed over a fully-restored World War II-era J-38 telegraph key, to introduce him to Morse.

A ten-year-old, a wartime key, and a donor who'll never hear him on the air. If that's not what this hobby is about, what is?

He's joined the ARRL and his local 4-H radio club too. Elmering works — someone did it for most of us.

Who handed YOU your first key or rig? Tell us below — Sunday is for stories. 👇

Starting a young operator off? A compact 100W HF/6m all-mode rig like the Yaesu FT-891 is a favourite first-station choice — £649, in stock:

https://moonrakeronline.com/yaesu-ft-891-hf-6m-100w-all-mode-transceiver

04/09/2026

A new country starts today — no waiting required. 📡

Giovanni, IZ2DPX, is active from Grashticë in Kosovo as Z68PX, starting today and running through Friday 11 September.

Kosovo is one of the newest entities on the DXCC list — added only in 2018 — so for many logs around the world it's still a shiny tick rather than an old one.

The setup is honest, effective DX: a vertical antenna and dipoles, working 60 through 6 metres on SSB and FT8/FT4. No fixed schedule — but a week on the air from a place like this generates spots.

QSL options are refreshingly complete: via Giovanni's home call, the bureau, direct, Club Log OQRS — and LoTW.

Working him needs little more than patience and decent wire. If a compact all-band vertical is on your shopping list, our own GP2500 covers 80–6 m and is £199.99 in stock:

https://moonrakeronline.com/gp2500-all-band-80-6m-hf-vertical

So — is Z6 in your log yet, or is this the week? 👇