14 January 2025

Something Interesting For The New Year

Lab599, the Russian company behind the development of the TX-500 HF rig, has been teasing out a new 'manpack' version of the radio for almost a year now. Lab599 has a habit of surprising the ham radio community. The TX-500 was in 'rumored development' for several years, and many (including me) thought it was just vaporware. Then one day, there it was! And not only was it a real radio, but it turns out they had secretly partnered with Chameleon Antenna here in the states on some antenna concepts for the radio, and they managed to sign up Ham Radio Outlet as the exclusive US-based retailer. The TX-500 had a bit of a rough start - a number of manufacturing and distribution issues, some poorly thought-out launches of accessories like an attachable battery pack, COVID, and then the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. Remarkably, Lab599 weathered all of this. They repudiated Putin's moves in Ukraine, moved manufacturing to the United Arab Emirates, struggled with some chip issues, continued to push out firmware updates, overcame some service issues here in the US, and all the while kept up an honest dialog with their customer base. Along the way the TX-500 became a minor hit both here in the US and in Europe. Performance is good, it's rugged, and its designers stripped out all the frilly bells and whistles that festoon competitors in the same market space, like the Icom IC-705 - a move that got the approval of a huge swath of folks in ham radio.

Over a year ago Lab599 hinted that they were working on a manpack version of the TX-500, called the TX-500MP. The computer generated images showed a radio that resembled a very large HT, with a small screen and no VFO knob - no knobs of any kind. When I saw the digital mock-up it struck me that Lab599 wasn't designing this strictly for the ham radio market. They are going after commercial, government and military contracts with this radio. 



A few weeks ago Lab599 announced that not only is the TX-500MP a real product, but it's in production and will be released for sale in late January 2025. Then a video of the radio being tested by Russia-based YouTuber RadioChief appeared, along with some Facebook videos. My Russian language skills are a bit rusty (i.e., they don't exist), but it's easy to follow the videos. In addition, YouTube (Google) will do a fairly good job of providing English language captions. Unfortunately since the video is hosted on YouTube's Russian servers I can't post it here, but you can open the link (above) directly in your browser and watch.

There's a lot to like in the YouTube and Facebook videos, and here's what I'm able to glean:
  • The radio has a built-in tuner. In fact, in the videos I've seen, Lab599 is making a lot of noise about how the built-in tuner performs better than the Elecraft T1 tuner. The T1 tuner has been a popular accessory for the original TX-500 owners. If I was Lab599 I'd be careful here. The T1 tuner is legendary in ham radio for being able to tune just about anything. It's not all about tuning speed. On a radio like this it's about impedance matching capability. If the TX-500MP tuner is faster, but can't match as wide a range as the T1, then Lab599 is setting themselves up for criticism
Screen capture from a Facebook video

  • Battery pack. The radio includes a detachable battery pack. The battery pack for the original TX-500 is one area where Lab599 stumbled badly. They came up with a very good design, and some made it to market in the US, then the supply quickly dried up. I suspect Lab599 just couldn't get sustained volume production going on this item. But with the TX-500MP, it looks like the battery pack is an integral component to the radio
  • No conventional VFO. Good! This radio is designed to be a channelized unit - load up your pre-determined frequencies and assign them to channels. By eliminating rotating dials, either for the VFO, audio, or other functions, you make it easier to fully weatherproof the radio. 
Almost exactly a year ago Julian, OH8STN, discussed the radio on YouTube, relying on some information he'd apparently received directly from Lab599. Julian discussed, and showed pictures of, what he called a 'break-out box' being made for the TX-500MP. The design and concept looked great, but I have not seen any discussion of it in the recent postings and videos.

From Julian's YouTube channel

By now it's obvious I'm intrigued by this radio. This is the radio I've been waiting for Icom, Yaesu or Kenwood to make. I won't be an early adopter - I'll let others test it and wring it out - but if the radio lives up to its promise then there'll eventually be one in my backpack. 

I'm looking forward to this radio getting into the hands of an experienced English speaking reviewer (not a fanboy or an 'unboxer') and giving it a good, honest shakedown. Until then, I'm saving my pennies!

W8BYH out

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