I am late to this discussion, but wanted to add my comments for those who are still following the S890 saga. I will condense my findings to keep this post relatively short. (well, not so short unfortunately).
I have the Moonraker Titan MK II version of the S890. This radio is advertised as having the “latest” firmware, which apparently addresses some issues the first batch of Titan radios had exhibited. (currently out of stock at Moonraker as of Oct. 2025)
For a $150 40 watt smaller SSB mobile, the radio is not bad, has some issues, and may be able to be fixed through firmware updates (I hope). I have no idea of the mic wiring, because the manual has wiring for the previous 4 pin connector, and this radio has a 6 pin mic (not compatible with President or Anytone, to my knowledge).
My radio does have a button on the faceplate that activates a noise reduction circuit. Unfortunately, the amount of noise reduction is fixed, not adjustable through any menu setting. It ends up being a bit too much and makes the receive audio sound a bit too “watery”, or however you want to describe too much NR. Adding an adjustment to the NR would really help.
I also found a number of “birdies”, or internally generated signals, across the bands. In most cases, they would only be present in specific modes, like USB or LSB, but they would definitely make those channels/modes useless for operation, as the signal wipes out the receive. Strange that they occur only in certain modes, so again, maybe a firmware fix?
The radio does have decent RX sensitivity. I haven’t yet done bench testing, but I can say it is comparable to my Anytone AT-6666 Pro and my President George II (non-FCC). However, the radio has a slightly higher white noise component in the RX. This would be mitigated if the NR was adjustable ! I end up using the RF gain to attenuate the noise.
The volume level adjustment is only useful through the 7-10 o’clock positions. Beyond that it is too loud (maybe not so for a mobile install). It would be nice if the volume adjustment was more linear across the entire range of the volume pot.
It is an inexpensive radio, so I didn’t have high expectations, and it is close to being an “ok” radio for the money (as long as you don’t have to pay tariffs), even with the cost of shipping from the U.K. But it needs fixes that I hope will come with firmware revisions. I haven’t found any place that offers firmware for the radio, but Moonraker’s site listed a “B-stock” Titan that they claim they updated the firmware, so I suspect the possibility exists. I will note that I did email Moonraker with my criticisms, just to let them know what I found. They replied with a “sorry to hear you are disappointed…” but did not reference any option of firmware fixes, but I will follow up if I see a newer version appear.
I also saw on Simon’s site that Midland (don’t know if it will be offered in the U.S.) has announced a similar radio, with a different front panel (no martian eyes), but it appears to be yet another variant of the S890/Titan, so I am hoping firmware improvements will be ongoing, and that they would be available to existing customers.
