New Kenwood TS-890S HF Transceiver

Still nicer than the 2000

 

'Splain it to me Lucy: how does a rig that's "pretty" or "ugly" affect your ability to work that last multiplier in the contest?

 

Here is the I want one picture..

 

A very nice looking rig. Looks kinda like a TS 990 without the extra $$$ and with some updated technology.

 

...20 pounds lighter than the '990S, too

 

Looking at the front panel there seems to be no 'APS' function for CW. If I'm right I think that is a significant error on Kenwood's part.

 

Pascal, Thanks for being the eyes and ears for those of us who could not be there.

 

Sorry. Typo. Make that 'APF' (Audio peak Filter)

 

Ummm, it could be a "soft key" for selection that appears on the screen menu when CW mode is selected! Maybe you hit the CW button twice to select this filter. Maybe Kenwood has such excellent CW [audio] that it doesn't need an APF function.

How can you draw a conclusion about features from merely looking at the front panel? Really!

 

@KB4QAA well I did say "appears to be" and "if I'm right", didn't I? My reasoning was that anything in soft menus is most likely to be for stuff in the DSP back-end. An APF is an analogue function....essentially an audio CW filter, so is most likely to have a front panel control. Why is one so useful for CW?....well if you have high levels of local noise it is useful to be able to screw the 'nose' of your filters down as tightly as possible. Whilst you can wind the DSP filtering down in my ts590 to 80Hz, at such narrow bandwidths the software has a job working out which is the noise and which is the CW. I've found that by opening up the DSP a lil actually improves noise suppression. With APF being purely at audio, you can screw the filter down to almost zero without the DSP software getting confused.

Thats my experience anyway, but YMMV especially if you live in a low noise QTH.

I'll find out for sure when mine arrives

 

When they come out with something...THAT BEATS THIS... wake me up!

 

None of this has anything to do with this new radio!

 

I'll take a well done conventional tuned circuit radio over a bad SDR any day. In fact, I'm still not sure I wouldn't take one for some purposes over a GOOD SDR.

 

Wellll.... basic radio performance was excellent on the 830s best I remember, and the passband tuning that came out on the 820 was a game changer at the time. But... I've owned tube rigs, I have an old tube AM set up I'm dying to set up now, I LIKE tubes, but... as far as both performance and convenience modern solid state is way more convenient and modern filtering even without DSP is vastly superior. The SCF on my FT-990 will blow away any radio I had "back in the day."

 

Hmm. I LIKE it. And I like the 990 too. I hate the weird (to me) "swoopy" look of the 480 and 2000, like the look of the 590 ok.

But aesthetics are very personal, as is how much they matter to us.