FT-990 (and TS-940S)

[NB7241000-LondonSMDR230524]

K0KR, who frequently operates from my station, has an FT-990.  We used it
extensively in CQWW Phone.

If he had to make the decision over again, I suspect he would not buy
a 990.

Recalling off the top of my head, here's the major problems:

-  When a beverage is hooked up to the RX antenna connector, and you switch
   on the beverage and operation is attempted on 160 meters, the transmitter
   goes into an unstable, full power oscillation.  The only way to stop
   the oscillation is to go back to receive mode.  In practical operation,
   it means you gotta keep your finger on the RX antenna button - switch
   it in when you are listening, switch it out before you start transmitting.

-  The speech processor is marginally effective.  Anything more than 2 or 3
   dB of compression starts to sound very distorted.

-  The lack of a transmitted signal monitor is a real pain if you are using
   things like voice keyers, that can easily get RF into them and sound
   lousy. 

-  The receiver 3rd order IMD does not seem to be as good as my TS-940S.

-  You can't cascade two 500 Hz CW filters.  You can either have a single
   500, or a 250 cascaded with a 500.

-  After using Kenwood and it's T-F Set button for years to operate split
   frequency, I don't like toggling between the xmit and receive frequencies.
   Minor inconvenience.

-  Yaesu customer service is the pits (are you reading this K7JA ?).  K0KR
   sent his 990 back to Yaesu to fix these problems (as well as a few others).
   After 8 weeks, they sent it back.  They never told him what they actually
   did to the 990 - just vague words like "it's all fixed".  Surprise, the
   problems listed above weren't fixed !  Oh yes, there were promises made
   at weeks 5, 6, and 7 that the radio "has been shipped back to you".  I
   expect to hear rebuttals from other readers of this, telling us how
   fabulous Yaesu customer service is.  Let's here from you, too.

On the positive side:

-  You can have a 2 kHz SSB filter, switched in only on receive.  Really
   nice. 

-  Memories are easy to use.


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Now, a few comments on the TS-940S, which I have owned for 3+ years.

First of all, do NOT buy a used 940 with an early serial number.  Someone
up there in FRC land should be able to tell you early vs. late serial
numbers.  I have an early serial number.  I am convinced that Kenwood made
significant changes to the PLL to reduce phase noise in later models.  I
have done a few of the mods for phase noise, and they provide maybe 10 dB
of improvement.  The phase noise is still not where you want it to be.

I have had many problems with intermittant PC board connectors.  A real
pain to track down the culprit.

The PLL's seem to be temperature sensitive.
I can lose frequency lock when the shack is very cold or very hot.

The stock Kenwood CW filters are great if you want to hear all those RB5's
calling you 1 kHz above your xmit frequency.  Not an advantage when you are
trying to fend off W3LPL 1 kHz away.

The 940 lacks some of the more modern microprocessor-based features, like
band stacking registers.  Probably not a big deal.

Good luck !
Steve, N2IC/0