[CQ-Contest] What rig to choose for a one-time fieldday MM setup?

[Gerry Treas K8GT]

TS850 is an excellent rig, especially loaded with the ganged IF filters, 
AND the Inrad roofing filter mod.  It is a great deal used, but only 
those manufactured in 1995 (50,000,000 series S/N) and 1996 (60,000,000 
series S/N), the last year produced.  These last two years produced have 
the new and improved DDS chips, which are much better than the earlier 
ones that failed, along with better electrolytics on the carrier board 
that leaked on the earlier models.  Rob Sherwood mentioned the specs on 
the TS850 with the Inrad roofing filter mod as being an improvement over 
one without it, in his presentation at Dayton, but I don't see those 
figures on the list.

The TS590 is a very good rig, but as the list shows, above 20m the 
narrow spaced dynamic range is somewhat poorer due to upconversion being 
used, versus 20m and below using downconversion.  The TS590 is easy to 
use.  It has two excellent NB's and two NR systems, and it's DSP 
filtering is great, down to 50Hz.  It is reasonably small and light.  
I've used it at Field Day and the only thing that it can't handle is one 
of the other station rig's TX wideband noise that no rig can handle.

The TS990 is good but large, heavy and expensive as you said.

I have both the TS590 and the TS850 loaded with filters and the roofing 
filter mod.  I like them both, they are slightly different, but operate 
similarly because they both are Kenwoods.  I highly recommend either.

I'm waiting for Kenwood to bring out, say, a TS890 that would be between 
the TS590 and the TS990.

Just my 2 cents, YMMV.

73, Gerry, K8GT


On 11/29/2013 10:12 AM, Jukka Klemola wrote:
> TS850 is better than TS590, but not available anymore.
>
> In a Multi TX environment one should not pick anything in the lowest
> quartile of
> http://www.sherweng.com/table.html
>
> The top quartile is expensive, bulky or difficult to use - pick any two or
> maybe all three.
>
>
> The surprise radio amongst these is IC730 if you can find any that are in
> good shape
>
>
> 73,
> Jukka OH6LI
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