Many years ago we watched with some ambivalence the slow decline of the Drake Company from the amateur ranks. Mr. WR Drake had died and his non ham son was at the helm wanting to take the company in a different direction. At the time the excitement was high with new radios coming out from Kenwood, Yaesu and ICOM. We are at a similar fork in the road with Kenwood. Looking at the excitement almost every manufacture experienced at Dayton, Kenwood was one of the loan exceptions.

I talked with their North American sales Manager, Phil and he said they have no high performance HF radio in the pipeline. The sales crew looked haggard and tired and when I visited their booth on Friday and Saturday at Dayton, no one was smiling. No give aways, no fluf and the booth was looking old. The booth was for the most part vacant and best served as a short cut to the MFJ booths further into the arena. They had an empty Plexiglas covered box on Thursday during set up and many hoped a new high HF radio was to appear on Friday. Come Friday morning…..just a VHF mobile.

At the Visalia DX Convention a month earlier, the Kenwood Factory representative left on Saturday at noon while the convention show lasted for 5 more hours. Just some brochures were left on the table. They had a TS-2000 but no one stopped to talk. I would have to say the morale at Kenwood must be very low. Their two-way radio division is doing very well but not having a licensed ham at the helm of the amateur radio division is taking its toll. I feel Kenwood has suffered greatly in the HF community since the TS-870 was pulled from production with out a replacement. The last high performance design was the TS-2000 which started designed in late 1999. The technology is over 7 years old and getting long in the tooth.

I have been a Kenwood man for 35 years. My first Kenwood radios were the 599 twins. I own a TS-2000 as a backup radio and it is a very fine $1500 radio but it is not cutting edge performer. I finally went to an IC-756 Pro III when I upgraded my HF radio and as a result also bought several ICOM VHF radios. The lack of a flagship radio does transcend your buying decision for other radio purchases.

I saw this downward spiral of esteem with the Drake line after the old man died and his non ham son took over. The rest was history. I hope Kenwood is not on the same path.

If 3 guys at Elecraft can bring out a high perform HF transceiver, the K3 in a year's time it makes you think there is no one left in engineering at Kenwood other than the two way radio division. The crowd at Elecraft booth were two or three deep for much of the show and with every new buyer of a K3 sprouting a proud K3 button his shirt. By the end of the show they must have taken hundreds of orders for I saw K3 buttons every time I looked at the crowd.

I hope this is not the case for Kenwood but as a wise man once said watch what a person does not what they say. Kenwood's actions are speaking very loud.