Yes,
Look up relaxation oscillator. I'd suggest a keyer with side tone generator.
73,
Rob

I'm going to reply and say I don't know about the smaller caps; but, you will be better off, with fewer losses, if the big caps are used. 73,
Rob

Hi Marc,
Excellent news, I was thinking about the RS-232 side and yes , the ground of the open collector transistor does need ground from the rig's point of view.
73,
Rob

Hi Marc,
Yes, use the ground of the RS-232 line for the emitter. Put your DVM from Collector to Emitter, you should see the Resistance drop when the line is keyed, alternatively, look for a higher voltage on the base resistor, RS-232 side, when the line is keyed.
73,
Rob

PM sent!

Don,
Digipan is good for starters. Using the USB port on the rig can bypass the Rig Expert and do most things directly, this is a whole new ball game.  If you're sticking with the Rig Expert, you may need to back up and start over. Unplug the Rig Expert USB cable and reload their drivers. (reboot) This should help the computer find the Rig Expert hardware when you plug it in. Plugging in the Rig Expert before hand may assign some window drivers that you don't want to the USB port. I'm a bit unclear about which way you are going with this. Keep me posted. The kicker is that the TS-590 has an audio CODEC in conjunction with it's USB port that can do almost anything the Rig Expert can save FSK RTTY and control of another port. If you want CW, the Rig Expert will have a cable to be connected to the rig's straight key port. I do not remember about using CW via the USB port on the rig. HTH
73,
Rob

Hi Clif,
I had heard in the past that some TS-430s had a resistor in place to feed some DC across the receive contacts on the T/R relay i.e keeping oxidation from building up. Just wondering.
73,
Rob 

Don,
Change the audio input from the 13 pin din to the USB connector.
73,
Rob

Hi Frank,
One other possibility is that the amp may have a tuned input. This could solve the problem. Otherwise a small 300 watt tuner would be fine in between the rig and amp. If you are getting 500 W on 10M and not stressing anything I wouldn't worry about it; though, keeping the VSWR down on your new rig would be important. If the problem only exists on 10M, try some jumpers, you may find the system is happy on all bands with a few jumpers between the amp and rig. That what I'd do, at 500 watts out, boosting up to 600 watts would not be seen by the receiving station. The difference between 600W and 500W is less than 1 db.
73,
Rob

I'd consider adding a few feet or subtracting a few feet of ladder line. Alternatively, shortening the coax jumper between the tuner and balun may make a difference. An antenna analyzer may make a difference in determining what the tuner 'sees' looking back into the antenna on 40 meters and give a clue as to what needs to be done to the antenna system.
73,
Rob

Hi Frank,
Some Icom rigs I have had were more sensitive to SWR than others, often folding back sooner. A small outboard antenna tuner will solve the problem. Of course, you might just build up a collection of coax jumpers. hihi
73,
Rob

I loaded up the shield on my disconnected CATV cable one summer using a random wire tuner. It worked OK but excited the ringer on my then new electronic phone that was mounted on the inside wall  near where the cable ran on the outside. I really needed more of a counterpoise then but didn't understand the theory.
73,
Rob WA9UAA

The signal is actually being picked up by the speaker leads. Put some toroid cores on the speaker leads near the speaker . Be sure the mix is correct for the frequency, more turns are better of course.
73,
Rob WA9UAA 

I'm a little late to the party but seems like 20 Min. would do the trick. HTH
73,
Rob WA9UAA

The larger the tuner the less the loss. True for both TX and RX.
73,
Rob WA9UAA