Kenwood Re-Imagines the High End Base Station: VIDEO

[WA4D]

After seeing various photos and videos of the Kenwood TS-990 at Dayton, many of us were impressed.

But Kenwood played their cards close to the vest at Dayton. Either because the Radio wasn't ready or they (smartly) chose to reveal the most tantalizing features last.

Take a peek at arguably the most important redefining of the HF basestation transceiver since the KWM-2.  Watch closely.

Japan Amateur Radio Link on You TUBE:  http://youtu.be/Zt01SczTFDM

[ZENKI]

Nice dial. They spent all that time emulating a old radio dial but I bet you that the S-meter is uncalibrated and totally useless. Reminds me of the IC7800's analog emulated S-meter, looks nice but totally useless and uncalibrated.
Why cant we get real useful RF tools on radios like the TS990S. A transmit spectrum analyers, calibrated  S-meter and a  VNA option would be more useful that some gimmicky old radio dial look.

I would be more concerned about receiver and transmitter performance.

The TS-990 looks like it has a great PA, lets hope it has no ALC, power spikes or IMD issues.

I wish Kenwood well with the new radio however I  am just sick and tired of the useless bells and whistles and no real RF performance. A transceiver should be more of a tool more that a eye candy  play toy.

[KA5IPF]

And an S-meter is just eye candy.

Clif

[K1CJS]

There is no way you're going to be able to have a calibrated s-meter for many reasons.  My post on the "S-meter accuracy...." thread explains a few of the reasons why.  S-meters are for relative signal strength readings, not exact.

[W8JX]

But Kenwood played their cards close to the vest at Dayton. Either because the Radio wasn't ready or they (smartly) chose to reveal the most tantalizing features last.

I not only looked but spent a lot of time talking to their key people too. They told me that the display was not the final one and it would be revealed later because of patent issues so I was not surprised on new display. THe display and final software was only things not at Dayton

[TANAKASAN]

Interesting idea for a front panel but as ZENKI said I would far rather have a rig with low transmit IMD and a receiver that doesn't crunch under European QRM levels at night.

Tanakasan

[YO9IRF]

I don't quite understand why, without even seeing the radio in real-life, you are already throwing suspicions of an uncalibrated s-meter or rx/rx performance issues.

On the other hand, i don't understand what makes it such an innovative piece of equipment, the technology is still 10 years behind and the user interface is not much better than in the FTDX-9000 or IC-7800. Some added functionality and features, a fancy display and some more buttons, it's just natural evolution from Kenwood. If we are talking about crucial transciever designs in ham history, the Flex-6000 series is much, much more important than the TS-990, it actually brings new technology for HF transcievers (SDR with direct sampling) and also a whole new concept, allowing mutiple users simultaneously to operate it independently.