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Reviews For: Kenwood R600

Category: Receivers: General Coverage

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Review Summary For : Kenwood R600
Reviews: 16MSRP: 135.00 (used)
Description:
General coverage receiver
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/commrxvr/r600.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00164.3
VE4MM Rating: 2006-09-10
Good Starter Receiver Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Had one new in 1983. Sold it and bought another one in 2001. Still have it.

Was good value back in 1983. The ICOM R70 was it's competitor but was twice as much.

73

Mike, VE4MM
N0WF Rating: 2006-09-10
Simple, solid choice Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The beauty of this receiver lies it's simplicity of operation in the dark. I wanted something to listen to at night in bed without disturbing my Wife or turning on the lights to see the controls. In this regard the R-600 is one of the best receivers you can find, few controls, big knobs, intuitive operation. Stabbing all those half-Chicklet sized buttons and sorting out all the other knobs and controls on my other receivers would be nearly impossible in the dark. For casual listening the R-600 is fine, if you are a serious dxer it may come up a little short. Surprisingly sensitive receiver gives superb rich audio from the front-firing speaker. Despite it's lack of advanced features the Kenwood R-600 is a decent choice. This is the second one of these I've owned, overall well satisdied.
WB8YMV Rating: 2003-04-03
fun little receiver Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought mine new and have used it for many years for shortwave listening. Am currently using it mobile in my work vehicle to listen to 7,15,11,&
9 Mc. sw bands as well as 20 mtr cw bullitins. I even use it to monitor ch 19 for traffic condx.
Kenwood could have designed the VFO knob and gear
mechanism better as there is some backlash in it.
Frequency readout is not accurate on LSB/USB modes
(just on AM).
VE1BLL Rating: 2003-02-25
Nice radio - bad heatsink installation Time Owned: more than 12 months.
On my R600, the solder joints on the 3-terminal voltage regulators became intermittent due to cracked solder joints. The root cause was the way that the heatsinks were installed so that expansion of the AL heatsink fatigued the solder joints. I fix it by reinstalling the VRs upside down with jumpers. The symptom was an unlocked PLL and it sounded like the tuning knob was going a mile a minute.

Hopefully this info will help anyone that runs into the same problem. It is easy to fix.

Radio is great for relaxed SWL listening. Good audio in wide bandwidth mode.
AC7RG Rating: 2002-06-09
NICE SWL Receiver Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I snagged a R-600 off of eBay from a guy that used it at his missionary in South America for years. Bass response is low, but who listens to Shortwave for the music? Very "clean" sounding radio. I have yet to figure out what the Noise Blanker actually does. No detectable changes are made to my ears. I am partial to Kenwood anyway, and this little tough radio is why.
P968CS Rating: 2002-05-24
My first HF receiver Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
The R600 is my first HF receiver, so I'm not particularly qualified to judge it against others, but its worked faultlessly and given me a lot of fun. Critisms would be a rather coarse tuning dial which requires very carefully tweaking to tune to some signals (eg HF fax transmissions) plus some drifting off frequency with time. Front panel controls are simple to understand, but frequency display is only yo nearest 1KHz, so again a little coarse. To sum up a good choice for newcomers to the hobby, steady performance at a budget price.