Kenwood TS-2000

Kenwood TS-2000

I bought the TS-2000 because I was looking for an all mode tranceiver that would allow me to work HF, 2m, .75m, and handle satellites well. I was looking for a radio that would allow me to explore as much of ham radio as I could in one package. The TS-2000 seem to offer that with all modes on 80m-10m, 6m, 2m, .75m, and 1.2GHz. It also included a built-in TNC that operates at 1200 and 9600 baud, and can allow the TS-2000 to connect to the local DX cluster with easy tuning to spots.

The closest competitor I considered was the Yaesu FT-847. What finally made my choice clear was that the TS-2000 had more features for the dollar and the reviews on eHam.com in which only a hand few of which where negative all the reast gave the TS-2000 high marks.

I purchased my TS-2000 from HRO in March of 2004. So far I am very happy with it. Every feature has worked as advertised. Getting use to all the buttons and configurations takes time, but Kenwood obviously made an effort to make the front panel friendly and kept the menus simple.

DSP Filters

I have never had a rig before that didn't have mechanical filters for SSB and CW. This is my first DSP rig. All I can say is that I love what can be done with the DSP.

The DSP settings are saved for each band and mode. You can control the lower and upper skirts of the filter for all modes. The noise blanker is adjustable and is actually useful. Something new I have never seen on a rig before is "beat cancellation", this is where the DSP will detect fixed tones within the signal and cancel them out. The noise reduction is very affective for SSB (which is all I've used it in so far). There are three settings, each more aggressive than the last.

I've been in the middle of a net in 40m at night and had the broadcast stations come up. Instead of being awashed with noise I couldn't do anthing about and losing my contact, I would simply switch in the beat cancellation and noise blanker as needed and get some instant relief.

Satellite Work

Using the satellite mode on the TS-2000 can be confusing at first. I chaulk this up to being new to the radio and to satellites in general. At first I thought the limit of 10 dedicated satelite memories a bit sparse. But, after looking at what's in the sky and what I could use with my current antenna situation and operating skills, 10 is more than enough.

The TS-2000 has a nifty feature that allows you to synchronize the uplink and downlink frequences for transponders so that it tracks correctly when tuning for normal and inversed transponders.

One trick I had to learn when programming the TS-2000 for satellites with inverted transponders was to enter the beginning frequences for the downlink, and then the ending frequency for the uplink. If you do the obvious of entering the starting for both the uplink and downlink, you will have your transmitting frequency heading of in the wrong direction as you tune.

Another confusing feature that caught me was after entering the frequencies and settings for a satellite I would dutifully save it in the memory. I would then try to use the memory scroll feature using the [Multi/Ch] button. I kept finding that the main tuning wouldn't work unless I exited the memory scroll mode, but that would cause the TS-2000 to switch back to the frequency and mode it was using before I used memory scroll. I finally discovered that I could hit the [VFO/M] button while in memory scroll and that would free both the main tuning knob and the [Multi/Ch] button for tuning.

I am still trying to decide how to best support satellites with transponders and yet quickly switch to monitoring the beacon. Currently I simply program the TS-2000 satellite memories for the transponder frequencies I want and tune backwards from the beginning of the transponder downlink range. This works for satellites where the beacon is only a few KHz below their transponders, but is cumbersome at best.

One trick that seems to work is to set the satellite memories as needed and then create a corresponding none satellite memory for the beacons. I can then select the memory position for the beacon and then toggle between it and the transponder settings using the [Satl] button. My initial attempts seem to work well. There is an added bonus that when using the RIT to resolve the doppler for the beacon it is still set to the same value when switching back to the transponders.

Resources

• GB4FUN's Satellite Setup Guide - featuring the TS-2000
  http://www.rsgb.org/gb4fun/handbook/15.pdf
• K4DSP's pics on replacing the preamp FETs
  http://k4dsp.homeip.net/~doug/misc/preamp

Misc.

• The TS-2000 Service Manual P/N is B51-2084-00. It can be purchased from Pacific Coast Parts:
  http://www.pacparts.com/scripts/whlsl.cfm