Hi.

Ok, I'm going to talk like an old fart for a couple of minutes so bear with
me.  I've been in amateur radio for 26 years and used quite a wide range of
equipment over that period.  I am getting quite a chuckle out of the
"Kenwood bashing" because I can remember a time when I would have given my
eye teeth to have a radio that worked as well as even the worst of what is
out on the market now.

Consider the performance of a Heathkit HW101 on the upper bands, for
example.  It can't even compare with the stuff that is out there now, and
we still made contacts with them and had fun using them.  And, anyone that
I worked on 15 meters with my HW16 automatically got a RST599 because the
receiver in that radio was so stinking deaf on 15 meters that if I could
hear them, they deserved a 599!

So, I think it is all relative.  I am not about to spend fiv figeures on a
radio that will depreciate in a few years.  If I had that kind of money to
throw around, I'd probably spend it remodeling my house anyway.  The
Kenwood radios serve a useful purpose--they keep amateur radio affordable
for those of us who aren't making 40K per year and they get the job done.

When you come right down to it, that's the bottom line--do you hear
signals, and do people answer you.  I won't ever have a Yaesu FT1000MP or
an Icom IC7800 because I frankly don't make that kind of money, and I am
cheap enough to think it is just too darned expensive anyway.  Now, I could
see myself taking a Icom IC756 Pro home some day, but that is probably some
way off.

I do wish that Kenwood would make some stuff that is comparable to Icom's
"mid-range" radios, as most of these radios seem to have pretty good
receivers, and I was kind of disappointed to read Kevin's comments on the
Kenwood TS2000S.  He pretty much made up my mind that my next radio will
either be a Kenwood TS480S or an Icom IC746 Pro, as the TS2000S makes some
compromises in areas that I don't want to compromise.  But, if this was
1978, and I had a radio comparable to a TS2000S, by the standards of that
day, I'd probably be on Cloud 9!

73, de Lou K2LKK



Louis Kim Kline
A.R.S. K2LKK
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