All,

Thanks for your feedback regarding transceiver choices.  I should have
given a few more specifics.  First off, I would prefer not to break
the bank if possible.  If I try to spend $2000 on a new rig, my stuff
might end up out on the front lawn, and I might need to get an
attorney. :)  I would like to find a rig that might not necessarily be
full of features in favor of one that is either accessible with speech
or else is easy enough to operate without it for a totally blind ham.

The Kenwood 480 is an awesome-sounding rig, but if I have to wait to
save up to buy one, I might never get on the air.  At the same time, I
would hate to cheap out and buy something that is so basic that I will
be tired of using it after six months and end up buying something else
anyway.

I am very interested in CW, and of course in DXing as well, so I am
primarily interested in the HF bands, but if I could get something
with VHF capabilities also for a little more money, I am certainly not
going to turn it down.

Operating with low power would be perfectly fine with me, as I am
probably going to end up using some sort of stealth antenna due to the
small size of my property and the fact that I'm right in the middle of
a busy suburb.  No need for a "big guns" sort of station with a
200-foot tower...I just want something modest with enough features to
get me started without breaking the bank.

The speech output options of the Kenwood and ICom rigs sound very
attractive, as I don't want to run my rig exclusively through my
laptop.  But since I have not even been on the air yet, perhaps this
is not really as important as I think it is.  I certainly need to be
sure I am not operating out-of-band, and I need to be able to know
what kind of signal I am getting.  Beyond that, I really do not have
the experience to know what is important for me to operate, and what
is really just an awesome feature that would be nice to have, but not
critical.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

David Thurmond, KK4ADV