Some of you may have already seen this somewhere, but now we know why
the 590 has been discounted recently. There is a new TS-590GS coming
out soon. I don't know anything about the new radio or it's price,
but Kenwood will be offering new firmware for existing 590's at the end
of January.
Here is a link for specifics for the new firmware:
http://www.kenwood.com/i/products/info/amateur/ts_590/ts590v2_e.html
In a long list of new features for the firmware, a few things jump out:
Easier way to set split. Press and hold the split button while
pressing a number pad button to give the new offset. Pressing "5" for
example would set the split offset to 5 khz.
Also seems that filters can be set differently for RX and TX VFO's in
split.
And for the VGS-1, the status of the DRV function will be spoken. This
has bitten more than one of us as we wondered "Where did my TX output
power go?"
73, Steve KW3A