Steve:

Thanks for this excellent set of first thoughts on the TS590SG, and your
initial comparative observations between the TS590 and the TS590SG.

A ts590SG is not in my budget at the current time, but if the time ever
comes, this would be a good starting summary to work with.

Tom Behler: KB8TYJ


-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Steve Forst
Sent: Friday, January 01, 2016 1:31 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: TS-590sg first thoughts

Hi all, and Happy New Year.

I heard from a couple of people off-list who were curious as to whether I
had gotten my 590sg, and what I thought of it.  Thought I would post a few
initial thoughts.

It arrived on Tuesday, but I had second thoughts about pulling a VGS-1 out
of one of my other radios, so I ordered one Tuesday afternoon, and 
had it here before lunch Wednesday.    Installed it later that day, with 
no problems, other than dealing with those 4 little screws that hold the
cover over the voice board.

The SG seems identical in shape, size, and front and rear panel layout to
the older S version.

It does have a powder coated finish compared to the older flat-smooth 
finish of the S.   The powder coat, and some differences to accents on 
the front panel are supposed to make it look more like a little brother 
of the TS-990.    Probably the easy way for a blind person to tell the 
difference between is to just feel the top or bottom cover:   slightly 
rough texture is an SG, and smooth is a S.

The menu structure, firmware, and control software are totally different
between the 2 versions.

A cool feature is that when you enter menus, the first entry speaks 
firmware version.   This makes it real easy to determine what firmware 
is installed.

  The radio has a additional (or at least different) roofing filter, is
supposed to have more dynamic range, and some tweaks in the DSP to improve
RX slightly.  I'm not expecting a tremendous improvement in what was already
a fine radio,  just a few tweaks as science marches on.

One cool thing blind ops will like is the ability to add 4 additional PF
keys to the front panel.  There are no additional keys, but you can remap
the RIT, XIT, and Clear keys in the upper right hand corner to act as PF
keys.  Of course you lose the original functions of these keys.

Also the multi channel knob now acts as a push button as well.  It can also
act as a PF key.  It will actually perform one function while in any mode
other than CW.  Default is to adjust power level.  In Cw mode, default is CW
keying speed.  These can be changed in menus, but the ability to push the
knob in, turn to change a setting (like power), then push the button again
is pretty cool.

I think another new feature is the ability to connect the Drive connector
to a SDR receiver.

I was  listening  a bit last night, but probably won't be on the air 
with it until tomorrow.   I need to get my menus and settings 
straightened out first.  There are now a total of 5 amp keying options that
I need to figure out.

  I've not found a lot of accessible docs for this version, but  the active
elements site has an audio reading of the manual.

73, Steve KW3A