Hi Dave,

The TS2000, as far as I can remember, will read almost every menu and
setting to you, whereas the FT847 will only read out the frequency, signal
and power and that's about it.  I have owned a TS2000 before, I have already
been down this road enquiring which radio would be best for a total.  Any
radio can be used by anyone, you just need a damn good memory so that you
never make a mistake going through menus etc, or hooked up to a computer
which is not very practible if you want to work portable.  I'm afraid I like
things easy, so after passing my morse last week, I took the bull by the
horns and ordered another Kenwood TS2000 yesterday.  Everyone has their own
favourite brand and mine would most certainly be Kenwood as they seem the
best of all the manufacturers to be willing to take into account that not
every ham is blessed with twenty twenty vision and seem to bear this in mind
when they are bringing out new radios.  Yaesu,, going from what I have read
on this and other lists, don't give a stuff whether you can see or not, they
just want you to buy the radio and the rest is down to you, seems to b their
attitude, not very nice.  Hopefully things are different in the States
compared to the UK.

As I have said already, I have ordered the TS2000 as itcomes tops every
time.  My list had three radios in it, the FT847, bottom, the IC746, second,
and the TS2000, first.  From sighted friends over here, they all reckoned
that the FT847 had a lot of reliability issues and was not filtered as well
as the other radios, and generally would not be very suitable for a blind
person.  The IC746, is a much better radio with better filtering but still
can require sighted help with the menus as the speech is limited in what it
reads out.  The TS2000, well, what can I say about this radio except, I
never had to ask for any sighted assistance with this radio.  Once you get
the layout of the radio and the manual in an accessible format you are good
to go.  Just like a fully sighted person, you are now able to go into the
menus and change whatever you like and then go back in and undo it if it is
not to your liking, without the aid of a poor stressed out sighted person
looking over your shoulder.  Personally, for me, being able to do this, is
worth its wait in gold.

Good luck with the radio hunting, and sorry for rambling on so much.

Best 73 to one and all.

Jim, Mi1BKO
Northern Ireland
Just waiting for the arrival of my new Kenwood now to get reacquainted with
an old friend.