Repairing the 590 and LEDs for all the things!

On Friday my parts for replacing the blown fuse in the TS-590.  The part I chose is Digikey part number 0603SFV050F/32-2CT-ND.  It is a 0603 size 0.500 A 32V fast blow fuse.  It probably isn't the exact same fuse that Kenwood uses in the newer models but that is OK, I think it will work fine.

 Anyone attempting this repair should be aware that 0603 parts are stupidly small.  I am used to soldering 1206 stuff from Steve Weber's kits and I did not think 0603 would be that bad but with the tip I have on my iron, it was a real pain.

Inside the bottom of the 590

The fuse is located on the right board below the row of 3 can inductors near the middle right and to the left of the red, white, and grey cable, which you can see in the close up of the finished product down below.

I first tried to solder the new part on top of the old one - a technique that some articles had mentioned was possible.  I tell you, not with the tip I have.  The original fuse is shaped more like a diode so it has flat, very thin wings that solder down rather than being shaped like a capacitor or resistor with vertical ends like the new fuse has.  This made it impossible to get solder to build up on the ends enough to make contact on both ends of the new fuse.  I wasted a lot of time and made quite a mess with all the flux on the board.

Finally I just put a screwdriver on the side of the old part and continually heated it until it slid off the pads which is what I should have done from the get go.  After that a quick pass with some desoldering braid to clean up the pads and the new part was installed in a snap.  Here's my last look at it before buttoning everything back up.

Sure enough, with the fuse installed, everything was back to normal.

I also bought a RotorBrite from W0IY, Barry, a member of our contest club, N0MA.  It's just a little LED strip you can put in your rotor controllers to replace the ugly, expensive, and prone to failure, light bulb.  It also adds a nice red indication when the break is disengaged which is pretty cool.  I was testing out one of the first kit versions which is built out of 1206 SMT components.  As I mentioned before, 1206 is what I'm used to so I didn't have any problems with this one! 

I also reintroduced a bit of LED light strip to the shack which I had up before I bought my new shelving material.  This time I added a potentiometer to adjust the brightness level which is pretty neat.  Here's a couple pictures with the new LED additions installed:

The little knob to the left of the 590 is the control for the brightness

With the shack lights off

The TS-590: A week on

The first week with the TS-590.  What can I say?  It has been good.  Sometime last week the sound card on my new Mac Mini went toes up which left me without a computer until Thursday so I was stuck doing the old school thing: logging by hand.  This also meant that I didn't have any digital modes to play with which I was really looking forward to trying.  I didn't let that stop me though!  According to ClubLog, I've got 4 all time new ones since the 590 arrived, and I've filled in a few band slots and worked some extras that I don't have confirmed yet and already worked QRP.  The 100w is really helping (duh, no surprise there), but there's a few I've got on SSB now that would have been near impossible QRP.  Well maybe not impossible but I'd sure need a lot more time than I care to take.  Yeah, sometimes life is too short for QRP!  (oh man I really am a lost cause now aren't I?!)

As expected, I'm getting used to the features of the new radio, while uncovering other things that are...less than perfect.  For instance, when I have VFO B selected in simplex mode, and I enter a frequency in my logger (RumLog by DL2RUM) or click on a spot, the frequency of VFO A changes, but since the 590 only shows the active VFO when in simplex mode (grrrr), you have no indication that the radio knows what is going on.  It took me quite a while to figure out I was on VFO B and VFO A was the one changing.  Why it doesn't change the active VFO, I will not know.  Quite annoying.

Another nit is that the VFOs do not stay on the same band when changing bands.  If I'm split on 40m and then go to 20m, VFO B will still be on 40m.  WHY??  Sure sometimes cross band splits occur but really?! Dumb thing, but I guess I'll just have to get used to hitting A=B before A/B.

Still, I have plenty of praise for the radio - the noise blanker is, in a word, epic.  I've had some really strong (S9) noise pop up on 20m lately and the noise blanker nixes it completely.  Totally gone.  Pretty incredible.  The DSP features are quite good and I'm happy with the receiver performance overall.  With extremely weak signals, I have found myself turning off the AGC quite a bit.  This seems to be working fairly well as a substitute to the APF feature on Elecraft rigs, though I much prefer Elecraft's operation in this particular application.

So back to the digital modes - my computer, newly repaired, was ready to send some bits and bytes into the aether right away.  The first thing I wanted to set up was FreeDV.  Matt, W2MDW has talked about it on Twitter a bit and I had seen their booth in Dayton, so I was interested in trying it.  There's a software build for OS X luckily so it was a piece of cake to get set up with my 590 and a computer headset.  The big FreeDV watering hole is 14.236 right now, and I picked up a few QSOs on that frequency pretty quick.  While the mode seems pretty interesting, it does require a fairly high S/N ratio to get clean audio without the R2D2 robot sounding voice you get with packet losses.  I think there's still a bit of tweaking of my setup to get the best performance in this mode.  I think it'll be another novelty mode I'll be happy to try out when I hear it or get bored.  A lot like Hellscreiber is for me.

I loaded up FLDIGI and WSJT-X too, and both seem to be working well with the 590's built in soundcard and VOX setup.  Unfortunately I couldn't get all 3 programs to provide the same ALC response for a given audio output but that's the cost of doing business with 3 apps I guess!  Still, the process of switching modes is very fast, which is real handy.

In summary - I think I made the right choice.  I've been given the option to bag that DX and move on, an option I've not had for a long time.  I'll be spinning the VFO a bit during the ARRL DX contest this weekend on SSB to see if I can pick up a few more new ones, and we'll see how the rig deals with the SSB QRM.

The TS-590 Arrives!

My very own TS-590 arrived yesterday, and as expected, it was in perfect shape.  I didn't take too long to get her set up and on the air and worked my first new DXCC with the rig - VP8LP in the Falkland Islands.  Hooray!  My count now stands at 194.

I played around with all modes last night, working a few guys on JT-65 and JT-9.  I even made a couple QSOs on FreeDV, the free HF digital voice mode, which was actually really neat.  It offers high-fi digital voice, like D-Star on V/UHF.  I had an unusually high noise level so it did degrade the experience a bit but still it was very cool to try something new.  Here's a screenshot of my signal being received at W2MDW's shack:

The DV is the vertical lines.

Setting up the digital modes on the 590 is no walk in the park.  Getting the audio levels such that you key the VOX but you don't overdrive ALC is challenging, but once you have it set up, jumping from mode to mode is super easy.  I like that.

So far, I'm very happy with the radio.  It'll be really interesting to see how I come to utilize the new features I have available to me.  Maybe I'll become a big digital guy and forget CW!  (yeah right!!!)

Anyway, I'm happy with the radio and I hope to catch you on the bands soon!

K3 vs. TS-590: Choosing a Victor

A victor has been chosen. 

I arrived at the Radio Farm, N0MA, around 7PM local time, an hour after the big ARRL DX contest started. W7II, Bill, had the K3 position set up on 20m, ready to start runnin' 'em. Unfortunately, he didn't have the time to get the TS-590 set up at the other operating position, so I was stuck (if you can call it that!) on the K3. The band was good and once things slowed down a bit, I moved down to 40m on the 4 Square. With 900w at the coax, we were smoking into EU. Wanting some rest, before we hit it hard on the high bands on Saturday, I went home at about 10PM. The 590 would have to wait until tomorrow.

I came out at around 7:30AM on Saturday and W0GXA, Bob, was already running on 10m with the K3 when I arrived. Bill was getting thing set up for the 590 position. He was skeptical it would be as easy to set up as I told him, but sure enough, the 590 was communicating with the logger and spitting out a mighty KW of CW without too much effort. I donned the headphones and went for it on 15m, with our twin stack pointed at EU. The bands were wild, and I whipped up a big pileup in no time flat. I had 5+ stations calling at every "QRZ?" for about 2 hours. Our Multi-2 station had sustained rates over 200 QSOs per hour the whole morning! Never once did I feel like the 590 was inferior to what I expect out of a contest radio. There was no receiver overload and signals outside of the roofing filter passband were silent, as expected. Bill's K3 does have the 300 Hz crystal filter so when running, things were a little quieter, but that is to be expected. Yet, the 590 was no slouch. Combined with my impressions from Thursday, I was happy to be considering the proposition to acquire one of these fine pieces of engineering.

So what is the verdict you ask?  The 590 is a real contest radio.  The roofing filters are no match for the choices you have with the K3, but remember, they come free-of-charge, and when comparing at the same bandwidths, there is little difference in operation.  I have to say, in my opinion (whatever that is worth to you) the TS-590 is a no brainer if you cannot afford a K3, especially if customizable, top of the line performance is not a hard and fast requirement.

Surely though, the real question is, "TJ, ARE YOU BUYING ONE?!"

Well....









Yes.

K3 vs. TS-590 - Initial Impressions

As you recall from the last post, this contest was going to be the testing grounds for a head-to-head comparison of a loaded K3 versus a stock TS-590.  These are the results of that test.

Thursday pre-contest
I picked up the 590 from Dan, WB0LJK, and ran home to really see how she worked.  First impressions on the fit and finish of the radio were positive.  The buttons and knobs feel good, a certain elegance to the look of the radio.  In comparison to Elecraft's offerings, the TS-590 has a less utilitarian feel, and I still think the K3 is a more rugged radio, when you consider the all-metal chassis and lighter overall weight.  Yes, Elecraft's knobs are cheap, but that means when you break one out on some God forsaken island, it won't break the bank to repair either.

I personally find Elecraft's displays to be very good - they're very easy to read and all the stuff you want to see is available without asking a menu item, and the VFO B display is a nice addition that shows the time, power supply voltage etc.  The 590 display is largely uncluttered, but almost too empty.  There's a lot of unused space when operating in simplex mode.  In split, the 2nd VFO shows in the empty space but there's no reason for it to not show in simplex mode.  There may be a menu setting to modify.  On this topic, the nod easily goes to the Elecraft rigs.  

Moving to the operation of the radio.  I went at this without really looking at the manual, and found the operation to be pretty straightforward.  Changing modes is by direct entry, which is definitely preferred to Elecraft's method of cycling through modes.  Dan is primarily a voice operator, so I had to set up all the CW options on my own.  Changing the break-in delay and keyer speed are pretty straightforward, although I wish there were dedicated controls for keyer speed like I have on the KX3.  When working weak stations, changing keyer speed is nice to have at hand.  Not a deal breaker though.  Finally, I was ready to put some RF out and low and behold, those T/R relays are loud!  I knew I'd have a different QSK experience than I was used to, but this was loud.  A few quick tweets and it became clear there was a setting out of order.  It turns out when you have the amp keying relay enabled, the T/R switch goes from a nice quiet one to a big loud one!  Once we got that straightened out, the QSK was actually fairly pleasant, for relay switched T/R anyway.  Certainly not objectionable, just something I'd have to get used to.

The menu system on the 590 is just as extensive as the K3 and equally challenging to navigate.  The menu options are grouped by "topic" which helps navigation somewhat.  For instance, you'll find all the CW keyer options together, and all the USB options together, and so on.  The menu items are numbered as well, which makes referencing the menu items quick too.  On Elecraft radios, the menu items are in alphabetical order.  I think I prefer the 590's method better but realistically, you don't have to access the menus for much.  Like the K3, the 590 has 2 programmable function keys which I think can do just about anything.  I know Dan has one set up to transmit a 30w carrier to tune his remote auto tuner.  Unfortunately the 590 places the settings for sidetone volume and pitch in the menus, rather than the front panel.  Varying sidetone volume is not something I do a lot, but it is still far more convenient to have it on the front panel.  It should be shared with the TX monitor option which is on the front panel of the 590.  Again, not a deal breaker.

Speaking of the auto tuner - it is very quick to tune, and seems to do a fine job so far.  On 40m, my dipole has a fairly high SWR (its a little long I guess) and the tuner snapped to a 1:1 SWR in less than a second.  Much faster than the KX3's tuner.  I don't have any high impedance loads so I don't know how well it does with high SWR.  The dual antenna ports are nice though, and the radio remembers what port each band is on so you don't have to worry about going from 12m to 40m and transmitting into your beam on 40m.  The K3 with the ATU option does this too of course, but remember this is standard on the 590!

Front panel controls are well thought out and the layout is good.  One of the nicest features is the 3 memories for each band.  Just hit the band button multiple times to quickly jump around the band.  For example, you can have the first one set at 14.060 for QRP work, hit the "14" again, and the radio will jump to 14.200, and another tap can put you at 14.300.  Makes it really nice for moving around the band quickly.  I believe these are user set values, but I'd have to look at the manual to find out how.  The 590 makes a lot of use of its "MULTI" knob for many of the front panel adjustments, including power, keyer speed, and break-in delay.  Unfortunately it cannot be used to control VFO B when operating split.  This makes split operation essentially a 2 hand operation since you have to hold a button and spin the VFO to tune VFO B.  It doesn't take much work to figure out a one-handed position to do it, but I would still prefer having a separate control.  This is just another nuisance.

Passband tuning and filter width are concentric knobs as they are on most radios.  Being used to a single knob like on my KX3, I often found myself changing the passband tuning, rather than adjusting the filter width like I wanted.  I found a S9+60dB signal on 40m and with the filter set at 500 Hz, tuned away until I could not hear him.  At 500 Hz away, he was silent, with no phase noise present at all.  Even at reduced bandwidths, when moving closer, phase noise was audible, at about an S4-5 level.  Still the DSP was working quite well.  Hundreds of S9+ signals during the contest will really test this aspect of the receiver performance.

Initial impressions of receiver performance are certainly favorable.  The weekly 80m QRP Foxhunt was going on which always offers plenty of weak signals which I could use to test the weak signal performance.  I quickly found the first fox in Wisconsin, who was 10 over 9, and quickly worked him.  I then found the second fox, who was in NH.  This is a long haul for my antenna which is only at 30 feet.  He was very weak but certainly readable with QSB.  The noise reduction settings were very effective and I found NR2 to be the best for weak CW signals.  There was little degradation of the desired signal while maintaining a noticeable reduction in band noise.  Running with the AGC off helped pull the signal from the noise.  Unfortunately I was unable to work him but I would say the 590 at least matched the weak signal performance of the KX3 in this brief test.

Next I set up the USB audio card to run some JT-65.  As I mentioned earlier, all of the USB settings are in the same part of the menu, but I still had to consult the manual to figure out exactly what each setting did.  Using the latest version of WSJT-X, you simply select the USB audio card in the preferences and adjust the computer and rig's audio levels for optimum operation.  It takes some time to get things working correctly but once you have it set up, you won't have to touch it again, which is nice.  For some reason I couldn't get the audio from my Mac to output to the radio but using the Win version of the app (running in Parallels) worked fine.  I'm sure I have something set incorrectly.  The 590 keys on VOX on digital which means you can keep the rig control set up on your logger without having to switch between the apps controlling your radio.  This isn't a big problem if you use HRD on Windows since it has its own control output, but on OS X, there's no way to duplicate COM ports.  I still have not figured out how to do the dual receive of JT-65 and JT-9, but that is a low priority thing for me anyway.  I understand it can be done with the 590 though.

I spent the rest of the evening playing around and chasing DX.  I even worked an all time new one, bringing my DXCC count to 191 worked.

Stay tuned for a post-contest update!

tl;dr Some ergonomic drawbacks, but performance admirable so far

Spring? Does it even exist anymore?

Yes friends, it has been a long and cold winter.  I'm ready for a change!  Luckily there is hope in the forecast and above freezing temperatures are expected next week.  FINALLY!

This weekend is the ARRL DX contest (CW).  As usual we'll be spending most of our waking hours out at N0MA running the big gun station.  This time around we'll be running a different setup though.  Usually I grab the K3 that I built from the shack at work giving us two K3s at the farm, but this time around I'm borrowing a TS-590S from one of the phone guys in the group.  It will be a head to head test of the two radios in difficult contest conditions.  I already know the K3 is my ideal contest radio.  Nothing beats that thing.  BUT a 100w K3 with filters is crazy expensive, and I've heard again and again that the TS-590 is a fair competitor when you consider the huge difference in price - over $4000 for the K3 vs. $1500 for the 590.

Why am I so concerned?  Well, it pains me to say it, but with my recent interest in DX superiority, my QRP signal is not always sufficient for the job.  I just poked my 190th DX entity and I know I'm getting to the point where the countries are rarer and more difficult to work, QRP or otherwise.  My homebrew amp does work but not nearly as nicely as I had hoped.  Couple these with the fact that Steve Weber is going to be introducing a third re-designed MTR that I will likely use portable far more than my KX3, and I can make a pretty good argument for selling everything and getting a 100w radio.  As noted before, a 100w K3 is beyond my means, even if I did sell everything.  Then the obvious choice then remains, but is the TS-590 a candidate at all?

Indeed, I can hardly believe my own ears (eyes?).  A self proclaimed Elecraft fanboy considering selling off his one and only prized KX3 which he complained about waiting for and drove dozens of other hams to buy.  Sounds like a condition, doesn't it?  I did tell my wife it would be the last radio I bought for a long time.  But things changed!  I got the Hex Beam and my DXing life changed!  I was a big player now!  Breaking pileups became possible and working the BIG pileups more likely.  But you know how it goes - once you get a taste of success, failure seems so much more painful.  Still, having the extra power isn't the only benefit to be gained by moving to a 100w radio.

Realistically, when operating portable, I only operate CW.  Why carry a big (comparatively) radio like the KX3 to the field when I can put an MTR in a shirt pocket?  More often than not, I was using the KX3 as a REALLY expensive SWR meter during the summer and operating with the MTR instead.  It is no secret that the KX3 was designed to be operated portable.  The connections and controls are made that way, and it shows when you use the radio in the shack.  That mess of cables coming out of the left side of the radio really does kill the aesthetics of the radio.  If I do not intend to use the KX3 more when portable, there's no reason to keep it unless its performance cannot be reasonably matched by another radio.

So you can see my thought process.  Neglecting all the cool features of the TS-590, its suitability for my operating style and habits is understandable.  Now consider the additional features.  The 590 includes its own built-in soundcard for digital modes, and the best part of that is that it is still only one cable from the computer - a standard USB!  Right now there's 7 cables coming out of the side of my KX3.  I need 4 hooked up to run digital modes.  The 590 needs only one, and I don't have to unplug anything or change any settings to switch between modes!  This would certainly get me back on JT-65 and WSPR and other digital modes.  And since the radio will always have its received audio available to the computer, setting up something to hold a 30 second buffer of on-air audio is super easy, giving me the option to play back the most important moments of QSOs.  (this option is also available as a hardware add on to the radio - something the KX3 does not currently offer)

The 590 has a built in ATU which is no match for an Elecraft tuner, but I'm using matched antennas now, so this is not a big deal.  The nice thing is having 2 antenna connections that are switchable from the front of the radio.  There's an RX antenna jack.  Separate jacks for paddle and straight key.

Make no mistake, the KX3 is made for portable use, and based on size, compromises had to be made.  I stand by the radio - its is the best portable QRP radio there is.  It would really pain me to part with mine, and I am still trying to figure out if it would be possible to not sell it, but unfortunately the numbers just don't work in my favor.

So place your bets and make sure to cut me in - will I be struck by the 590 and fall in love or will I stick to my guns?  Look for the results of this "highly scientific examination" next week!