I had a friend that purchased a new TS-590 and after using it for a week he decided that it had to many menus and the controls were to small. He then turned around and asked if I would trade my FT-950 for his 590. Having had such great luck with my TS 2000 I decided to take a chance and see how good or bad this radio really was. Sherwood has a web page where they rank all of the major radios and compared their ability to hear weak signals to one another ( Receiver Test Data ) and the 590 fared very well. Not that much of a difference between it and the K3. The K3 is second the 590 came in 9th.
Now for a few of the things I like about this radio. I love the fact that this radio can be hooked to your computer either via a USB cable or a serial cable or if need be both of them. This means if you are running two programs that need to connect to your radio it is now possible. The size is small when compared to the TS-2000 and even more so when compared to the 950. The DSP works relatively well but does very little to eliminate a power line buzz that plagues me. For those who feel color coordination is the most important aspect of ham radio the 590 has two different display colors, you can choose from green or amber. If you want the option of configuring the radio "Your way" the 590 has 100+ menu setting you can change but the majority are a set once and forget the menu type items.
The internal speaker on the FT-950 is far superior to the smaller sounding 590 speaker. Another irksome problem with the 590 is there is no matching speaker for the radio. They expect you to use the SP-23 which does not match the color or style of the 590. I have opted to us an old Icom speaker and power supply housing which is black which sort of matches the radio. The oversized tuning knob is silky smooth and spins with little effort, located to lower left of the knob is a push button marked "Fine" which when depressed reduced the turn rate so that CW or digital stations are easier to tune in. Speaking of digital I have used the radio not only on PSK31 but RTTY and FSK as well. As long as you maintain this output so as not to have any ALC showing all of my signal reports were glowing successes. With the included roofing filter the ability to tune and separate CW signal is as good as any radio I have ever owned and that includes the ICOM 756 Pro II which everyone says is a great CW radio. This radio also includes the Voice recorder which can be used during contests which makes calling CQ so much easier and it can also be used to record 30 seconds of someone talking so they can hear exactly what they sound like. I should add that I am using the Heil GM 5.1 microphone and have almost everyone say how great the audio sounds I was told by Bob Heil NOT to use the processor on the radio.
So there you have it in a nutshell, if I missed something you would want to know just ask and I will do my best to find out for you.
73's and Merry Christmas
Kevin -KG0MN
Now for a few of the things I like about this radio. I love the fact that this radio can be hooked to your computer either via a USB cable or a serial cable or if need be both of them. This means if you are running two programs that need to connect to your radio it is now possible. The size is small when compared to the TS-2000 and even more so when compared to the 950. The DSP works relatively well but does very little to eliminate a power line buzz that plagues me. For those who feel color coordination is the most important aspect of ham radio the 590 has two different display colors, you can choose from green or amber. If you want the option of configuring the radio "Your way" the 590 has 100+ menu setting you can change but the majority are a set once and forget the menu type items.
The internal speaker on the FT-950 is far superior to the smaller sounding 590 speaker. Another irksome problem with the 590 is there is no matching speaker for the radio. They expect you to use the SP-23 which does not match the color or style of the 590. I have opted to us an old Icom speaker and power supply housing which is black which sort of matches the radio. The oversized tuning knob is silky smooth and spins with little effort, located to lower left of the knob is a push button marked "Fine" which when depressed reduced the turn rate so that CW or digital stations are easier to tune in. Speaking of digital I have used the radio not only on PSK31 but RTTY and FSK as well. As long as you maintain this output so as not to have any ALC showing all of my signal reports were glowing successes. With the included roofing filter the ability to tune and separate CW signal is as good as any radio I have ever owned and that includes the ICOM 756 Pro II which everyone says is a great CW radio. This radio also includes the Voice recorder which can be used during contests which makes calling CQ so much easier and it can also be used to record 30 seconds of someone talking so they can hear exactly what they sound like. I should add that I am using the Heil GM 5.1 microphone and have almost everyone say how great the audio sounds I was told by Bob Heil NOT to use the processor on the radio.
So there you have it in a nutshell, if I missed something you would want to know just ask and I will do my best to find out for you.
73's and Merry Christmas
Kevin -KG0MN
