Kenwood SP-31Last piece of my Kenwood TS-850-line has arrived! The Kenwood SP-31 speaker. I already had the chance to play with one when the TS-870 for the club was temporarely in my shack. A beautiful speaker, not only to look at, but also the filters do a fantastic job. And most important: my TS-850-line is complete now! I’ve got the TS-850 transceiver, the PS-52 power supply, the SP-31 speaker and the MC-60 microphone!

I always wanted to build a piece of wooden furniture for this Kenwood line. Something that I could put on my desk so the gear is not placed directly on the desk but a little higher. Better view on the display, easier to operate and safer in case if anything wet (drinks) falls on the desk. It should be something fancy like mahogany or so. Nice shiny and chic! Mahogany is too expensive at this time, but I will make something more suitable.

Kenwood TS-850-line

Some time ago I’ve bought the TCXO-SO-2 option (Temperature Compensated X-tal Oscillator) from Joerg, DL6IB. Although I was very pleased to have the option, I postponed the installing because I wanted to figure out a way to measure the stability improvement before and after installing. Since I don’t own (yet) a frequency counter, I didn’t know a way to check.
A few days ago Joerg again send me a message asking me if I already installed the option in my Kenwood TS-850. I was a little ashamed to reply I didn’t. Promised him and myself to do this as quickly as possible. At this new years day I’m a little tired anyway, didn’t feel like anymore work around the house. So I sat down and opened my TS-850. Before I started with installing, I googled around to find a story of installing this option. Didn’t find anything. Okay, it is a pretty simple install but it gives me confidences to read about it. Seems I have to post the first story about installing this option… Continue reading