Kenwood TS-830 Survival Manual

Also see for TS-830: Instruction manual

Contents

7Please make sure You have the latest version of this document. Checkhttp://www.geocities.com/om6523.3 History of this document• First version (1.0) 25th June 2002 by Olaf Rettkowski DL9AI• Latest revised version: (1.1) 13th Nov 20024 To-Do list• For part II "Manuals": Rescanning of the layout and the board schemes to make themREADABLE; the additional red lines indicating power supply lines are to be regarded.• Adding of general information how to repair a rig: measurement equipment, procedure;where to start for locating errors – the information provided with the service manualseems to be not sufficient, especially for those of us not so familiar with sophisticatedelectronic repairs.• Adding of personal experience in using a TS-830: maybe someone has developed newprocedures or can give hints helpful in operation.• Adding of detailed descriptions of the function of certain parts – which resistor ortransistor has what function. This will help not only in fixing problems of this rig butprovide some kind of teaching material to learn electronics…• Adding of test reports of older ham radio magazines, (if allowed to publish…)5 General Description(Author: Richard L. Measures, AG6K)The ancient TS830S is a still a remarkable radio.Processing: The processor is clean and effective. When an 830 processor is turned on, the S-meter at the receiving end noticeably increases and the perceived volume increases - yet theaudio is clean and understandable. I have never observed a modern transistor-output radio thatcould perform this feat. There are several factors at work here. First-off, RF, instead of AF,clipping was used to maximize the effectiveness of the processor. Naturally, RF clippinggenerates IMD products. Trio-Kenwood engineers minimized this problem by utilizing a post-RF clipping 455 kHz IF ceramic filter to clean up the IMD products. After the processedtransmit IF signal is filtered and converted to the operating frequency, it is amplified by anextremely low-distortion tube-type RF amplifier that utilizes [Collins Radio, Co.] RF-negative-feedback. The net result is a clean, effective RF processor that is not objectionable to listen to -provided the indicated processing level is kept under roughly 8db.Strong signal overload: The 830 has extremely low VFO phase noise. When listening to a weaksignal that is 5 kHz away from a strong local signal, the 830 outperforms many modern radios.However, at signal spacings of 50–100 kHz, modern radios are better at tolerating strong localsignals. On transmit, the 830 generates a remarkably clean transmit signal with a minimum ofadjacent-frequency phase noise.S-meter accuracy: The 830's S-meter is fairly accurate. Above approximately S-5, one S-unitequals pretty close to the required 6 db. Above S-9, the db scale is reasonably accurate.Naturally, calibrating the S-meter helps. Some modern radios indicate 3 db per S-unit--a 50 %error, and 20 microvolts = S-9. Whatever happened to the Collins standard of 100 microvolts =