The Kenwood TS-480SAT HF/6m radio
My Kenwood TS-480SAT HF/6m transceiver is the primary radio in my ’shack’, used for all CW and RTTY operating. It also gets used for HF/6m SSB although this is shared with the Yaesu FT-897 (which also handles 2m & 70cm SSB/FM).
The TS-480 remote head unit |
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The TS-480 was purchased used about 2 years ago as a dedicated digital/data mode radio and is paired with a Rigblaster Plug & Play radio interface unit which provides FSK keying for RTTY as well as CW keying (used for sending contest exchanges). The Rigblaster also provides audio drive to the radio for other soundcard based digital modes like PSK31, PSK63, Olivia and many more. I’ll explain why I chose the TS-480 when there are more capable radios out there. |
To be perfectly honest, cost was a prime consideration - if I’d had the money I would have gone for an Icom 756 ProII or ProIII, widely considered to be the best RTTY radios ever made. But, even second hand, these radios cost between two and three times more than the TS-480. So, within my budget, I looked around for a radio that had three important properties - 1. good basic RF performance on the HF bands, 2. DSP noise reduction and audio bandwidth filtering and 3. was designed with digital modes in mind. The Kenwood TS-480 was an obvious candidate and following a period of researching the alternatives, the TS-480 was chosen.
I will be posting a more thorough review of this radio at a later date when I hope to expand this blog site by adding a number of additional pages detailing all of my amateur radio equipment and activities.