Kenwood TS-890 S-meter explained. There are TWO S-meter modes !

Check out this video that I made based on the new-found info found here :

Kinda interesting to see a thread where Rob Sherwood himself participates !

[W-_KWX]

Indeed interesting. 890 was in my bucket list, it's even more, I definitely want to save the dollar to buy one.
Kenwood is my all time favorite brand (have the 850SAT to have a vintage radio and have had the 590SG, sold this excellent radio to save for the 890 and I don't regret my decision.

[barrykery]

Interesting video, well explained. When I purchased my TS990S, the S meter drove me nuts. I compared the S meter to my TS480SAT and there were not the same. I though the radio was broken until, months later, I found out the S meter calibration
was different than the S meter on ALL of my other HF radios. I actually took my 990 to my friend's house and compared mine
to his, same results. The more research I did, like you, I finally came up with the answer. Drove me nuts for months until I figured out what was going on.

Thanks for posting this video. I hope it saves other hams from getting headaches over their S meter. Hi Hi

Barry, KU3X

[cliffengle]

Interesting topic and great job covering the technical aspects. I feel the same about my Kenwood TS-2000. Many complain the S meter reads low, but if I run it with the preamp on, I get more or less equivalent S meter readings to my Yaesu FTDX3000. Good luck! PS I also like how you refer to Rob Sherwood N0CB as "this guy" when reading his online post. That's akin to saying "this guy" helped found the ARRL when referring to Hiram Percy Maxim, or "this guy" (Henry Ford) made cars :) Have fun and stay safe! de W3KKO

[IZMTW]

Hi there, interesting video, not seen before anything about this topic.
How did you make your connections? At some point I saw a T with probe on one side and 890 to the other. If you use a simple T all impedances will be modified. The two loads will influence each other plus you are mismatched between inout and outputs. Anyway, some different circuitry is switched in line when you turn on the preamp and that most likely shows a different impedance to the source.
The reading was changing also with dbm scale, from 73 to 75 approximately.

Would have been nice if you run those checks for the s-meter scale from top to bottom to check linearity and reference to S9=-73dbm and 6db/s-unit

Cheers

[josemariatrueba]

Aren't you double loading the RF source?
You must remove that T connector!

[zackelliott]

HEADS When engaging Noise Blanker #1 -- with or with out any noise, the s unit goes down 1 s WHY? only kenwood knows for or maybe NOT