Kenwood TS-2000

This is where I’m keeping notes about my experiences running a TS-2000 for well, everything it does.

Serial numbers

Kenwood serial numbers issued from 1999 come in 2 formats. The format used from 1999 until approximately August 2008 is numeric:

The format adopted from approximately August 2008 is alphanumeric:

Some examples:

HF - RX sensitivity issues

There’s been a lot of discussion around the TS-2000 RX sensitivity compared to other radios. Here’s at least one piece of research into what may be going on.

And a local copy of the above page:

There are other threads about S-meter calibration being not quite equivalent to other rigs and tweaking that; that’s less interesting/important.

VHF/UHF - RX sensitivity issues

There’s also been a lot of discussion around TS-2000 RX sensitivity on VHF/UHF.

And local copies of the above pages:

This was apparently fixed in later TS-2000 releases (TODO: which year?)

Filter board failure - attenuated signals, static crashes

Another fun one - failure in a filter board component causing multiple filter diodes to be pulled down, causing noise.

Filter failures

There was also an issue with how some ceramic filters were fitted. Kenwood didn’t use a DC blocking capacitor on one side of the filter and they eventually fail.

Many TS-2000’s (Including the X model) in the serial number range 810xxxx - A98xxxx (dates January 2007 - August 2009) were produced with defective filters.

Finals replacements

There were issues with the TS-2000 finals.

They were initially BJT finals like previous HF rigs, but they were migrated to MOSFETS around 2008. Note that it’s not possible to retrofit MOSFET finals to an older rig as other board changes have occured elsewhere.

PLL unlock

So, there are two PLL paths (at least) for VFO frequency synthesis. One for HF/6 and one for VHF/UHF. Although the chips can and do fail, someone noticed a fun mechanical issue that leads to PLL unlock.

Problem solved, I removed the cover from I/11 on the C/11 board to check voltages on connector CN514

all voltages were present and correct and the radio came back to life :) Put the cover back on and it went back to unlock and 0 volts on TP505. Took the cover back off and it came back to life, tapped on components and it would not go into unlock. Put the cover back on and as I put the last screw in it quit and went into unlock, I pulled the cover back off and screwed the screw back in without the cover and found that the screw when screwed all the way down was going right into pin 1 of CN514 and shorting it out, That is why TP505 was at 0v. These were the original factory screws. So if you have a rig with 0 volts on TP505 check the cover screws on I/11 on board C/11. 73 Michelle WB8QGR

Another fun one - covered in http://pa3guo.com/pll_unlock.html:

A local mirror is here:

Rig control

You can’t control TX of the rig through CAT control if you want audio to come in through the ACC3 jack. There’s a specific PTT line that is “use this audio input line and mute the MIC” which you have to use.

UT-20 / 1.2GHz calibration

When installing the UT-20 and calibrating it, beware that you need to do it with the shield on!

The values from another radio would be just ballpark, better to do a correct alignment once than try to plug in values and then have to change them.

On the shield if you ordered F10-2366-03 that is the outer shield. Listed in the Tx/Rx-3 parts list under #506 are the rest of the shields that are required. Operating or testing the tx without them can damage the preamp device and they are hard to find. I found out the hard way.

Clif Holland KA5IPF

Documentation