[Kenwood] Kenwood 530S - works well except 10meters

[Bill Kuhn - MCSE]

Here's the story..

I purchased my Kenwood TS-530S in November, and in general it has been =
working well except for 10 meters.=20

All bands except 10 meters (both the 28 and 29mhz switch positions) =
transmit and receive pretty well. I get very good on air results on all =
bands including 160MHz even though my antenna is not resonant on 160 - =
except 10 meters.

According to my MFJ meter I am pushing about 90 watts on SSB and CW on =
12 through 80 meters, and I can make about 60 watts on 160.

On 10 meters I can just barely receive VERY strong stations, even then I =
show no signal strength on the meter. I can hear the CALibrator with =
decent tone on the correct frequencies, but even that doesn't budge the =
meter.

On 10 meters on a dummy load I can't generate enough output power to =
calibrate my SWR meter (on an MFJ-941C). I get considerable meter =
movement on the MFJ but not enough to get full scale deflection. I get a =
little meter movement on the built-in RF meter - enough to make 3db on =
the meter and useful for tuning, but apparently extremely low actual =
output.

For whatever reason, it appears that both receive and transmit improve =
the higher I go on 10 meters. On the high end of 29MHz I actually get a =
little receive meter movement from strong stations and can hear =
atmospheric noise. as I tune lower and lower this little reception fades =
away.

I have the Kenwood service manual and to the best of my abilities with =
the limited equipment available I have been through transmit and receive =
alignment twice.=20

The only thing I can think of is that the band switch may be having =
problems, but I would not expect both the 28 and 29MHz positions to act =
the same. If it was only a transmit problem I'd suspect the tubes, but =
it's not. The fact that reception appears worst at 28MHz but improves as =
I go higher, and reception seems fine on 12 meters really confuses me.

Any thoughts?=20

I'd like to be able to get back on 10 meters. My first HF radio was a 10 =
meter HTX100, and I sold that when I got this radio. Now I miss it.. :(

Bill Kuhn
KC0NYL