[Kenwood] Thanks everyone!

[Vince Shirley]

Hi all,

Thanks of all of the very helpful responses and some I've had person to
person.

There isn't a dissenting voice as far as the 950 is concerned and it looks
that I'll go that way.  Just for the those that asked the main station rig
is an FT1000MP Mk V which, if I was totally honest with myself, I'm just a
little disappointed with in terms of performance.

The receiver noise floor is quite high and the DSP is OK, when it is used
correctly but it takes a lot of fiddling to get there.  Its also quite
disappointing that after I bought a £2500 radio (about $4300) the first
thing the Yaesu experts told me to do was get it modified to cure the "long
standing" key click problem (evident apparently right across the FT1000
family) and to reduce the high noise floor.  The high cost of the filters on
top of the basic rig cost (about £600 - $1000 for a full set of standard
Yaesu filters) didn't exactly please me either.  The total cost of over
£3000 (about $5000) was a bit much and so I expected performance which it
didn't quite deliver.

I certainly did not intend to spend that sort of money and then get it
modified straight away to cure long standing design faults.  I'm just a
little cynical that a lot of the things said about the Mk 5 is hype,
stemming from Yaesu's incessant sponsoring of big DX-expeditions

The VRF though really works well (its a kind of preselector) and its really
useful in crowded band conditions (like in Europe on 7 mHz at night - you
guys stateside have to experience that, its a real work out for any radio).

I run an 850 as well (but I haven't had it for long) and that, with a
Timewave DSP 599 added on is a really fine performer.  Its that that has
turned me towards the 950.

Strange how the Icom appears to do so badly.......

Thanks again

Vince G0ORC