[Kenwood] TS-600 help

[Cecil Acuff]

Greetings,

I'm new to 6 meters and the proud owner of a very nice vintage TS-600 6m 
transceiver.  I have heard many good things about this older base rig that I 
decided to try to find one.  Now that I have it I am curious about it 
receiver performance.

It seems to be very sensitive...almost to the point of concerning me that it 
has a problem.  It appears to have a very high internal noise level.  The 
audio gain control cannot be turned up much beyond about 9 o'clock without 
the background noise being almost too much to bear.  It's minimum 
discernable signal level seems quite low at the bottom of what my HP-8640B 
generator will generate but even S-7 to S-9 signal are as much white noise 
as intelligible signal.

My concern is whether there is something I need to go looking for in the 
radio that's in trouble or whether this is just business as usual for the 
TS-600.

I have heard these are good radio's for weak signal work but I can't imagine 
how with the signal to noise ratio I seem to be experiencing.

Other than that it is built like all classic Kenwood radio's were...like a 
tank.

I would be interested in any info from users of this radio or those that 
have technical experience with these that might shed some light on what I am 
experiencing.

Antenna is a Create 50-1200 Mhz Log temporary at roof top level fed with 
about 40' of RG-8 feedline.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide...

Cecil
K5DL