[Kenwood] One more question on the 870

[ad6zu at comcast.net]

The meter pinning is addressed in the Kenwood bulletins.  They were on the kenwood.net site until recently.  You can still see them on mods.dk.  Warning: this site now only lets you see one article per day unless you donate content or money. 



The s-meter pinning was only in SSB mode and usually only with rapid keying of the mike.  The fix was to replace the EPROMS.  You may not be able to get them anymore from Kenwood and if you could, they were sort of expensive.  It doesn't affect the performance of the radio and I couldn't duplicate it on my 870.  



Another publicized gripe on the 870 was that the gain in the amplifiers was not distributed properly which caused intermod in the presence of multiple powerful nearby stations.  By changing out a handful of parts, it was said that the imd's went down considerably.  I bought all the parts in anticipation of doing this, but again, I never noticed any problem in my rig under any condition I encountered, so I never made the mod. 



I think the offered price is great, but given the caution that k5uj made, unless you can get assurances that the seller bought it new and has not gotten into the service menus, it may be something to be wary of.  I feel that the fair price of the 870 was about $1100, so much less than that gives you an option. 



If you feel it has been tweaked, send it into a Kenwood service center for a complete alignment. 

Back off from the deal. 



The service menu numbers are similar to turning trim pots and caps.  There are no "factory defaults" because these numbers just like pot settings are made to compensate for manufacturing tolerances and each radio is different.  If some lid tried to peak out transmission power via the service menu, you may be splattering all over the band and shortening the life of the radio.  



OTOH, anyone can tweak pots in an older radio and ruin it in the same manner. 



I was "shafted" once when an unscrupulous ham sold me a JRC JST145 with a bashed in dual axis pot for a couple hundred less than the going price but I got the last laugh.    I was able to talk to a super tech at Universal Radio and was able to score a replacement dual pot direct from Japan for $10. 



Roy 

ad6zu 




----- Original Message ----- 
From: hamradio at twcny.rr.com 
To: kenwood at mailman.qth.net 
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 11:12:03 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific 
Subject: [Kenwood] One more question on the 870 

The seller (nice guy) just called me to let me know that the meter only goes to 1/3 scale when transmitting but it does have full power output on the 
wattmeter, the other thing he noticed is that the ALC meter pins to the right when keyed. 
So I am wondering if any of you folks might know what the problem could be, If its something simple I can call the seller and 
he can try it on the rig 

thanks folks 
Nick 

Sure is tough to find a realy nice 870 for a decent price I guess 

  

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