KN 990 Transceiver

I put in an offer on eBay for a lightly used KN 990, the seller came back with a counteroffer and it was mine.

A long wait of a whole weekend and it arrived on a Wednesday, I was chewing the wall paper off waiting. It is dominated by a 3.5 Inch screen and has plenty of buttons, a bit like Darth Vader's briefcase. It is nowhere near the solid build of my Icom 735 but functions as intended.

Firing it up, I realised That I hadn't a clue how to use it, luckily the previous owner had printed out the manual in full and included it for me, a quick scan had me up and running. Next task was to wideband it, that took a few tries, first you have to set the VFO A memory to 9.90 then turn off and switch back on. You can then transmit on 0-30Mhz, there is another mod that allows use of higher frequencies, I believe this is 123457 with VFO A then turn off again.

In use the transceiver is very quiet for noise levels and my Icom seems a little deaf, must be an age related thing, in comparison. Receive levels seem to be a little higher than the Icom, and I am able to still have my modem on without it wiping out reception. Maximum Wattage is 15w, which is more than Foundation level allows, it is a simple enough process to tun the levels down.

One of the more interesting features is a Morse decoder, it really seems to work well, my level is zero, and it was easy to follow the messages. It also gives the dits and dahs at the top of the decoder screen, perhaps an incentive for me to learn Morse.

The screen is one of the big stars here, and I am fascinated by the waterfall, it really makes homing in on signals easy. At the moment am just listening as I take my Foundation is a little over a week.

There are loads more functions and buttons to explore and strangely an NES game emulator, perhaps I should change my CB handle to Mario!!

Hi Mark,

You're getting quite a radio collection together ready for that Foundation licence!  

Thanks for posting and I hope you enjoy working those extra bands once you've got that ticket under your belt.


All the best,
Victor

Victor wrote:

Hi Mark,

You're getting quite a radio collection together ready for that Foundation licence!  

Thanks for posting and I hope you enjoy working those extra bands once you've got that ticket under your belt.


All the best,
Victor

Am gradually working up to an Icom 7300, that would be my ultimate transceiver. I can dream on for now as my credit card company must love my spending habits

Hopefully I will be celebrating in a week, I guess it takes a week or so for me to get my actual licence. Then I'll be off like Neddy the three-legged race horse, there will be no stopping me until the first hurdle.

Ha! Ha! Keep going with your bargain buys Mark and you'll be able to flog the lot for a spangly new IC7300.

I'm sure you'll do well with your exam and then it's the tentative wait for that RSGB paperwork to come through the post. (I'm lucky in that I don't live far from RSGB Headquarters so got mine pretty quick!)

I look forward to congratulating you and looking out for your new call sign on air.

Good luck with the equipment and congratulations on the exam... I am doing my studies for the Foundation exam and hope to take it in a few weeks...Also looking for a radio to begin with...any ideas??

keithgriffin1962 wrote:

Good luck with the equipment and congratulations on the exam... I am doing my studies for the Foundation exam and hope to take it in a few weeks...Also looking for a radio to begin with...any ideas??

It all depends on budget and what you want to do, if you have a budget in mind checkout eBay but carefully read the item description. All the radios I have bought have been lightly used or for receive only, I have a CRT 6900, CRT 9900, Icom IC-735 and the KN 990. If you just want to work 10 m, something like a CRT 6900 will get you started, from there your bank balance is the limit.

Thank you, will bear that in mind !!