[amsat-bb] Re: New Kenwood HT for 2010?

[Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK)]

Clint,

> Personally, I would be surprised if Kenwood dedicated a lot of
> engineering talent to a new, true full-duplex amateur handheld. The
> profit for them is not in the amateur world - but in the land mobile /
> commercial arenas.
>
> I hope I am wrong, though!

At Dayton 5 months ago, Kenwood had posters in their booth
announcing a new HT and HF transceiver for the summer of
2010.  Of course, there were no details released at that time
for either radio.

If Kenwood is simply updating the design of the old TH-D7 to
be this new HT, that might be their way to minimize R&D costs.
If they are able to replace the component(s) no longer in
production with others, they may not make many other updates
in the interests of saving money.  The radio was still popular until
it was discontinued, and remains popular on the used market now.
I picked one up at a hamfest 3 months ago, and still need to make
time to play around with it.

When the TM-D710 and TM-V71 mobile radios were released,
Kenwood only developed one radio "box" for both of these models.
They share the same FCC ID number, and the RC-D710 adds the
TNC functionality to the TM-V71 (the RC-D710 does not attach to
the TM-V71, unfortunately).  Kenwood may be trying to stay in the
amateur market, without spending lots of money to do so.  It will
be interesting to see what this new HT looks like, whenever it sees
the light of day (or when someone puts photos of it online).

73!




Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK
http://www.wd9ewk.net/