The Kenwood TS-2000 is an all band HF/VHF/UHF transceiver with exceptional features and versatility. Wide band Main HF reception includes: 30 kHz-60 MHz. On VHF/UHF you get 142-152MHz and 420-450MHz.

Out of the box, the Kenwood TS-2000 has a fairly pleasant, but uninspiring amber display. A lot of used 2000’s tend to have the colour of the display changed to something a bit more dazzling.

When I purchased this particular radio it had the standard amber colour, but a couple of the illumination bulbs had failed.

Knowing that to change the bulbs requires a not insignificant amount of work to disassemble the radio, it was decided to change the remaining bulbs to LED’s and also to a different colour. Read how to perform the LED colour change here.

This is not a radio you just turn on and talk, sure you can do that but if you want to get the most out of your TS 2000 read the big thick manual that goes with it, you’ll be glad you did. Even after owning the Kenwood TS-2000 for a while, I still find myself digging into the manual for the more obscure features or functions.

This Kenwood rig appears menu intensive, but really isn’t and working through the menu is not a huge chore. Many are set and forget. Most needed features are on buttons or knobs, with a number of the buttons accessing a secondary function via the “Function” key.

I made this video for a friend which shows how to re-program a memory location after accidentally overwriting it, something that is very easy to do as the “Memory Write” button is very close to the main volume/squelch knob and easily accidentally pressed! Yes, I do know that this is for a UK CB channel frequency, but this is what my friend asked me to program into his radio.

Receive audio is quite good and pleasant, not at all tiring, while the DSP implemented by Kenwood is very functional and easy to use and can cut out nearby signals fairly well. The filters are adjustable very simply by a quick turn of either the high or low cut knobs on the front panel.

Being able to monitor VHF/UHF FM on the second receiver while on HF is nice and as a bonus, the VHF / UHF sub-bands can receive the AM aircraft band as well as various other bands.

The satellite function make light work of tracking satellites by using both the main and sub receivers in tracked mode. This mode allows the frequency on the main receiver to increase while the sub receiver decreases by the same amount (or vice-versa) to allow for the Doppler shift when working through a satellite.