More Observations As Of 6-30-91 - KC2CT
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  Well here I am again with more stuff on the 850S...

. I received the DRU-2, voice recording unit this week, and installed
  it.Here's what I found:

. The unit comes with a lithium battery for backing up the
  voice messages when the rig is powered off.

. The initial state of the DRU-2 is:

  Message 1 -  8 seconds
  Message 2 -  8 seconds
  Message 3 - 16 seconds

  You can halve the sampling rate via front panel setup
  control xx.  This will effectively DOUBLE the time of
  of each message, however, the quality of voice repro-
  duction will suffer because of the lower sampling rate.

. On playback of the messages, the microphone IS NOT
  disabled, so be quiet when you're transmitting stored
  messages.

. Use the MONI function to hear what you've recorded and/or
  are transmitting, and the MIC gain control to keep the
  ALC in range, as the DRU-2 drives the radio much harder
  than the microphone input.

. The high boost function and speech processor are available
  to the DRU-2 during transmit.

. I also got the VS-2 voice unit.  The voice is the same as the
  older VS-1 for the TS-440, and TS-940, but the unit is in a smaller
  package.  It will speak the frequency in either English or Japanese.
  There is a volume control pot on the bottom of the board which
  should be adjusted PRIOR to screwing down the VS-2.  The output on
  my unit was very low, until I tweaked it up.  Also there are jumpers
  on the board to speed up the voice playback...  You'll need to
  consult the instruction page for the VS-1 for speeds, as there is
  nothing mentioned in the instructions for the VS-2.

. A note on output power of the rig.  The radio uses 2SC2789's...
  These devices are rated as 100 watt devices Kenwood is running
  the finals VERY conservatively.  When playing around with output,
  I had the rig dead-keying 175 watts, but backed it down to 100
  watts, as I didn't want to blow up the rig, but I was definitely
  smiling as the Birds' meter swung with a 250 watt slug!

. The ROM chip on the digital board is socketed.  Kenwood had problems
  with early 440's and 940's with poor soldered connections.  While
  it's a nice idea to allow removal and replacement of the ROM to
  add features/fix bugs, this might become a problem area in the
  future.

. Hidden function!!!  If you turn on the radio while holding down
  the VOICE button, EVERY button on the radio will acknowledge its
  function via morse code!  This is a terrific feature for sightless
  hams!  I can't understand why it is not mentioned in the owners
  manual or marketing literature!


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