KJ6VU's Kenwood TH-59 1200 MHz Handi Talkie Web Page

Kenwood TH-59 1200 MHz Handi-Talkie Radio

Manuals

Since these radios are not sold in the US, the manual is in Japanese!  If you don't know Kanji you will want to download the closest thing which is an English language manual for the 2m and 440 MHz versions.  While the radios are not exactly the same, the manual will give you 90% of the functionality of the TH-59.

Download the Kenwood manual in English from Kenwood's ftp site.
 

Cloning

A handy undocumented feature of the TH-59 is the ability for one radio to send it's memory contents to another radio and thereby "clone" itself.  For the purpose of explaination let's assume you have two radios, the radio with the memory contents we want to keep and send to the other radio is called the master and the radio that will be reprogrammed is called the clone.
When cloning a radio, the target clone's memory will be completely reprogrammed with the contents of the master.  Cloning is done over the air with the master radio automatically generating a long series of touchtones that will the the clone how to reprogram it's memory contents.

Cloning procedure...
    1.    Set both radios on a common simplex frequency, like 1295.0000 MHz.
            (Make sure the master is not transmitting with a repeater offset.)
    2.    Turn off both radios.
    3.    Turn on both radios holding the [SHIFT] button while turning on the power switch.
            The display will now say  "Clone".
    4.    Tap the PTT button on the MASTER to being cloning.
    5.    You will hear a long series of touch tones.
            This is the contents of the master's memory being send over the air to the clone using touch tones.
            This process takes about a minute.
    6.    When the tones have stopped, the display will return to displaying a frequency.
    7.    Turn the radio off and back on.
Your newly cloned radio is ready to go!

Here are a few additional thoughts about cloning...

When turning on the radios in clone mode, DO NOT PRESS THE PTT of any clone radios, ONLY the MASTER.  Otherwise, if you press the PTT of a clone radio, you will accidently re-program your MASTER!  A big mistake!

You can clone multiple radios at the same time.  You can have as many clones listening to the master when the master is sending program info to the clones.
 

9600 Baud Mode

Setting 9600 Baud mode...
    Press [CALL] and [Power ON]
    Rotate frequency knob to select option 15
    Press [CALL] to change modes
        Modes to select from...     PA R12    for 1200 baud data
                                                PA S12    for 1200 baud data
                                                PA R96    for 9600 baud data
                                                PA S96    for 9600 baud data
 

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