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Lab599 Discovery TX-500 A nice radio for portable operation. 2022-11-04 true false false

This is the third HF transceiver that I bought. I was looking for a while for an alternative to the FT-891, because I wanted something leightweight for my little hiking tours.

TX-500 in action on a stone

Low quality mic?

It's like many plastic mics on other radios, it definitly feels a bit “cheap” and it was the first (and only; until now) thing that broke. I haven't noticed the broken mic until I tried to call CQ in the mountains and I fixed it on the same day. I haven't been out since then...

I bought a Laravel mic from Amazon and I already got a spare in-ear plugs from Sennheiser which I combined with the adapters from Robert W2ENY (including a hand-held push-to-talk button adapter (like the Heil HS-2 but smaller).

This is pleasing to use and you got the sound directly in-ear. Though, the Laravel mic has no punch and I'm not using this for the moment.

Original CAT cable settings

Setting Value
RIG type KENWOOD
Baud rate 9600
Data bits 8
Parity NONE
Stop bits 1

Firmware version 1.19.01 or later includes a second CAT protocol named Lab599 which adds support for DIG mode switching commands (MD6). It uses the same settings as the KENWOOD mode.

I use these rigctld commands:

KENWOOD mode

$ rigctld -m 2014 -r /dev/ttyUSB0 -d /dev/ttyUSB0 -p /dev/ttyUSB0 -P RTS -s 9600 -vvvv

Lab599 mode

$ rigctld -m 2050 -r /dev/ttyUSB0 -d /dev/ttyUSB0 -p /dev/ttyUSB0 -P RTS -s 9600 -vvvv

Power output at 10%

Since someone asked on a mailing list to verify his measurements and I had my tinySA in reach I also created these measurements and I do not want to hide them :)

As always, take these with a grain of salt!

BAND FREQUENCY TONE SETTINGS TX500 tinySA
80m 3.530 MHz NORMAL 0.8 W 1.72 W
DUAL 0.6 W 0.48 W
40m 7.130 MHz NORMAL 0.8 W 1.40 W
DUAL 0.6 W 0.41 W
20m 14.285 MHz NORMAL 0.7 W 1.40 W
DUAL 0.6 W 0.44 W
15m 21.245 MHz NORMAL 1.3 W 2.13 W
DUAL 1.1 W 0.60 W
10m 29.080 MHz NORMAL 1.7 W 2.86 W
DUAL 1.5 W 0.90 W

PA500

Since the TX-500 does not have a built-in tuner the PA500 is well worth the investment. It got it's [own page]({{< ref "/equipment/accessories/diy599-pa500/" >}}) in my equipment collecion.