How to Program a TS-590SG — Step by Step

Kenwood's 100-watt HF and 6 meter base radio, and the one that made everyone start talking about close-in dynamic range. A real knob for nearly everything you touch while operating, a flat menu numbered 00 to 99 behind them, and two independent copies of that whole menu you can switch between.

This page covers: Kenwood TS-590SG. One model, so nothing here has to be translated from a near relative — every step below was written for exactly this radio.

What you can do on this radio

• Set the radio up for FT8 and other digital modes
• Connect the radio to a computer
• Set the drive level for digital modes
• Narrow the filter to shut out the station next door
• Turn on noise reduction
• Turn on the noise blanker
• Notch out a whistle or a carrier
• Work a DX station that is running split
• Save a frequency to a memory channel
• Run the antenna tuner
• Set the CW keyer speed and weight
• Reset the menu to factory settings

Set the radio up for FT8 and other digital modes on a TS-590SG

FT8 does not appear anywhere in Kenwood's books — they predate it, and the list they give is RTTY, PSK31, SSTV and JT65. The mode you want is the same one: USB-DATA. It is two keys, and the second of them does something completely different if you happen to be in CW.

1. Press LSB/USB until USB shows. Pressing it again toggles back to LSB.LSB/USBThe screen should show: USB in the three-character mode field.Get the sideband right before you add DATA. Once DATA is on, LSB/USB still toggles between LSB-DATA and USB-DATA, so you can fix it either way round — but it is one less thing to check.
2. Press DATA. The mode is now USB-DATA.DATAThe screen should show: DATA lights up. The mode field still reads USB.Watch out. There is no separate USB-DATA legend — the mode field keeps saying USB and the only difference is the DATA indicator. That indicator is also what lights when the Morse decoder is running, so it cannot by itself tell you which one you are in.
3. Turn the LO/WIDTH knob once and watch the meter. In DATA mode it is a bandwidth control, not a low-cut control.dial → LO/WIDTH›check the filter behaves as you expectThe screen should show: The bar meter switches to the FILTER scale while you turn.Kenwood ships menu 28 on HI/LO cut for plain SSB and menu 29 on WIDTH/SHIFT for SSB-DATA. Same two knobs, two different jobs, and the only thing that decides which is whether DATA is lit. This is deliberate — it lets you narrow a data signal down to 50 Hz — but it surprises people the first time.

One inconsistency worth knowing about, because you will hit it in the book: the connection chapter tells you to set the radio to DATA mode for data work, while the PSK31 page says to use SSB mode, turn the speech processor off and set AGC fast. Kenwood does not reconcile the two. In practice the thing DATA mode buys you is a second set of filter and processor settings that live separately from your voice settings, so you can switch between a contest and a waterfall with one key. There is no CW-DATA and no FSK-DATA — pressing DATA in CW turns on the Morse code decoder instead, and pressing and holding it there opens that decoder's threshold adjustment.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Connect the radio to a computer on a TS-590SG

There is no CI-V address here and nothing to look up in hex — this radio is a plain serial port and the only setting that matters is the speed. What is unusual is that the speed lives on the only two menu items in the whole radio that do nothing until you switch the power off and back on.

1. In your logging or digital software, set eight data bits, one stop bit and no parity.set the software to 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parityKenwood makes this step one. The one exception it prints: 4800 bps uses two stop bits, and nothing else does. If you are going to run at 4800, that is the one to remember — but there is little reason to.
2. For the nine-pin COM socket, press MENU and go to 67, then set the speed with M.IN or SCAN.COM PORT BAUDRATE›dial → 9600The screen should show: 67 on the left, the speed on the main display, COM PORT BAUDRATE scrolling on the sub-display.The choices are 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600 and 115200. The default is 9600, which is fast enough for most software, so you may not have to change it at all.
3. For the USB socket it is menu 68 instead, and the default there is already 115200. Press MENU to leave.USB PORT BAUDRATE›dial → 115200›MENUThe screen should show: 68, then the speed. USB PORT BAUDRATE on the sub-display.Watch out. These are two independent settings for two independent ports. Changing 67 does nothing to a USB connection and changing 68 does nothing to a serial one. Work out which cable you are actually using before you start turning knobs.
4. Switch the radio off, then on again. Nothing you just set is live until you do.switch the radio off and back onWatch out. This is the trap. Menus 67 and 68 are the only two items in the hundred that need a power cycle — Kenwood footnotes them and nothing else. Change the baud rate, exit the menu, watch the software still fail to connect, change it back, and you can lose a genuinely irritating amount of an evening. Power cycle first, then judge.
5. On a USB connection, look in Windows Device Manager under Ports for Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge. The number in brackets is the port your software wants.find the COM port number in Device ManagerKenwood adds one caution: if the assigned COM port number is above 21, you cannot set the port from ARCP-590G or ARHP-590G, and the fix is to delete the unwanted COM port assignments. It also notes that moving the cable to a different USB socket on the PC changes the number.

Two things that are not in the CAT chapter and should be. First, how you tell the radio to transmit matters: send TX1; and it transmits the audio arriving on the rear socket, which is what you want for data. Send a bare TX; or TX0; and it transmits the microphone instead — same command, different parameter, and the difference between a decoded signal and your shack ambience going out on the air. Second, if CAT stops working and nothing you change helps, check that nobody has held FM/AM down while switching the radio on. That combination swaps the RTS and CTS lines on the COM socket for PSQ and PKS, it announces itself with one momentary message at power-up and never again, and Kenwood says plainly that normal PC commands will not work while it is on. The same combination puts it back.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Set the drive level for digital modes on a TS-590SG

Three separate things have to agree before a single watt of your FT8 leaves the antenna: which socket the audio comes in on, how loud it is, and which way of keying the transmitter is allowed to use it. Get the third one wrong and the radio transmits a perfectly clean dead carrier.

1. Press MENU, go to 69, and tell the radio which socket your computer is on.AUDIO INPUT LINE SELECTION›dial → USB or ACC2The screen should show: 69, then ACC2 or USB.Default is ACC2 — the thirteen-pin socket on the back. If you are running one USB cable and nothing else, this needs to say USB. Everything downstream keys off this choice.
2. Menu 71 is the level coming in from the computer over USB. Menu 73 is the same thing for ACC2. Both run 0 to 9 and both ship at 4.AUDIO LEVEL OF USB INPUT›dial → 4The screen should show: 71, then a single digit.Watch out. Set the one that matches menu 69. Turning the ACC2 level down while your audio is arriving over USB does exactly nothing, and it is an easy hour to lose.
3. Menu 70 decides what audio goes out when you key with SEND, the microphone PTT or an SS line while DATA is lit. Then press MENU to leave.SOURCE OF SEND/PTT›dial → REAR›MENUThe screen should show: 70, then FRONT or REAR.Watch out. This is the one that catches people, and it is worth reading twice. Kenwood's design is that the microphone and the external audio mute each other. If you key up with the front panel SEND key or the ACC2 send line, you get the microphone. If you key up with the ACC2 PKS line, the TX1; command, or a programmable key set to DATA SEND, you get the external audio. The factory default for menu 70 is FRONT. So out of the box, pressing SEND while in USB-DATA transmits a carrier with none of your computer's audio on it, and nothing on the display tells you.
4. If DATA is not already lit, press DATA. Then press PWR, turn MULTI/CH to the power you want, then press PWR again to finish. CLR also finishes it.DATA›PWR›dial → your data power›PWRThe screen should show: The power in watts on the main display.Do this with DATA already on, because the radio remembers the data-mode power separately from the voice power. That is the whole point — you can run 100 watts on SSB and 25 on FT8 without touching anything when you swap. Steps are 5 watts normally; menu 54 set to on gives you 1 watt steps.

Kenwood gives no ALC target for data mode anywhere in either book — the only ALC-based adjustments it describes are microphone gain, carrier level and the speech processor, none of which is a procedure for a signal arriving from a computer. What it does give you is the actual voltage: on ACC2 the default level of 4 is about 10 mVrms, which it calls a standard modulating signal. One footnote to flag rather than fix — the same paragraph then says the 0 to 9 range runs from roughly no modulation to roughly 1 mVrms, which cannot both be true as printed. Treat 4 as the sensible starting point and move a digit at a time. And while you are in this part of the menu, leave 75 off: it mixes the radio's beeps into the audio going down the line to your decoder.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Narrow the filter to shut out the station next door on a TS-590SG

Two knobs, and what they do changes with the mode you are in. That is why the panel does not label them with one job each: they read HI/SHIFT and LO/WIDTH, and which half of each name is live depends on where the radio is.

1. In SSB, FM or AM, LO/WIDTH sets the low cut and HI/SHIFT sets the high cut. Clockwise raises each of them.dial → LO/WIDTH›dial → HI/SHIFTThe screen should show: The bar meter turns into a FILTER scale while you turn, showing the passband you are shaping.SSB defaults are 300 Hz low and 2600 Hz high. AM is 100 Hz and 5000 Hz. The cut-off frequencies are remembered separately for every mode, so narrowing CW does not narrow your SSB.
2. In CW, FSK or SSB-DATA, the same two knobs become bandwidth and shift. LO/WIDTH is now width, HI/SHIFT is now center.dial → LO/WIDTH›dial → HI/SHIFTThe screen should show: The FILTER scale again, but the number is a bandwidth.Watch out. CW runs 50 Hz to 2500 Hz with 500 Hz as the default and a shift range of 300 to 1000 Hz, default 800. FSK gives you four widths, 250 to 1500, and no shift adjustment at all. SSB-DATA gives the full width range with a default of 2500 Hz — wide open, which is what you want for FT8 and far too wide for PSK31.
3. If you would rather have width and shift in plain SSB too, menu 28 switches it. Menu 29 does the same for SSB-DATA. Then press MENU to leave.SSB FILTER TYPE SELECTION›dial → 1 or 2›MENUThe screen should show: 28, then 1 for HI/LO or 2 for WIDTH/SHIFT.This is one of the things the SG has that a TS-590S does not get even with the update. The factory settings are mismatched — 28 ships on HI/LO and 29 on WIDTH/SHIFT. Kenwood does not explain the pairing, but it does say the SSB-DATA side is set to WIDTH/SHIFT for operating RTTY and PSK31. If you find yourself constantly re-learning which knob does what, setting both the same is the cure.
4. IF FIL swaps between two saved filter setups, A and B, so you can keep a wide one and a narrow one a keypress apart.IF FILThe screen should show: A circled A or a circled B.Each one remembers where you last left LO/WIDTH and HI/SHIFT, and the SG keeps the A-or-B choice separately for VFO A and VFO B.
5. Hold IF FIL to read the actual numbers back rather than guessing from the meter.hold IF FILThe screen should show: High cut then low cut, or shift then bandwidth, according to which scheme the mode is using. In FSK, bandwidth only. Kenwood's own list prints both SSB and SSB-DATA in both rows, and does not say why — presumably because menus 28 and 29 let either mode use either scheme.The bar meter gives you a picture, not a figure. This is how you get the figure.

One thing about this radio that is worth understanding rather than memorizing. Its close-in performance — the thing the reviews were about — comes from a pair of narrow roofing filters, and the radio chooses between them and the wideband path on its own, from the bandwidth you have dialed. In CW and FSK, 500 Hz or narrower gets the 500 Hz filter and 600 Hz or wider gets the 2.7 kHz one. In SSB, a total passband of 2.7 kHz or less gets the 2.7 kHz filter and anything wider silently moves the whole radio to the up-conversion path. Kenwood's own worked example: on 14 MHz with the low cut at 300 and the high cut at 3000, opening the low cut to 200 tips you over 2.7 kHz and switches conversion. It also only applies on 1.8, 3.5, 7, 14 and 21 MHz — everywhere else is up-conversion regardless. You cannot select the path by hand. So if a quiet band suddenly is not quiet, check how wide you are.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Turn on noise reduction on a TS-590SG

One key, three positions, and two genuinely different algorithms behind them. Worth knowing which is which, because they fail in opposite directions.

1. Press NR to cycle NR1, NR2 and off.NRThe screen should show: NR1 or NR2 appears, or neither.NR1 changes character with the mode. In SSB, FM and AM it is spectral subtraction, which is good at hiss. In CW and FSK it is a line enhancer, which pulls a periodic signal up out of the noise. NR2 is the same everywhere: a SPAC filter that extracts what repeats.
2. Hold NR and turn MULTI/CH to set how hard it works.hold NR›dial → the levelThe screen should show: The level on the sub-display.Watch out. The two have different scales. With NR1 on you are setting a level from 1 to 10, default 5, and that level is remembered separately for SSB, FM and AM on one hand and CW and FSK on the other. With NR2 on you are setting a correlation time from 2 to 20 milliseconds, default 20. Same gesture, different units, and the only way to know which you are adjusting is what was on the screen when you started.

Two things Kenwood warns about and one thing it points you elsewhere for. NR1 in SSB, FM or AM suppresses a beat along with the noise — it treats any steady tone as noise — and Kenwood notes that is not a malfunction. NR2 in SSB can cost you clarity or introduce pulse noise depending on conditions. And if what is bothering you is a carrier or a CW signal sitting in your passband rather than general hiss, Kenwood says to stop reaching for NR: the spectral subtraction in NR1 was not built to remove those and will not do much. Its instruction is to use Beat Cancel on the BC key instead.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Turn on the noise blanker on a TS-590SG

For ignition noise and the like — sharp pulses rather than a steady hiss. Same shape as the noise reduction control: one key cycles it, holding the key adjusts it.

1. Press NB to cycle NB1, NB2 and off.NBThe screen should show: NB1 or NB2 appears, or neither.NB1 is an analog circuit and NB2 is done in the DSP. Kenwood's advice is to try both on each band rather than picking a favorite — NB1 handles pulses under about 100 microseconds and gives up on longer ones, while NB2 tracks the envelope and can cope with a long pulse without wrecking the signal underneath it.
2. Hold NB and turn MULTI/CH for the level, 1 to 10. The default is 6.hold NB›dial → the levelThe screen should show: NB LV. and the number on the sub-display.Watch out. Kenwood's own warning is that raising this degrades the radio's intermodulation performance. It is not a free control — turn it up until the noise goes and no further.

Two limits to know. The noise blanker does nothing in FM at all; it works in SSB, CW, FSK and AM only. And there is a subtler cost worth knowing about: switching the blanker on inserts a 6 kHz band-limiting filter ahead of the post amplifier, where with the blanker off the signal goes straight to the roofing filter. Kenwood's stated reason for putting the filter there is to prevent the delay time from changing between the target signal and the noise — not to trade away performance. All the same, a 6 kHz filter sitting in front of a 500 Hz roofing filter is not free. So on a crowded band with a strong signal nearby, the blanker is not a neutral choice. Two smaller notes, both flagged as normal rather than faults: NB2 can distort a CW signal you are receiving, and a strong signal reduces how well NB2 blanks.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Notch out a whistle or a carrier on a TS-590SG

There are three tone-killers on this radio, they live on two keys, and they work at two different points in the signal path. Which one you want depends on whether you can see the interference move your S meter.

1. Press NOTCH to switch the manual notch on, then turn the NOTCH knob until the beat just disappears.NOTCH›dial → NOTCHThe screen should show: NOTCH appears.Manual notch is the one to reach for when you want to watch the interference die as you tune through it. It works in SSB, CW and FSK.
2. Hold NOTCH to toggle the notch between normal and wide.hold NOTCHThe screen should show: NOTCH W.Kenwood's guidance: normal is right for a simple beat frequency, and wide earns its keep against an interfering SSB signal — or, when the LO CUT and HI CUT filters are already trimming the signal you want, a wide notch used in combination with those cuts may be what works.
3. Hold BC — not press it — to switch the auto notch on. It finds the tone itself.hold BCThe screen should show: A.NOTCH.Watch out. The manual notch and this cannot both be running. Kenwood only prints it in a footnote in the In-Depth Manual — the auto notch filter and manual notch filter cannot be used at the same time — and does not say which one wins, so expect your carefully placed manual notch to stop doing anything. They are alternatives, not a stack — pick one. Auto notch is SSB only, and because it works at the IF stage it pulls your S meter down along with the interference and takes a little of your wanted signal with it. That is the trade, and it is often worth it: notching out a strong beat lets the AGC recover and can lift a buried SSB signal into the clear.
4. A plain press of the same key cycles Beat Cancel 1, Beat Cancel 2 and off. That is a different filter.BCThe screen should show: BC1 or BC2.Beat Cancel works on the audio rather than the IF, so your S meter does not move. BC1 is for a weak or continuous beat, BC2 for an intermittent one such as a CW signal. Kenwood prints the test itself, in a Hints and Tips box in the In-Depth Manual: if the S meter drops when the tone goes, you were using an IF notch; if the needle sits still, an audio one.
5. If the auto notch keeps chasing a tone that is drifting, menu 30 sets how fast it follows. Then press MENU to leave.AUTO NOTCH TRACKING SPEED›dial → FIX, or 1 to 4›MENUThe screen should show: 30, then FIX or a number.1 is the slowest and 4 the fastest. FIX terminates the tracking altogether; Kenwood's instruction then is to adjust the parameter manually to remove the beat. Default is 2.

The thing the front panel never tells you: the auto notch and the manual notch cannot both be on. Kenwood states it in a footnote in the In-Depth Manual and nowhere on the radio. So if you switch on the auto notch and your carefully placed manual notch appears to stop working, that is why. And keep the three mode scopes straight — manual notch is SSB, CW and FSK, auto notch is SSB only, Beat Cancel is SSB and AM. Three different coverage lists on two keys is exactly the sort of thing that makes a radio feel broken when it is not.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Work a DX station that is running split on a TS-590SG

The quick way on this radio is genuinely quick, and it is the one worth learning: hold SPLIT and type the offset in kilohertz. The catch is how you say "down".

1. Tune to the station you can hear, in the mode you will use.dial → the DX station's frequencyThe screen should show: His frequency.
2. Hold SPLIT.hold SPLITThe screen should show: SPLIT starts blinking.Blinking means the radio is waiting for you to say where you will transmit. Steady means split is running.
3. For up 5, press the 5 key. For down 5, press 0 and then 5.type 5The screen should show: SPLIT stops blinking and stays lit. The sub-display shows the transmit frequency.Watch out. A leading zero is how this radio spells minus. Enter 5 and you go up 5 kHz; enter 05 and you go down 5 kHz. Kenwood does not describe what the display shows while you are still typing — only that SPLIT stops blinking once the entry completes — so do not count on the screen to tell you which way you went. The digits live on the band keys — 1.8 is 1, 3.5 is 2, and so on up to 50 for 0.
4. Hold TF-SET down and turn the dial to listen on your own transmit frequency while you nudge it.hold TF-SET›dial → to checkThe screen should show: You hear the transmit frequency. The sub-display keeps showing where you were listening.This is the good part. You find out whether the frequency you picked is already occupied before you call, not after. Release TF-SET and you are back on the DX station.
5. Press SPLIT on its own to end split operation.SPLITThe screen should show: SPLIT goes out.

The long way round works too, and it is worth knowing which frequency you are setting when: press A/B, set a frequency — that one is your transmit — press A/B again, set the other one, which is your receive, then press SPLIT. That is the reverse of how most people narrate it out loud, and getting it backwards means transmitting on the DX station's own frequency. Once split is running, pressing A/B swaps the two. Two notes on TF-SET: it does nothing while you are transmitting, and it does nothing in simplex unless XIT is on and RIT is off. And one setting that changes what the dial does: by default, turning the tuning knob during split transmission moves the transmit frequency, not the receive frequency. Menu 20 set to on reverses that. The only clue that you have changed it is a decimal point flashing for a couple of seconds at power-up, once, and never again.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Save a frequency to a memory channel on a TS-590SG

Simple enough — build it in the VFO, then write it. The thing to be careful about is that the same key both opens the channel list and commits the write, so one press too many overwrites something.

1. Pick a VFO and set the frequency, mode, tone and anything else you want kept.A/B›dial → the frequencyThe screen should show: A pointed A or B shows which VFO you are on.A channel stores the receive and transmit frequency, both modes, the tone and CTCSS settings and their on-or-off state, the memory name, the lockout flag and which of the two IF filter setups was selected.
2. Press M.IN once. This opens the channel list — it does not store anything yet.M.INThe screen should show: M.SCR appears.Watch out. CLR at this point backs out without writing. That is the only clean escape in this procedure.
3. Turn MULTI/CH to the channel you want, or key the two digits on the band keys.dial → the channel numberThe screen should show: The channel number at the left of the display.Watch out. Kenwood prints two different ways of typing a channel number in two different places — one says just press the digit keys, the other says press ENT first. Both are in the same book and it does not reconcile them. The knob always works; try the typing on your own radio before you rely on it.
4. Press M.IN again to write it.M.INThe screen should show: The channel is stored.Watch out. Whatever was in that channel is gone, with no prompt and no confirmation. Kenwood's own note is blunt: do not press M.IN again after entering memory scroll mode, because pressing it overwrites the channel you selected with the current VFO. Browsing and writing are the same key.

Three things that bite. If RIT or XIT is on when you store, the offset gets baked into the stored frequency — and since either can be up to 9.99 kHz, or 9.999 kHz with FINE on, the channel can come out a long way off and still look fine. Erasing is a held CLR, and locking a channel out is a short CLR, and Kenwood spells out that more than about two seconds is the difference — the erase gives you a long beep after the fact and no prompt at all, though erasing a Quick Memory channel does ask first. And do not treat the front panel lock as protection: the lock exception table says CLR still operates for memory channel lockout while the lock is on, and it does not say whether the held, erasing CLR is exempt too. To name a channel, recall it, press Q-MR, then use MULTI/CH for characters with Q-M.IN and Q-MR moving the cursor, CL erasing one, and MENU storing the name. Eight characters, and Quick Memory channels cannot be named at all.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Run the antenna tuner on a TS-590SG

Built in as standard, relay switched, and fast — Kenwood traces the design back to the TS-570. One key does everything, and whether you press it or hold it is the difference between putting it in line and transmitting full power.

1. Set the transmit frequency first. The tuner stores its match against the band you are on.dial → the frequency you will useAfter every successful tune it remembers the position of the tuning capacitor for that band and that antenna socket, so coming back to a band you have used before is quick.
2. Hold PRE to choose ANT1 or ANT2.hold PREThe screen should show: ANT1 or ANT2.Watch out. If you have an external AT-300 on ANT1, choose ANT2 to use the internal tuner — the internal one is bypassed automatically whenever an external tuner is on ANT1. And an external tuner only works on ANT1; wire it to ANT2 and it does nothing.
3. Hold AT. The radio switches itself to CW, keys up, and tunes.hold ATThe screen should show: AT blinks and the TX-RX lamp goes red.Watch out. There is no prompt and no warning. Holding this key puts you on the air at once, in CW. Kenwood does not say what power it tunes at, so assume it is whatever you have set. Make sure the antenna is connected and you are on a frequency you are allowed to transmit on before your thumb lingers. Pressing AT again stops it.
4. Watch the display. When AT stops blinking and the red lamp goes out, it matched.watch for the blinking to stopWatch out. Two failure noises, both in Morse. An SWR above about 10 to 1 gets you SWR sent in code and the tuner bypasses itself — that is a bad antenna, not a tuner problem, and tuning again will not help. Failing to finish within about twenty seconds gets you the character 5; press AT to stop it. Tuning also gives up on its own after about sixty seconds.
5. A short press of AT, on its own, just puts the tuner in line or takes it out without retuning.ATThe screen should show: R<AT or AT>T appears when it is in line.

What it will actually match is in the specifications and it is a modest figure: 16.7 to 150 ohms, which is a 3 to 1 range about 50 ohms. Kenwood is honest about the rest — it will not tune outside the bands you can transmit on, it may not reach 1 to 1 depending on conditions, it sometimes keeps tuning after the meter reads 1 to 1 because of how the algorithm works, and if it cannot finish even though the meter shows better than 3 to 1, the answer is to fix the antenna. The AT-300 cannot tune 6 meters at all, and if you switch a transverter on, the tuner is forced out of line. Two menus worth knowing: 57 keeps the radio transmitting after the tune completes, and 58 puts the tuner in line on receive as well, which Kenwood says may reduce interference on the receive frequency. Both ship off. And one to be careful of — holding AT for more than a second while you are already transmitting cuts your transmission off and starts tuning.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Set the CW keyer speed and weight on a TS-590SG

Four steps, and the first one is not in Kenwood's list. Their procedure asks you to key the paddle while you adjust — and at the factory settings, keying the paddle transmits.

1. Set menu 49 to on first, so that keying the paddle during the speed adjustment does not put you on the air. Then press MENU to leave.NO BREAK-IN OPERATION›dial → on›MENUThe screen should show: 49, then on or off. VOX blinks when break-in is still live.Watch out. The default is off, which means break-in is active. Kenwood's own step three tells you to key the paddle and listen to the sidetone, so following the book as printed transmits. On an antenna, on a busy frequency, at whatever power you last used.
2. Press CW/FSK until CW shows.CW/FSKThe screen should show: CW.
3. Press KEY. The current speed appears — 20 words a minute from the factory.KEYThe screen should show: The speed on the main display.
4. Key the paddle and listen to the sidetone while you turn MULTI/CH, then press KEY again to finish.dial → the speed›KEYThe screen should show: 4 to 60 words a minute, one at a time.Setting speed by ear against your own sending is the point of the exercise — the number matters less than whether your dots feel right. If you are using the bug function, the speed you set only governs the dots.

On an SG you may not need any of this: the MULTI/CH knob is a push switch, and menu 93 has it assigned to keying speed in CW straight out of the box. Push it and turn. That is SG-only hardware; a TS-590S knob does not push. Around this setting sit the rest of the keyer: menu 38 picks iambic mode A or B and ships on B — if you are getting an extra dot or dash on release, try A. Menu 40 sets the receive pitch and sidetone together, 300 to 1000 Hz, default 800, and the receive filter shift follows it automatically. Menu 41 is rise time, 6 milliseconds by default, which is right for slow and medium sending and worth shortening to 1, 2 or 4 if you are fast. Menu 06 is the sidetone volume, and the AF knob has no effect on it. And holding KEY rather than pressing it takes you to the break-in delay instead, where FBK is full break-in — which Kenwood notes cannot be used with a TL-922 linear.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Reset the menu to factory settings on a TS-590SG

There are two, they start with the same keystroke, and the only thing separating the harmless one from the one that erases everything is which of two words you land on with the knob. Read the screen before you confirm.

1. Switch the radio off.switch the radio off
2. Hold A/B down and switch the radio on with it held.hold A/B›powerThe screen should show: A confirmation message.
3. Turn MULTI/CH until the screen says VFO RESET. The other choice is FULL RESET.dial → VFO RESETThe screen should show: VFO RESET or FULL RESET.Watch out. This is the moment that matters. VFO RESET puts the two VFOs back to 14.000.00 MHz on USB and leaves everything else alone — your memory channels, all your menu settings in both banks, the antenna tuner presets, the antenna selection, the auto mode table and the adjustment values all survive. FULL RESET erases all of it.
4. Press A/B to choose it, then A/B again at the second prompt to go ahead. Any other key cancels.A/B›A/BThe screen should show: A second confirmation, then the radio restarts.Kenwood asks twice deliberately. Any key that is not A/B backs out — which is the escape hatch if you realize you have the wrong one selected.

Use VFO RESET when a key or control is not behaving the way the book says. Use FULL RESET when you actually want the radio empty: it erases all 120 memory channels, including the 60 meter channels that ship preloaded in E0 upward, every Quick Memory, both menu banks, and the antenna tuner presets for every band and both antenna sockets. Whether the auto mode table, your CW message memories and any VGS-1 voice messages survive is not stated in either manual, so assume they do not. Two curiosities in Kenwood's own text, for anyone reading along: the introduction calls the two resets Partial Reset and Full Reset, and then the headings that follow say VFO Reset and Full Reset, and the confirmation text in the Full Reset section tells you that any other key cancels the Partial Reset. There is no third reset. And there is no menu-only reset on this radio — nothing restores your menu settings without also taking the memories with them.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.