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Table of Contents
Kenwood TS-590S
Acquired 2026-06-06 at the Rockland Hamfest. Serial number __. I do not yet know if the ALC repair was made.
Oscillator Upgrade
My unit came with a no-name SO-3 clone installed, with the jumpers in place (meaning the TCXO was running in parallel with the original XO). I have removed the jumpers, and will test the characteristics of the TCXO. I am exploring building an alternative TCXO replacement, as SO-3's are expensive and require the original daughterboard be present.
Mark W7MLG made such a replacement in 2017. He used a made-to-order TCXO with a 3v3 LDO and trimmer potentiometer. Not much information is provided regarding the technical details.
Cheap SO-3 alternatives exist, but may be have suspect phase noise or other issues:
Potential DDS/PLL based alternatives?
- SiTime Si3521 - this is not sold as a TCXO, but is a TCXO per its functional description. SiTime only states a stability of 20PPM, but I'm still interested in playing with one. The evaluation board is prohibitively expensive, so I may spin my own board if I wish to proceed further.

