Kenwood PS-50

A regulated DC power supply built to feed Kenwood's transceivers, and 20 amps of it, at that.

Overview

The PS-50 is a regulated DC power supply, designed by Kenwood to match its own transceivers and to provide reliable fixed-station operation. The job is simple. It sits under a radio, holds a steady 13.8 volts, and never gets to be the reason a contact gets missed. Kenwood's own instruction manual describes it as carefully engineered and manufactured to rigid quality standards. Every manufacturer used that kind of language in the period, so the spec sheet is the better guide.

The headline number is current. The PS-50 is designed to deliver 13.8V DC at 20A, which is serious amperage for a station supply, enough to run a transceiver at full output and then some. Kenwood also fitted external output terminals rated at 16A maximum, so the supply can feed additional equipment beyond the radio it was bought for. Owners who run accessories off the same rail will find that headroom useful.

Protection is straightforward and documented. The unit carries a 6A AC fuse on the 120V version and a 20A DC fuse. When one lets go, the manual says to disconnect the AC cable, find the cause, then replace the defective fuse. Kenwood's warning is blunt: never substitute a fuse of a higher rating. On a supply capable of 20 amps, that instruction is not boilerplate.

Kenwood shipped the PS-50 with a modest accessory set: an AC power cable, a 6A fuse, a 4A fuse for the 220/240V version, a warranty card, and the instruction manual. Both fuse ratings in the box show the supply was sold in multiple voltage variants, with the 4A part reserved for the higher-voltage mains markets. Replacement fuses were available through authorized Kenwood dealers. The manual also directs any service or adjustment back to those dealers. All adjustments were preset at the factory and, in Kenwood's words, should only be readjusted by a qualified technician with proper test equipment.

The manual notes that attempting service or adjustment without factory authorization can void the warranty. It asks that a unit returned for repair come back in its original box and packing with a full description of the problem. It also spells out what a dealer needs when ordering spare parts: model and serial number, the schematic number of the part, the printed circuit board number it sits on, and the part number and name if known.

A note on sourcing: the period magazine material indexed against this model comes from Mix - a 1983 issue (p.57), a 1983 issue (p.49), and a 1980 issue (p.50) - but those pages cover studio equipment inventories and control-room dimensions, not this supply. For example, Mix (1983, p.57) lists studio tape recorders including the Studer A810 and Revox PR99, and Mix (1980, p.50) gives control-room dimensions on a live-end-dead-end design. No independent bench test or measured review of the PS-50 surfaced in the available material, so its performance claims rest on Kenwood's own documentation rather than a third-party verdict.