A ham on the local Sunday Night Tech Net reported a technique that improved the reception of CW measurably.
He has a Kenwood TS-2000 transceiver. As time went by he used various adjustments while listening to CW. He was never quite satisfied with the noise levels that came in along with the desire CW signals. Variables adjusted include the RF Gain and AGC response time.
He achieved what he thinks is the best low noise performance from his TS-2000 by turning the AGC completely off and using only the RF gain to “tweak” a particular CW signal.
There is certainly more to this than meets the eye, but the moral of the story is if you have a Kenwood TS-2000 and are looking for improved signal reception on CW, try turning your AGC off and play with the RF gain.
I am told the Kenwood TS-2000 is a pretty amazing radio and this might just be one way to get a little better result from it.
Good luck.
Someone sent me a link to this page. When I put the rig in CW mode, the AGC indicator on the front panel goes off. Repeatedly pressing the AGC button [ button 8 ] on the front panel just results in AGC Off being displayed and the AGC indicator never shows as enabled.
Maybe I have something set in my radio that prevents AGC from being on in CW mode, the ham that mentioned this was in SSB mode where AGC is enabled, the ham meant something else, or there's some option I'm not aware of to further turn off AGC beyond what my TS-2000 does just when I go into CW mode.