I’m curious as to why Kenwood stopped making their TS480HX/SAT units if you know. Portability with base station power. Always read good reviews about it.
No idea other than its an older design, lacks the capabilities of the newer mobiles and probably wasn't selling that well anymore.
I have one, used it maybe 5 times on road trips and put it back in its box each time. It's a great mobile rig, always performed well for me. I have contacts from all over the world while mobile with it.
I did a few mods to mine to improve the audio and drive the SSB peaks higher. Out of the box, the SAT's don't peak at 100w, they typically top out about 70 unless you mod them. I also modded mine so the cooling fan stayed on full time so it would stop folding power when the PA's got too warm. The thermal design of that rig isn't the best, IMO. I just swapped out the fan it came with for something that moved more air more quickly and wired an on/off switch for it. Anytime I turned the radio on, I turned the fan on manually for it.
That right there eliminated the radio folding power due to getting warm. The stock fan and thermal sensor it came with never worked right. The radio always got way too hot before the fan kicked on. Called Kenwood about it, they said it was "working as designed." Well, if that was "working as designed" I think the design sucked. I was very unhappy about it so I fixed their crappy cooling design myself.