mgv@duke.UUCP (Marco G. Valtorta) (09/16/85)
My family and I are moving to Belgium in less than a month. We would like to bring with us several pieces of electrical equipment. These inculde a blender, a stereo receiver, and a cassette deck. The local stereo repairman said that the cassette deck (a Sanyo) has a universal DC motor, and therefore a transformer would be sufficient for it. This unit uses 7W to operate. He also said that a tranformer would be all that is needed for the receiver, but the receiver uses more power. I understand that an (appropriate) *transformer* takes 220V 50Hz current and outputs 110V DC current, whereas a *converter* outputs 110V 50Hz current. Moreover, equipment that outputs 110V 60Hz current is just too bulky and expensive for home use. I would like to know approximately how much transformers cost, for some typical powers, and whether the same one can be used for the cassette deck and the receiver. I also would like to know whether there is some difference between the FM broadcasting standard in the USA and Belgium that would make the quality of FM reception worse, when using an American-spec receiver. I'll use this information to decide whether to bring the equipment with us. Thank you! Marco Valtorta
ark@alice.UucP (Andrew Koenig) (09/18/85)
> I understand that an (appropriate) *transformer* takes 220V 50Hz > current and outputs 110V DC current, whereas a *converter* > outputs 110V 50Hz current. Moreover, equipment that outputs > 110V 60Hz current is just too bulky and expensive for home use. A transformer takes 220V 50Hz input and produces 110V (or whatever other voltage it's designed for) 50Hz. There are also less expensive converters that produce various strange wave-forms at 110V. These latter devices should only be used to power things like heaters and light bulbs. I would expect a receiver to work fine on 50 Hz, with the possible exception of differing FM standards. In fact, many receivers can be modified for 220V operation directly -- check with the manufacturer. Whether your cassette deck will work with 50 Hz depends in large part on how its motor speed is controlled.
jar@siemens.UUCP (09/19/85)
As far as I know there is no difference in FM broadcasting between USA and Europe. But there is one thing which must be considered: Your receiver should have a narrow bandwith to seperate some of the stations which lie close together on the FM scale. If it has a wide bandwith (250kHz), then you will have to resign to some of the stations, but you still can receive lots of others. By the way I came from Germany 6 months ago and brought some electrical equipment and had (beside the transforming from 110V to 220V) absolutely no problems, but I left the ac-power-synchronized alarm-clock in Germany and bought a new one (because of the 50Hz/60Hz problem). I hope you will enjoy Europe as much as I enjoy the States!
greg@olivee.UUCP (Greg Paley) (09/23/85)
> > As far as I know there is no difference in FM broadcasting between USA > and Europe. One difference I know of is the difference in pre/de-emphasis. The U.S. standard is 75 microseconds (the U.S. dolby standard, when there was still dolby-FM, was 25 microseconds), whereas the European standard is 50 microseconds. Some receivers intended for both U.S. and European markets have switches which make the actual value used selectable. I brought a Telefunken receiver to the U.S. from Germany which did not have this feature. The result is that the sound here is excessively bright in ways that I can't adequately modfiy with tone controls. In Germany, this receiver sounded fabulous. Incidentally, even when using a properly adjusted high quality U.S.-standard tuner, I have never received FM broadcasts in this country that matched the quality of what I was getting from the Bayerische Rundfunk, both on live transmissions (which were coming from Bayreuth, Salzburg, and various Munich productions at the Staatsoper and Herkulessaal). Great clarity, amazing lack of background noise, and wide dynamic range. - Greg Paley
doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (09/23/85)
> My family and I are moving to Belgium in less than a month. > We would like to bring with us several pieces of electrical > equipment. These inculde a blender, a stereo receiver, and > a cassette deck. This may sound brutal, but it'd almost certainly be cheaper to discard your blender and buy a new one in Belgium, rather than pay to have the old one shipped across the Atlantic. If you're not particularly attached to your receiver and/or cassette deck, the same could be said for selling one or both here and buying new stuff there. You might want to check the back panel and owners manual for the receiver and tape deck. Many have a switch or the like which will allow the unit to run on any of the commonly used power systems. Or, if it says 117V 50/60 cycle (or 50/60 Hz), then all you need is a simple 220-to-110 transformer, available at your local Radio Shack (and other places). Sounds like you already know that you can't use your American-standard TV over there... -- Doug Pardee -- CalComp -- {calcom1,savax,seismo,decvax,ihnp4}!terak!doug
singer@spar.UUCP (David Singer) (09/24/85)
In article <487@olivee.UUCP> greg@olivee.UUCP (Greg Paley) writes: > > As far as I know there is no difference in FM broadcasting between USA > and Europe. > Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't the inter-station spacing different in Europe? This doesn't matter for analogue tuners, but some digital tuners have the station spacing fixed and thus have trouble.
thomas@utah-gr.UUCP (Spencer W. Thomas) (09/26/85)
In article <4339@alice.UUCP> ark@alice.UucP (Andrew Koenig) writes: >There are also less expensive >converters that produce various strange wave-forms at 110V. These >latter devices should only be used to power things like heaters and >light bulbs. We had a problem with a cheap converter and a contact lens "cooker". Basically, the lens cooker would not work with the converter. I think there are some electronics (for timing the cooking period) that were insulted by the wierd waveform coming out of the converter. When we found a transformer, we had no problem. -- =Spencer ({ihnp4,decvax}!utah-cs!thomas, thomas@utah-cs.ARPA) "The difference between reality and unreality is that reality has so little to recommend it." -- Allan Sherman