adam@RUTGERS.EDU> (01/12/90)
Are there any good VHF/UHF receivers with a wide >full< coverage (like, say, 30-1300 MHz uninterrupted), all modes, that don't cost more than about $500 or $600? Has anyone had any experience with the Yaesu FRG-9600? At $550 discounted, this looks something like what I'm looking for. I wish its coverage (60-905) were a little greater, just for completeness' sake (for example, I'd like to have the 50Mhz and 1.2GHz bands). If the Yaesu were the best in its class, though, I'd definitely consider it. I like its small size too, since I intend to travel with this. If you know good or bad things about the Yaesu receiver or about a better one in its price class I'd be very pleased to hear from you. 73's Cat ==== Adam (Cat) Jacobs Kucznetsov adam@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu Dept. of Linguistics (now defunct) adam@columbia.edu Columbia University ajuus@cuvmb.BITNET -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
mn@BBN.COM> (01/12/90)
In article <1990Jan12.073314.13649@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> adam@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Adam J. Kucznetsov) writes: >Are there any good VHF/UHF receivers with a wide >full< coverage (like, >say, 30-1300 MHz uninterrupted), all modes, that don't cost more than >about $500 or $600? > >Has anyone had any experience with the Yaesu FRG-9600? At $550 >discounted, this looks something like what I'm looking for. I wish its >coverage (60-905) were a little greater, just for completeness' sake >(for example, I'd like to have the 50Mhz and 1.2GHz bands). If the Yaesu >were the best in its class, though, I'd definitely consider it. I like >its small size too, since I intend to travel with this. > >If you know good or bad things about the Yaesu receiver or about a >better one in its price class I'd be very pleased to hear from you. I've been the happy owner of an FRG-9600 for almost a year. It's a good rig. One of the things that drew me to it was the all mode functions; AM-W, AM-N, FM-W, FM-N, USB and LSB. Here in SillyCon Valley there are a *lot* of comms out there that are not in FM-N which is the only mode most scanners support. Because of that many services are moving to other modes to avoid eavsdropping. It might not be fair to call it a scanner because of the way the user interface is set up. It's billed as a communications receiver by the maker which seems more accurate. I just got the CAT interface and hacked up a simple controller program for my Atari ST. Now I have 10,000 memory channels if I need them. The program also let me tap one key and append the current freq/mode as new log to my interactive logbook which also serves as the memory channel feeder. The CAT interface is essential for doing weird things like defining a custom scan step rate and speeding up the scan rate a bit. Ah yes, the scan rate. Compared to just about any other receiver for VHF/UHF with scanning, it's pitifully slow, about 3 channels per second scan rate. Kinda slow but you learn to live with it. The sensitivity is fine but when compared to the Icom it's not as good but it only costs about half as much. I have still to figure out why the design engineers at Yaseu decided to limit range from 60 Mhz to about 905. Really dumb but I'm working on a mod that may get around this shortcoming. Having had the chance to try it out alongside of other radios at the same price range (RZ-1) and less, the choice was obvious; the 9600. Another good reason to CAT it is the fact that when you want to change modes or steps you have to press a button to cycle thru them all to get to the one you want. Another aspect of the poor hardware user interface. The AF scan is a very nice option that will only stop on a signal if it has audio present. This is great for scanning aero-comms in AM. The FM broadcast band picks up many stations that my Marantz stereo tuner can't even hear and the audio quality is quite good even though I use an external speaker aimed at my face rather than use the internal speaker that points upward and diffuses the volume and clarity. The supplied whip antenna works ok and is great for a field trip but for home use in a bottom floor apartment I use a wierd 2 dimensional ground plane vertical I constructed in 10 minutes and thumb-tacked to the wall behind the rig. I'm sure if I could mount an outdoor antenna the performance would be even better. Even still I've logged over 1000 comms without hardly trying. The bottom line, IMHO, is that in terms of bang-for-the buck it's a pretty good rig. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Michael Nowicki N6LUU Atari Corp,Sunnyvale CA /TT/UNIX/X team | |............................................................................| | char *disclaimer=" Views expressed are my own, not my employer's"; | | char *good_quote=" 'Yes, I never did' - Stan Laurel"; | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
kjh@BBN.COM> (01/13/90)
In article <1990Jan12.073314.13649@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> adam@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Adam J. Kucznetsov) writes: >Are there any good VHF/UHF receivers with a wide >full< coverage (like, >say, 30-1300 MHz uninterrupted), all modes, that don't cost more than >about $500 or $600? Check out the Radio Shack scanner, the PRO-2004 or PRO-2005. In the rare case that original ideas Kenneth J. Hendrickson N8DGN are found here, I am responsible. 1709 S. Bonnie Brae, LA, CA 90006 Internet: kjh@usc.edu UUCP: ...!uunet!usc!pollux!kjh