Category Archives: Ham Radio

Ten-Tec’s website offers an update on service/sales and message from new owner

The Ten-Tec Eagle HF transceiver.

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mike (K8RAT), who notes the Ten-Tec’s website has a one-page, informative placeholder. [Update: their new website is now live–click here to view Ten-Tec.com.]

I’ve pasted the full page of content below which includes updates on service and a personal message from the new President, Mike (N8WFF):

(Source: TenTec.com)
TenTecLogo

Greetings and welcome to Ten Tec’s temporary web page where we will provide updates about the change of ownership.

Effective January 1, 2016 the Ten Tec assets for RKR Designs, LLC were acquired by Dishtronix, Inc.

There are many things in transition at this time such as the telephone numbers and website. We ask you to be patient and not overload us with questions and email.

At this time we are fully occupied with our commercial business and restructuring and moving some things around. There are no plans at present to leave the Knoxville area.

SALES ORDERS
Any outstanding transceiver purchase order at the fire sale price is cancelled. All sales orders shipped after 1/1/16 are invoiced at the list price without exception. You may cancel your sales order without any penalty by contacting [email protected]

SERVICE POLICY
We have changed how service is conducted. Effective immediately for all units in for repair, there is a minimum charge on one hour labor at $140.0 for any unit sent in, even if it is not repaired. It takes the service department one hour to receive, unpack, set up on the bench, evaluate, estimate the repair, repack and box the unit, prepare shipping documents and prepare the invoice. If your unit is repaired during this time period there will not be additional labor charges. If further work is required it will be billed at 125.00 per hour in quarter hour increments. Parts and return shipping is charged additionally. It takes on the average two hours to repair a unit.

To clarify this labor structure we have prepared the following chart for your convenience:

Fullscreen capture 1102016 113616 AM

At this time we are unable to offer extensive telephone or email support. We are monitoring the [email protected] email address but may not respond in a timely manner. We are rearranging the service department and trying to sort out things after the previous service manager elected to retire. If your radio was here, it is still here. If you object to our repair policy we will cheerfully return your radio to you at your expense. Just email us and someone will contact you to make arrangements. Otherwise, we will resume repairs in February.

Going Forward
There are a lot of things to be done. It is our plan to reincorporate Ten Tec as an independent corporate entity. Meanwhile it is an operating subsidiary of Dishtronix, Inc. an Ohio corporation.

The Future
Although Ten Tec has changed hands several times in the last couple of years, I would like to state that Ten Tec has changed hands for the last time in the foreseeable future. Dishtronix has been continuously operating for 17 years, is financially stable and will continue managing in a manner that promotes and maintains fiscal responsibility and financial stability. My vision as the owner is strictly long term. I have no plans to leave this business and will continue to operate Ten Tec as long as I am physically able to do so. I believe the Ten Tec transceivers to be some of the best transceivers available at any price and personally have been operating an Orion II until the first change of ownership. Everyone who uses a piece of equipment long enough, develops a personal wish list of things they would change or improve. I feel extremely fortunate to now be in the position where I can use my skills and expertise from more than forty years of ham radio and SWLing to implement changes which I hope will make fantastic products even better.

Unfortunately I have had to make some tough decisions which were made for the long term health and viability of the company. The Ten Tec team is the nicest bunch of people you could hope to work with and have overall reacted positively to the changes. Some team members have chosen to pursue retirement or other opportunities but the core competency remains. We are extremely fortunate to have retained former engineering manager John Henry on a consulting basis and I must give him the greatest credit. I certainly would not take on this project without him and the other team members like Boyd Lichlyter and Patty Gann. Ten Tec is like a big family, and I do not view this as me acquiring Ten Tec but more like me joining an extended family of talented and skilled people. I hope anyone reading this who is in the market for a new radio will help me support this great group by at least trying one of their radios. Of the present production the Eagle is my favorite for having the best sound out of the box, and that is what my personal preference is always based on – good sound. My all-time favorite is of course the Orion II so an Orion III is on my personal wish list for the future. There are numerous Ten Tec user nets on the air and it is my intention so support them by posting the time and frequency schedules on the website. If I can accomplish one thing at Ten Tec it will be to be more customer-centric. I want to build the radios that you the customer wants! I am looking for ways to reliably engage with our customers so we can do that, and I think factory support of the nets is one way to start.

The Ten Tec team is working on production improvements to our facility and business. We are fully occupied with our commercial business at this time. When I have capacity the next step is to run the first batch of Omni 7+ which is the Omni 7 with some minor cosmetic changes and improvements such as a flat metal front for improved shielding. Following this we are releasing the Super Eagle which brings into the Eagle most of the DSP features found on the Orion II and is the first step on the path to the Orion III. This is different hardware from existing product so it is not a firmware upgrade. There are no firm dates or guarantees for when these things will occur.

The blow out sale prices are over and any outstanding orders at those prices are terminated. Those prices were previous owners intent to liquidate all inventory and will never be repeated.

I am pleased to state that we have completed some firmware updates which will soon be posted on the new Ten Tec website once it is up and running to entice people to visit the site.

Dishtronix has other new products under development as well. The DX2400MKII replaces the DX2400L1 legal limit + solid state amplifier and should be unveiled at Hamvention, to mention just one. We are close to beginning production of our Emtron DX2/3-SPd tetrode amplifiers which will also be shown at Hamvention. We may even decide to build and service these at Ten Tec.

There are some other exciting things happening which we may announce in the near future.

Thank you for your patience during this transition.

Sincerely,

Mike, N8WFF

President,
Ten Tec, a Dishtronix Company
Dishtronix, Inc.

Spread the radio love

A review of the AOR AR-3000A Wideband Receiver

10 Replies

ar3000Alrg

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mario Filippi (N2HUN) for the following review:

The AOR AR-3000A Wideband Receiver

by Mario Filippi, N2HUN

(All photos below by author)

The AOR AR-3000A is a wideband communications receiver, made in Japan, covering 100KHz – 2.036 GHz with all popular modes including AM, NFM, WFM, CW, USB and LSB. The AR-3000A was produced in the early ‘90’s at the price of $1063 and came with a telescoping back-of-set antenna, wall-wart power supply, and well written 57 page manual.

AOR is a long time reputable manufacturer of radios and electronic equipment that continues on today producing high quality equipment. While the AR-3000A can be considered a tabletop unit, it is quite small, measuring only 8” x 5” x 3.5”. The AR-3000A has a total of 400 memory channels, with four “Banks” (Banks A- D) each holding up to 100 channels. Each stored channel holds all the necessary parameters such as frequency, mode, attenuator, and step size. An optional mounting bracket for mobile operation was available along with an optional DC cord for those wanting to use it as a scanner for public safety monitoring. It does not run on internal batteries though.

What I like about this radio is it’s wide coverage and it functions as my main longwave/shortwave receiver in addition to a scanner for monitoring local VHF/UHF public safety bands.

AOR 3000

As desktops go, this one has an unusual shape. While the unit is horizontally shaped for the most part, the front panel is angled slightly upward to make the controls easier to read. However, it took a while to get used to the small print on the panel and LCD so if you wear glasses, definitely don them because you’ll need ‘em. As a matter of fact I’m contemplating purchasing a pair of those magnifying eyeglasses to see (pun intended) if they’ll help (hi hi!).

AOR-3000-side view

These units come up for auction on Ebay and on ham classifieds at a much reduced price, most in remarkably good shape for a quarter-century old receiver.

A recent survey of Ebay auctions show they run from about $183 – $350; over several hundred dollars less than the original price. I chose to purchase one from a ham classified website at a higher price but it was well worth it. When it comes to high price tag items I tend to scout out the ham ads first. The seller was a friendly, honest ham who was a great communicator so the deal went smoothly. He included the computer control cable and even replaced the backup memory CR2032 battery, something every buyer should consider when purchasing vintage units.

For advertisements of vintage AOR products check back issues of Monitoring Times at: www.americanradiohistory.com . This site is an excellent resource for old time radio, TV, broadcasting and miscellaneous electronics publications and contains a mind boggling array of books and periodicals from the past.

The front panel is laid out quite well, with soft touch pads in the center allowing easy parameter entry, a tuning knob on lower right, and my favorite, a manual squelch knob. Most of the touch pads have a secondary function which appears in white lettering while primary functions are in yellow. If you’d rather not spin the VFO dial, which is quite small (0.75” diameter) there are up/down arrow keys to accomplish that function. The knob spins smoothly with no obvious détente.

Front panel (sorry about the camera shutter ghost!)

The rear of the unit has several connections: BNC antenna, 12V input, DIN socket for a recorder, external speaker, RS232C for computer remote control, and On/Off switch for computer/manual control. Back in the day you could purchase ScanCat Gold software for about $95.00 that would allow computer control of the unit. I am in the process of finding any existing software that will allow that and it’s not easy to come by, but that is not a priority.

Oh and where is the speaker you might ask? On the underside of the unit.

Plenty of rear connections.

This unit was purchased to save space at my desk as it’s quite small and serves as my main source of longwave, medium wave, shortwave, and VHF/UHF reception. For HF it’s hooked to an S9 43 foot vertical antenna with many (50+) radials. S9 Antennas unfortunately is no longer in business, but when the company had just started up I purchased the 43 footer for ham use. It’s lightweight, made completely of fiberglass, and has been up several years with no problems.

S9 antennas was eventually sold and the antennas were available from LDG Electronics last time I looked. If you check out their pictures at http://www.ldgelectronics.com/c/252/products/12/62/3 you’ll see my house on the left sporting the S9v43 footer. By the way, when I bought the AR-3000A, the seller stated that ”it’s a great radio as long as you don’t connect too big of an antenna to it”(hi hi!). Yes, I found it tends to suffer from overload with my large antenna, but the 3000A has a useful built-in attenuator

As a wideband receiver the AR-3000A fits my needs perfectly. For LW it receives aeronautical beacons as far away as Quebec and New Brunswick, Canada. NAVTEX transmissions on 518 KHz are easily decoded using a SignaLinkUSB and YAND software.

As for HF, I’m mainly a utility listener and have a bank of memory channels for WWV (2.5, 5, 10, 15,20 MHz), WLO (8.471MHz), CB channels, Volmet stations, USCG facsimile frequencies, W1AW on 3.581 for code practice, a slew of RTTY station frequencies, the 10m FM band repeater frequencies, Radio Habana Cuba, 4XZ (great for code practice), WLO maritime weather broadcasts, and several channels for different ham band frequencies of interest.

Radio Shack discone offset –mounted on TV antenna mast.

For scanning, obviously the 3000A can’t compete with modern scanners. It was a different era back then. So, no trunking, no CTCSS tones, and the scanning speed slow compared to today’s standards, but it does have the usual features like channel lockout, scan delay, priority channel, step adjustment, search mode and does cover the military aeronautical band.

As a basic scanner for monitoring local state/local first responders, aeronautical (ATIS, ACARS) channels, NOAA satellites, NOAA weather channels, my local repeater, GMRS, FRS, taxis, railroads, etc., it is a very satisfactory performer. I can even hear the NY City Transit police from my location in W. New Jersey which is a pretty good distance, ATIS from LaGuardia and Philadelphia airports, and taxis in the Philly area, all while using a Radio Shack discone on the chimney.

For a more in-depth review of the AR-3000A by Bob Parnass, check the November 2000 issue of Monitoring Times magazine. Universal Radio has a great archive of discontinued radios so check them also at www.universal-radio.com. User reviews can be found on www.eham.net, that’s one of my favorite feedback sites. There’s also an AR-3000A Yahoo users group that’s a great resource. If you want to see videos of the rig in action then search on YouTube as there’s a good number available. In conclusion, I’m very satisfied with the AR-3000A, it’s exactly what I was looking for and is an integral part of radio receiver history.

If any other AR-3000A owners are out there, let’s hear from you. Thanks and 73’s!

Many thanks for this excellent review, Mario. I always thought the AOR AR-3000A was a cool little receiver. When it was being produced, the price was way beyond my means as a college student. At the time, though, it had to be the most compact, best performing, wideband receiver on the market!

If any Post readers can help Mario find a solution for computer control of the AR-3000A, please comment!

Thanks again, Mario–we look forward to your next contribution!

Spread the radio love

Star Wars sound designer is, indeed, a radio enthusiast

10 Replies

SWLing Post readers may remember a post I recently published in which I believed I’d identified a familiar shortwave time signal station in the Battle of Hoth scene from The Empire Strikes Back. If you haven’t read this post, feel free to do so and listen to the embedded video/audio clips.

Upon hearing this, I went so far as to muse that the Star Wars sound designer might be a radio listener. I asked our readers if anyone could confirm this–?

Well, we’ve got our answer! I’m truly indebted to an SWLing Post reader who passed my post along to his friend, Ben, who could provide this definitive response:

“This is Ben Burtt, sound designer of the Star Wars films. A friend sent me a link to this blog thinking I would like to comment.

Ben Burtt with his recording gear, circa 1980. The mike on the stand at Ben’s feet is one from his grandfather’s ham radio station in the 1950s, or possibly earlier.

“The answer is yes, I have always been a ham radio enthusiast.”

“My grandfather, Harold Burtt, operated W8CD out of his home in Columbus, Ohio 1930s-1960s. I was enthralled as a kid listening to the sounds on his receiver. I heard alien worlds and cosmic ‘voices.’

Harold Burtt, W8CD. (Chairman of the Psychology Dept Ohio State) with his attic gear, approximately 1935

“So not only did I record his radio, but continued to do so on the Star Wars series and Star Trek as well.

My memory of the Hoth transmission was that it was WWV but it could have been CHU since I was recording all that interested me on the dial.”

Terrific! Thank you, Ben, for taking the time to respond. As I said, you’ve certainly started off this radio enthusiast’s year on the right wavelength…no doubt some of our readers will agree.

Indeed, the powerful sonic experience of the Star Wars and Star Trek films has, in my estimation, helped shape many of us into the radio/sound enthusiasts we’ve become–myself certainly included. Thank you, Ben, for this! You’ve sharpened my ear to a greater appreciation of sound, especially filmic sound, and your work in particular.

For readers who are less familiar with Ben Burtt’s work, check out his Wikipedia page and IMDB profile–you’ll find he’s been the sound designer on numerous influential films including the recently released Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

A special thanks to Ben Burtt for sharing these wonderful photos and kindly giving me permission to use them here on the SWLing Post. I must say, considering my love of radio in the thirties, I especially like that photo of Harold Burtt (W8CD) in his shack.

Spread the radio love

First Amateur Radio in Geosynchronous Orbit Will Aid Disaster Communications

6 Replies

Could it be we will have a true geosynchronous satellite for Amateurs in 2017?! I hope so, and we will not need an antenna this big to use it!

This was first reported in Wireless Design Magazine

Researchers at the Ted and Karyn Hume Center for National Security and Technology are preparing to send an amateur radio transponder into a geosynchronous orbit in 2017.

“Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, a new ham band will be available for the Americas,” said Robert McGwier, a research professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Hume Center’s director of research. “It will allow rapid deployment to disaster areas and support long-haul communications for first responders.”

This would be the first amateur or “ham” radio payload in a geosynchronous orbit, and would significantly enhance communications capabilities for amateur radio operators, in particular following natural disasters or other emergency situations. The Hume Center team met with Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate in September to discuss the project.

The full article may be found following this link.

I have really been enjoying trying to catch the satellites and the International Space Station as I am able, but it really is catch as catch can due to orbiting times and changing horizon points. A geosynchronous orbit satellite means we could plant an antenna pointed directly at the satellite and find it there day or night. I for one am ready!! I might even dedicate an inexpensive dual-band radio to it assuming typical satellite repeater protocol is used.

I will post more details as I find out additional information. Cheers! Robert

Robert Gulley, AK3Q, is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Robert also blogs at All Things Radio.

Spread the radio love

P5/3Z9DX: Successful ham radio activation of North Korea

How to use the SDRPlay RSP as a panadapter

14 Replies

SDPlay-RSP

In this post, I will show you how to use an SDR as a panadapter for a commercial communications receiver. I’m using an Icom R72 and a SDRPlay RSP, but you can do it with nearly all receivers and SDRs.

The Icom R72 is a double conversion HF (0-30 MHz) communications receiver.

A panadapter lets you see the spectrum of your receiver (it gives you a broader, higher-level picture of what’s around your tuned frequency). After using it, you’ll wonder how you’ve been using your receiver without a spectrum display! 🙂

Almost all the radios we use are of superhetrodyne type. To connect a SDR to the radio, you should first find its 1st IF mixer output (if it has more than one Intermediate Frequency stage).

To find it, the best way is to consult the service manual. The first IF of Icom R72 is 70.4500 MHz, so we can use RTL-SDR dongles too.

Here’s a part of R72’s schematics, extracted from its service manual:

IC-R72-Schematic-Mehdi-Asgari

Look at the R82 resistor; it’s located at the output of first IF stage, so I soldered a connector to its pins (its other pin is connected to the ground)

Between the R82 resistor and the output, we’ve added a series 470-ohm resistor (to prevent loading the IF stage)

Click to enlarge.

The other side of this connector is connected to the antenna input of my SDRPlay RSP.

Now I can view my spectrum on a PC.

Here’s a screenshot of CubicSDR on Mac OS X (you can use other apps like HDSDR, SDR Console, etc.):

CubicSDR-Screenshot-Mehdi

Although this post was about the SDRPlay RSP and Icom R72, this procedure can be done for almost any combination of receivers and SDRs provided that your SDR covers the frequency of first IF stage.

Also, don’t forget that you should tune the SDR to the frequency of IF–in this case: 70.4500 MHz.

Mehdi Asgari, the author of this post, is a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Mehdi lives in Tehran and is an active member of the EP2C amateur radio club.

Spread the radio love

Dave reviews the Yaesu FT1XD

5 Replies

SWLing Post contributor, Dave Zantow (N9EWO), has completed a review of the Yaesu FT1XD (FT1XDR) “System Fusion” Digital-Analog Handheld Transceiver.

The FT1DX 2 meter/440 HT provides both analog and digital communications on both bands with up to 5 watts. It also has wideband receiver that covers from 500 kHz to 999 MHz (US version, less cellular) including the AM and FM broadcast band. It even has a built-in ferrite bar for mediumwave/AM reception.

What does Dave think?

Click here to read Dave’s full review.

Spread the radio love