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Grex Radio Item 59: Receivers
Entered by ball on Wed Jun 14 22:26:31 UTC 2006:

I received a C. Crane catalogue today. They have the Sangean
ATS-505P, which covers 1.7 to 30 MHz and includes SSB.  No
mention is made of CW though.  Is that just a question of
adding an external tight, tuneable audio filter?

10 responses total.

#1 of 10 by krokus on Thu Jun 15 22:09:28 2006:

I did a bit of searching, and found the manual on Grove's website.
http://www.grove-ent.com/ATS-505_e.pdf

According to the manual, the "Clarify" control can be used to a 1.5kHz
resolution.  While not great, I would say that's not too bad for most
uses.

What about feeding the audio to a computer, and using some sort of DSP
to narrow it further, if needed?  (I'd be surprised if someone hasn't
written something to do this type of thing.)

#2 of 10 by tod on Thu Jun 15 23:42:09 2006:

Make sure you use an attenuator cable for the headphone feed to the aux in
on your computer and you should be fine.

#3 of 10 by gull on Fri Jun 16 23:40:44 2006:

Modern headphones require only milliwatts of power, so if it's a 
headphone jack (as opposed to a speaker jack), it may already have an 
attenuator built in. I've often run headphone outputs of things like 
iPods and portable CD players into the line inputs of amps and sound 
cards, and I've never had a problem.  If the signal is too strong, the 
distortion will let you know.

#4 of 10 by ball on Sat Jun 17 02:22:51 2006:

Re #1: I read something today that suggested the Sony ICF-
  SW7600GR was better than the ATS-505, that it includes CW
  and it doesn't seem to cost much more. Thanks for the link
  to the manual though, I'll have a look at that.

Re #2 & #3:  It's a shame that more devices don't include a
  line-level output.

#5 of 10 by krokus on Thu Jun 22 14:08:57 2006:

re 4
Most people have no use for a line-level interface, the hobbiest is
the oddity in that regard.  But as was pointed out, the headphone/earphone
jack output is typically sufficient, and works well.  Since a line-level
input is a high impedence, and the headphone output is low impedence, it
works just fine as a "voltage transfer" vice a usual signal transfer.

#6 of 10 by ball on Fri Jun 23 23:22:05 2006:

Re #5: I'm an oddity in many regards.  I wish that all (or
  at least most) audio devices had line in and out as
  appropriate. I wish that most things with a microprocessor
  had an optional RS422 or RS232 serial port and a
  documented command set.  In unix I can connect together
  individual commands and use them in ways that the original
  authors might never have imagined.  I appreciate the
  ability to do the same thing with hardware, and miss that
  when it's not there.  I can understand manufacturers
  skimping on hardware to save money, but sometimes the
  ports are there and it's just down to unimaginitive firm-
  ware writers.

#7 of 10 by gull on Mon Jun 26 19:17:56 2006:

Or sometimes the ports and the firmware are there, but it's down to 
companies trying to protect their proprietary peripheral market.

#8 of 10 by ball on Tue Jun 27 01:08:57 2006:

That too, which is an equally crappy reason.

#9 of 10 by gull on Wed Jun 28 18:38:52 2006:

I run into this a lot in my current job.  There are several 
manufacturers of surveillance camera equipment.  While NTSC video is, 
of course, standard, everyone has their own proprietary protocol for 
controlling things like pan/tilt/zoom mechanisms, effectively locking 
you into their product line.

#10 of 10 by omni on Sun Jan 7 07:37:52 2007:

 I like my ats-505.

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