Once I confirmed that the FA-7989 received well with a random crystal, I decided to take the opportunity to try the QRP Labs ProgRock2 as a "crystal substitute" to receive some local frequencies. I'd ordered several of these programmable oscillators and this was a good excuse to program one and see how it worked.
The tiny unit programmed easily via USB on my Windows 10 laptop. I set it up to run in place of the local oscillator on three of the local aviation frequencies. I hooked it up and was almost instantly hearing aero traffic.
One problem: self interference. The ProgRock2 had enough spurious outputs that it was interfering with the reception of the desired signals. I did not determine if the signals were spraying from the board or were present on the output - probably both. I met my goal of working with these programmable oscillators but in this VHF application I think the ProgRock2 will need to be in a shielded box with a filter on the output.
73 Steve WD8DAS
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Radio is your best entertainment value.
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