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