[Elecraft] P3: Can the Panadapter be used with a Ten Tec Orion 1?

Mon Oct 24 17:22:56 EDT 2011

If you protect the P3 input with some back to back diodes,  put a piece of
wire on the IF input,  dial up the P3 IF to the the freq you wish to 
listen to,  and the P3
will show you the received signal.
I think the caveat is to protect the input to the P3 or you will burn it 
up..

Merv K9FD/KH6

> Hi Don:
>
> Thanks for the response.
>
> Maybe Im not clear regarding what Im trying to do.
>
> I have a dozen TenTec Orion 1's at a multi multi operation I
> play at.  Im tasked with "standardizing" the audio
> parameters for this operation in regards to compression and
> frequency response before CQ WW SSB.  We want to make sure
> that all the rigs sound as good as they can sound and have
> consistent levels.  People play with these radios over the
> ensuing months, so they are usually diddled to death by the
> time I get there.
>
> I have done this in the past "by ear".  That is, I have
> plugged a given rig into a dummy load and diddled with the
> audio settings until I got it to sound "right".  I wrote
> down all the settings and went to another radio.  I set that
> radio on a dummy load and input all the settings I wrote
> down on the first radio.  I used the same microphone, the
> same audio path and made sure the radios were at the same
> software revision.  Lo and behold, the second radio sounds
> different than the first with exactly the same numbers in
> the software!  I have found in practice that no two Orions
> sound the same, using exactly the same numbers and exactly
> the same microphone and exactly the same voice (mine).
>
> What I want to do is inject pink noise from a Flash Memory
> WAV player that has a track from the NAB Audio Reference
> disk.  I have the WAV player set to loop the file forever.
> Feeding it through a Radio Design Labs line level to mic
> level amplifier block, the level coming out is 0 VU mic
> level at a nominal 600 ohms impedance.  I want to feed this
> into the mic input of the Transceiver under Test and, with a
> "spectrum analyser" looking at the output of the audio
> monitor circuit (yes, not ideal, but it gets me in the
> ballpark) "see" where Im at.  I trust my ears, but it would
> be nice to be able to see the waveform on the SA.  Knowing
> where I am at, I can then adjust the rig's settings and even
> "pre-distort" the audio input from external processing
> (several transceivers are driven through W2IHY processors)
> to optimize drive, punch and inteligibility.
>
> As I said, I have done this "by ear" in the past.  But now I
> have a P3.  I can do exactly the same thing on my personal
> K3 by disconnecting the serial connection.  I can then see
> the output of the rig in the P3 via IF leakage, and I was
> able to look at what pink noise looks like at my personal
> station and the effect of applying EQ to the pink noise
> VISUALLY on the P3. I could do what I have to do faster on
> the Orions if I could SEE the waveforms.  It would save me
> time I can use otherwise at this station.
>
> What I would like to know is if the P3 can, using any IF
> leakage from the Orion's IF out, do the same thing as I can
> do on my K3. Im not looking for any laboratory grade results
> here, Im just looking for a ballpark image of the modulation
> envelope that includes frequency domain information so I can
> judge the "flatness" (or lack thereof) of the audio
> frequency response of a given Orion rig.  This way, I can
> twiddle the knobs and "match" the rigs as closely as
> possible to a "consistent" starting point since the same
> identical numbers dont seem to have indentical results
> across Orions as they do on K3's.  If the numbers gave
> repeatable results across several Orions, I wouldnt have to
> do this! I would just input the numbers into all the rigs
> and have a consistent starting point for tweaking.
>
> I want to use what I have on hand, I dont want to go out and
> spend money or time building things.  If I was still at my
> old TV station, I would borrow the Tek Spectrum Analyser at
> the transmitter, or the Anchor audio analyser at the studio
> and be done with it, but I dont work there anymore and dont
> have access to these tools, so I wanted to use what I had on
> hand.
>
> Guess I will just have to try it and see if it works!  Or
> maybe I will look on the web for a freeware or shareware
> audio baseband spectrum analyser which runs on a PC laptop
> which I can then plug into the headphone output of a given
> Orion and observe the waveform there.
>
> I was just curious if someone had used the P3 for something
> like this in the past.
>
> -lu-w4lt-
>
> Message: 17
> Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 23:40:35 -0400
> From: Don Wilhelm<w3fpr at embarqmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] P3: Can the Panadapter be used with
> a Ten Tec
>      Orion 1?
> To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
> Message-ID:<4EA4DE33.6020402 at embarqmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Lu,
>
> I don't like to discourage list members away from Elecraft
> products, but
> I do not know if the P3 will do the task you are asking
> about - it
> depends on what other equipment you have to use along with
> the P3.  Yes,
> the P3 can do the job IF you have the other equipment to run
> it for your
> immediate purposes.
>
> I would suggest that you also investigate the "Simple
> Spectrum Analyzer"
> by G4AON used in conjunction with Spectrogram or SpectrumLab
> or other
> computer based FFT audio spectrum analyzer.
> You can find information on the resistive tap and the mixer
> at
> http://www.astromag.co.uk/ssa/.  This is an adaptation of
> the 40 dB
> resistive tap from the W7ZOI Power Meter along with a mixer
> to bring the
> signal down to baseband where it can be analyzed with an
> audio FFT
> spectrum analyzer.
>
> 73,
> Don W3FPR
>
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