[Kenwood] Yes! - Kenwood SM-220 Station Monitor is a great way to

[k5uj at mc.net]

I'm sure the kenwood station scope accessory is nice to have, but is it still being made?  if so, what does it cost?
I saw a used one for sale last summer at AES Milwaukee and I think they wanted around $850 or $900 for it.  For a nonessential station accessory, that seems like a hell of a lot of money for what seems to me to be a specialized oscilloscope.  If it were generic enough to work with a wide variety of rigs I'd think differently about it.
what would be needed in the way of external circuitry to get a scope to do what a sm220 does?

rob/k5uj, cheap ham.

-----Original Message-----
From: wd8arz at ix.netcom.com
To: k5uj at mc.net
Sent: Mar 12, 2005  8:37 PM 
Subject: [Kenwood] Yes! - Kenwood SM-220 Station Monitor is a great way to

Conrad, once you use a SM-220 with the Panadapter installed, you are in for 
a new enjoyable way of linking up to the 'ether'. Not even covering the 
other aspects of the SM-220 scope, but focusing on panadapter spectrum view 
only, makes the ownership of this grand piece of equipment a fortunate 
experience. Keep in mind that the IF connection point in the first IF must 
be wide and not limited by a front end roofing filter, or the panadapter 
feature is useless.

For those that can integrate what they see on the display, tune on their 
radio, and hear with their ears, the world of exploring radio gets changed 
forever. It is difficult to do with out this added dimension to our 
enjoyable hobby that explores what is out there, once you have opened the 
door and stepped through it with this visual add on. It becomes special to 
find that elusive special signal, to feel connected to world that we explore 
with our minds through our senses, not just hearing, but also now with our 
eyes.

Adding this visual mode to the tuning listening experience, is a added 
dimension that gives much more to the exploration of the radio spectrum. It 
can help absorb you into 'being out there' from your arm chair. How? Simply 
by expanding the bandwidth of the information that is going on around the 
area you are tuning, you will find much that is going on that is simply not 
detectable from the narrow slice of the spectrum you tune through.

Much of the utility stations, military broadcasts, and even laid back 
conversations with lots of pauses, are easily tuned through with even 
knowing the frequency is active. However with the spectrum display, you see 
signals pop up above and below the slice you are on, or tuning through. You 
instantly know which way to tune, and how far, to catch those elusive 
signals. Even if they are quiet when you tune to that general spot, you now 
are on a quest and will get them on a future transmission. By having the 
graticule in place, you can actually adjust the span of the display to allow 
calibration of the marks to represent frequency units. By noting where the 
signal was that popped up, you can actually add or subtract that amount to 
your display, and tune so close to the actual frequency, that you only have 
to do a fine tune on the next transmission to captured that signal.

The finding of active transmissions improved significantly with this visual 
aid. It is a must have for tuning the shortwave spectrum with the multitude 
of signals and modes to discover.

With practice, you will recognize the mode type of a signal, you will see 
sweepers moving up and down the band. You can actually see where the tuner 
upper moving around the dial found a spot to roost and is calling cq.

On wide mode, you can see the condition of the band. By seeing how much 
energy is above the base line for the whole spectrum, it provides a good 
indication of propagation condition. You can see how tight an antenna is by 
the decreasing signal strength around the listening sweet spot. Of course 
you can see how wide a signal is, and if it is related to the splatter your 
hearing ........ gosh, once you get absorbed into the panadapter display 
experience, it becomes so natural to relate what you see to what you hear, 
or will hear by tuning with the added information you now have about what is 
going on around the frequency of interest. Your situational awareness goes 
way way up!!! ... and with that, your enjoyment of a great hobby.

For the ham bands, it is a god send to see where the open spots are for a 
qsy, to look for transmissions of interesting to discover, to see those 
sudden meteor scatter signals pop on, and then fade out ..... I could go on 
and on.

The experience that is had with a spectrum scope is only limited by the user