[Kenwood] SM-220 VS SM-230 etc etc

[Fern Rivard]

I have a couple of the Kenwood SM-220 monitor scopes  and I must remind you 
that this particular unit is NOT tube version but is also solid state just 
like the SM-230 version!
Fern



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "WD8ARZ" <wd8arz at ix.netcom.com>
To: <kenwood at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2005 5:39 PM
Subject: [Kenwood] SM-220 VS SM-230 etc etc


> The impression made from a lot of posts over the years, has been that the 
> solid state version of the SM-220, the SM-230, did not perform as well as 
> expected for a newer more expensive scope / panadapter. There were a lot 
> of complaints about drift with the 230. Many preferred the tube version, 
> SM-220 over the replacement solid state version.
>
> No mistake about it, neither of these pieces of equipment were ever 
> intended to be compared to commercial spectrum scopes or panadapters.
>
> However in the amateur hobby world, they are great visual asset to those 
> that use them to expand their situational awareness of what is going on 
> around the frequency that they are listening to, or tuning through. It 
> virtually opens up a bandwidth of information that exceeds what is being 
> heard / seen at the speaker output. That this is an asset is undeniable to 
> those that integrates the big picture a panadapter display provides. It is 
> refreshing to see this feature showing up in more and more new rigs.
>
> Also note that from time to time there are comments about software that 
> tunes a rig's vfo and plots audio activity per frequency scanned on a 
> computer screen. The resultant display is not very representative of real 
> time situation. For fast results, large gaps are missed when scanning. For 
> more detail and finer frequency plotting, the time it takes to do the 
> scan, distorts the real time reality of what is going on considerably. The 
> display is a result of many slices of time, spread across the display, as 
> it takes a lot of time to scan the band this way. The best way to go is in 
> real time, is to use panadapters / spectrum scopes tapped into early stage 
> in the receivers I.F. before filters narrow down the usable range.
>
> 73 from Bill - WD8ARZ
>
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