[PCR-1000] pour HF performance

Mon Sep 13 11:45:18 EDT 2004

Hi Bryce,

Know exactly where you work.  Used to live in Waterkloof Ridge.  Thats quite
a daily drive for you :-)  I used to commute to my office in Bramfontein
from WKF daily as well.

Someone else gave me a site for downloading the service manual, which I will
do a bit later.

I dont have any computer that has Win-95 on it.  All three are using
Win-XP-Pro as its O/S.

The PCR-1000 runs on a 1.5 Ghz Pentium-4, with 1 Gb of RAMBUS RAM, and dual
120 Gb hard disks.

One undocumented feature in BON 4.5 is that it has 2 scanners.  If you left
click you mouse button on the frequency knob (top center), and hold it for
one revolution it will continue to scan in the direction you selected at the
IF you chose.  A single click of the left button will stop it.  Click on the
right button, and will drop to the next lowest IF bandwidth, but will not
coutinue scanning automatically when you release the button.  It works well
with the spectrum display, but is not as powerful as the one in the lower
right of your screen.

Also found a "glitch".  If you add a line to the frequency table its on the
bottom of the table, it wont re-sort until you pick another sort method,
then switch back to the original mode (I usually sort by "service", ie:
audio, RTTY, Fax, etc).

I had the ICOM 2.2 software lockup on squelch.  It wouldnt turn off, no
matter what I did.  ICOM emailed me that they had no fix.  So I did a
un-install, and re-installed it.  That fixed the problem.

Regards, RJ

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bryce Ringwood" <BRingwoo at csir.co.za>
To: <pcr-1000 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Monday, September 13, 2004 10:11 AM
Subject: Re: [PCR-1000] pour HF performance

> Hi RJ and all,
>
> I work in Pretoria at CSIR in Lynnwood and "stay" in Johannesburg (as
> they put it here - I'm originally from the UK.)
>
> We have a good support infrastructure here, and my friendly local
> dealer sold me a print of the manual for R50 - about $8.00.  I have some
> .tif's of the block diagram. (ftp://csir.co.za/Transportek/Bryce) You
> would also need a program called EX2099, which works under Windows 95 in
> conjunction with that lab. standard signal generator to realign the
> set.
>
> Yep. I see that up to 50 mHZ they switch in broad band filters into an
> RF amp IC. Above that, they have 4 separate tuned amps for the
> 50-15,150-360,350-700 and 700-1300 MHz bands. All of my solid-state
> radios overload with a decent aerial - my home made one too.
>
> Lightning and static can selectively destroy the RF amps, leaving one
> or more bands dead.
>
> (Hmm. Didn't mean to be depressing. A few owners have managed to repair
> the sets themselves.)
>
> 73s - Bryce
>
>
> >>> rgrasser at frontiernet.net 2004/09/13 14:10:23 >>>
> Bryce,
>
> Where abouts in ZS-land are you?  My XYL is from a suburb of PTA.
>
> Service manual?  Where did you get that from?   That would indeed be
> handy,
> just to see whats in "the box " :-)
>
> If Matty's receiver is still in warranty, ICOM will do a free
> re-alignment
> if you get a return authorization from their website in the US.
>
> East/West DX on 20 M is good in our early AM.  W6's all over the place
> :-)
>
> I agree, a "chunk" of copper wire (33 foot is a good length) should get
> him
> all sorts of stations if the receiver is aligned properly.
>
> He might also want to add an inexpensive preselector (MFG-1045C) if
> any
> powerful broadcast stations are close to him, as their images,
> harmonics,
> etc can really de-sense the frontend of the PCR1000.
>
> Regards, RJ
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bryce Ringwood" <BRingwoo at csir.co.za>
> To: <pcr-1000 at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Monday, September 13, 2004 3:59 AM
> Subject: Re: [PCR-1000] pour HF performance
>
>
> > Hi Matty,
> >
> > Its possible for the RF stage on HF to degrade, whilst other bands
> > higher up the spectrum are OK. The PCR1000 uses separate RF stages
> for
> > each band. From memory, the first stage operates from 0 to 50 MHz.
> Its
> > hard to say what you should and shouldn't be able to receive
> depending
> > on your qth, but with even a short outdoor aerial of a few metres,
> you
> > should be getting some DX on 20 metres (occurs in the late afternoon
> in
> > S Africa). You should hear WWV on 10 MHz anyway. You should also be
> able
> > to receive aerial noise in the absence of a station.
> >
> > Check your aerial connectors - I spent about an hour trying to
> figure
> > out why my R390 had gone dead until I found one of the BNC
> connectors
> > had come adrift.
> >
> > A thorough check on the Rx needs a really good signal generator and
> > check against the specs in the service manual.
> >
> > Hope this helps.
> > Regards - Bryce
> >
> > >>> matty.robbins at intel.com 2004/09/12 16:33:50 >>>
> > Hi All
> > I am connected with the Radio shack discone antenna. My RF
> > performances
> > is really bad and I can not receive even one ham or sea to land
> > transmissions. I only receive very strong SW signals. Are there any
> > beacons that I can test my reception?   I have a bad feeling that
> some
> > thing is wrong on the SW bands on my receiver. On VHF and UHF the
> > reception is ok. Is the SW condition fading with time? I use to
> > listing
> > to SW like 10-15 years ago and it seems that then there was much
> more
> > to
> > hear? I must say that then I used a Collins 51S.
> > One more question is there a program that can tell me what is the
> best
> > band to listing to according to propagation conditions?
> >
> > Thanks
> > Matty
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