[Premium-Rx] Receiver RF video questions

[Ed Tanton]

I can tackle some of these. Keep in mind my perspective is the 
FRG-9600 Scanner 
<http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/scanners/frg9600.html>. I 
have 2 of these, like them very much by the way, and have the 
internal Yaesu video adapter in both. The output from that is 
composite video. Not exactly HD, but quite useable.

There are two video standards you want to know about: PAL and NTSC. I 
believe the fundamental difference in the two is because of AC line 
frequency difference, e.g. USA=60 Hz and EUR=50Hz. The Yaesu FRG-9600 
manual (found at: http://www.kb2ljj.com/data/yaesu/frg-9600.htm#1932 
) says this about it's video:


21. VIDEO

This RCA jack provides baseband video output (approx. 1V p-p) when 
the optional Video Unit is installed in the receiver. Use this jack 
for connection to a video monitor.

22. TV AGC (Potentiometer)

This control allows adjustment of the video Automatic Gain Control 
which provides constant level video output with varying received 
signal levels when the optional Video Unit is installed.

Finally, way back when I worked for TEK in the 70s, they had several 
video monitors and waveform monitors-such as the 525, 528, & 529. I 
believe you could probably learn a LOT just from reading one of those 
manuals-although I couldn't find a FREE PDF for one of those. For 
folks in Australia ("ONLY") you might ask at: 
http://www.vk1.wia.ampr.org/test_gear_list.htm .

Next, lets talk about video manipulation. One choice you have is to 
use a video card that accepts Composite or (even better) S-Video, and 
allows you to both save and manipulate images. I'm going to exclude 
'live' video here because my experiences are strictly limited to 
freezing and saving such images. A company names Hauppauge makes a 
number of products that will do this very easily for you. 
Specifically their Impact VCB and 401 Series video cards will accept 
either Composite or S-Video and bring it into your PC. I THINK the 
Hauppauge cards will do things with live video as AVI files-but have 
never worked with them in that manner. My company (Kodak Dental 
Systems) takes certain S-Video (or Composite) signals from Intra-Oral 
Video Cameras, freezes and then saves them as JPG images. Specific to 
our Imaging and Practice Management programs, we specify Hauppauge 
for such applications, and are quite pleased with them: 
http://www.hauppauge.com/ . The boards we use may be found under PCI 
cards in Products. You might prefer others. And of course, there are 
lots of other mfgrs of such products.

Finally, as far as spectrum analysis is concerned, these are fairly 
complex signals. You CAN learn to recognize what a TV station looks 
like by putting an antenna on your SA and looking at the frequencies 
your local TV stations are on. Not very useful I suspect, but you can 
actually see the modulation products, sidebands, etc.

Never be embarrassed about asking questions like this. It leads to a 
string of answers where people can relate what they know, and 
everyone gains in the process.



Ed Tanton

website: http://www.n4xy.com

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