[Premium-Rx] Watkins Johnson WJ8690A/MCR

[David I. Emery]

On Sun, Jul 04, 2010 at 11:10:08PM +0930, Berndt Josef Wulf wrote:
> G'day David,
> 
> many thanks for a very comprehensive description of this receiver. It surely 
> sports some very impressive features. From your notes I take it that this 
> receiver was only a very small part of a much larger system.

	Not really part of a larger system (except in the sense of the
interconnected NSA octopus)  - when attached to a laptop or PC with the
right (and unavailable to civilians) software it was fully capable of
capturing targeted calls on (now obsolete) analog cell systems and
recording them to a DAT tape drive.

	The MCT box is, of course, only 70 MHz input without the tuner and
actually won't boot without a tuner attached.   You do need both halves.


> AFAIK, my receiver only covers the 25-1100MHz spectrum. The intentions are to 
> use it for amateur radio astronomy and to monitor VHF/UHF HAM-radio repeaters. 
> As such, I only need frequency, mode, bandwidth, PREAMP/ATT and AGC control - 
> anything else would be a bonus. Has anyone managed to control this receiver to 
> some extend using a PC? If so, I would love to hear from you. 

	It might well work for that quite successfully, though I would not
think of a narrow band receiver like it as ideal for radio astronomy.
It is a nice receiver for ham, aircraft, and public safety though.

	And in answer to your question - yes folks have.



-- 
  Dave Emery N1PRE/AE, die at dieconsulting.com  DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass 02493
"An empty zombie mind with a forlorn barely readable weatherbeaten
'For Rent' sign still vainly flapping outside on the weed encrusted pole - in 
celebration of what could have been, but wasn't and is not to be now either."