The perfect HF tranceiver

[DEVANS at lynx.colorado.edu]

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>Date: Tue, 05 Jul 1994 11:18:12 -0600
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>From: evans at jupiter (D. R. Evans)
>Subject: Re: The perfect HF tranceiver
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>                In Response to Requests For The Perfect HF
>                              Tranceiver
>    To date perhaps the best HF tranceivers offered were that of 10 years
>ago. The venerable TS-930S and TS-940S remain today as perhaps the radios of
>choice with the FT-1000, TS-950SDX, TS-850S, IC751A and IC-765 being good
>enough to cut the grade. All of these radios offer things wanted and needed
>by the active contester. Features such as: RF speech processor, transmit
>monitor, QSK, adjustable noise blanker, TX audio tailoring, good
>selectivity, passband/variable bandwidth tuning, notch, IF shift, simple
>crossband operation, good 2nd and 3rd order intercept points, with lower
>phase noise and high dynamic range desirable.

I have one of these ancient 930 things, and I must say that, having operated 
a variety of newer rigs over the years (mostly, I admit, at multi-ops at 
N2IC's under less than optimal conditions for getting to know the ins and 
outs of rigs), I would not exchange it for a newer rig, despite the 
maintenance problems and glitches that occur with an older rig.

For a long time I have had a question that no one has been able to answer 
authoritatively, and perhaps there is someone here who can give me such an 
answer. The 930 is digital, right? (In the sense that it is micro 
controlled.) Why then is there no sort of computer interface for it? 
Granted, it would not be possible to do all the fancy stuff that modern rigs 
can do under computer control, but surely it should be possible for some 
bright ham to come up with an interface that permits reading and commanding 
the frequencies of the VFOs. Yet, as far as I know, this has never been 
done. Can someone please tell me why this is so?

This lack of computer control is, as far as I am concerned, the _only_ major 
negative on the 930.

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Doc Evans NQ0I/G4AMJ : devans at orion.colorado.edu
                       al019 at freenet.hsc.colorado.edu
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