michaelscoofield
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- Apr 12, 2020
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Thank you, Justin. I am looking for them, problem is that both radios as same as the IC-208 is absurdly overpriced and incl. the VAT and tax it raises to unacceptable prices. :-[
Best radio for Air band?
- Thread starter michaelscoofield
- Start date
Has anyone used the CCrane Skywave SSB2 radio as a scanner for the aviation bands? It says you can store 10 frequencies for scanning but I would like to know how well it works? When it scans does it work like a regular modern scanner?
I have the Skywave SSB2. It is a great portable shortwave, AM/FM, and weather radio. Air band, not so much. Using this radio as a scanner for air band, you will surely be disappointed. Get yourself and ICOM R-6 (about the same price) You will be much happier.
rf_patriot200
Active Member
IF you can find a Uniden 780xlt, they are a well known favorite for Both civilian and Military Aircraft.
For civilian AIR an Icom IC-A110 is a good radio (transceiver). You can find them used for around $300 or so.
I use one for local monitoring as well as one feeding LiveATC. I have them paired with a Sirio GP-108 antenna up 45 feet on the tower The GP-108 has about a 2 in radiator which I guess is why they can cover the entire 108-137 spectrum. Combo is hard to beat!
....DOUG
KD4MOJ
KB2GOM
Active Member
I have both the R6 and the Skywave SSB2. Skywave scans, but slowly. The R6 is really fast, and I really like it for airband, but it is a sunuvagun to program manually. I used the RT software.
Ubbe
Member
A look in its schematics shows two varicap tuned filters in its front end followed by a GaAs transistor with a 2dB noise figure and then two more varicap tuned filters. A very good receiver design.
The IC-208 use a 1dB noise figure GaAs.
For the BC780 it uses two varicap filters for VHF air and also for VHF-Hi followed by two 1dB noise figure transistors and then directly to its mixer. Many years ago I managed to listen to some US east coast transmitters in VHF-Lo using a 780 during the max sun spot cycle. When I move the coax to another scanner there where no trace of any signal even with the squelch open. Moving the coax back to the 780 then had the signal come back again. It's a simple lowpass filter in the 780 for VHF-Lo.
/Ubbe
Good to hear about the 780! I just acquired one of them last week but I hadn't had time to get it setup yet. I'll definitely have to compare to the A110.
...DOUG
KD4MOJ
michaelscoofield
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OK guys, monitoring station is almost completed. Antenna is in place 12m high on the tower incl. all filters and pre-amp then LMR400 coax feed line down to shack where FT-350E and borrowed FT-90 are connected yet. (Icom 208 is not available on the classifieds market...)
Multi-channel air traffic reception is now in temporary mode only with 3 different channels at the same time.
It sounds good. I am surprised how good performer is FT-90 micro-commander on air band...
-m
Multi-channel air traffic reception is now in temporary mode only with 3 different channels at the same time.
It sounds good. I am surprised how good performer is FT-90 micro-commander on air band...
-m
Ubbe
Member
Pulling out the schematics for Yaesu FT-90 shows a receiver design that pretty much are a copy of Icoms. First a lowpass filter to cut out UHF and then two varicap filters at the front end followed by a 1,5dB noise figure mos fet transistor and then three varicap filters in series going to the mixer that are a double gate GaAs transistor with a less than 1dB noise figure.I am surprised how good performer is FT-90 micro-commander on air band...
It should be an excellent VHF receiver. One concern could be that the schematic shows a filter capacitor for the VCO voltage to get rid of the jitter noise from the PLL signal, but that capacitor are marked with three asterisks and can not be found in the parts list or on the circuit board. It will change frequency and scan faster without that capacitor but will also generate a constant background noise regardless of how strong the RF signal are.
/Ubbe
michaelscoofield
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So many thanks for your information about the FE design. I really appreciate it! It looks as good FE design and it is probably explaining good performance on the air. I'm curious if there will be any unwanted signal interference or cross-modulation, but so far, I haven't noticed anything like that even with this large antenna and preamplifier setup.
My friend, also air band traffic monitoring enthusiast and pilot, is using his FTM-6000 and new FTM-150RASP and he is satisfied on air band. That's why he lent me his older FT-90. So, I would be very interested to see if the design of these new radios is better than the FT-90 from 1999...
My first impression is that the FT-90 has a bit narrower the IF filter on AM then the new radios but it is just based on few hours of listening at his shack and then at mine...
-m
Ubbe
Member
The FT-90 uses a 12KHz filter for AM. I haven't found any schematics for Yaesu's newer radios. Uniden scanners use for some reason 25KHz filters for AM when they all also have 12KHz filters, even the BC780 use its 25KHz filter for AM. Unidens SDS100 use a DSP and that are set to a more correct 9KHz filter bandwidth and has an excellent audio quality in AM. Too bad that its RF receiver isn't at the same level.
Scanners use a fixed bandpass filter, Uniden usually 108-137MHz and Whistlers TRX 108-200MHz but are also used to receive down to 75MHz signals so are not very effective and makes it perform badly in VHF. The BC780 and those HAM radios mentioned use varicap filters, a voltage controlled capacitor that tunes a more narrow filter to follow the monitored frequency.
/Ubbe
michaelscoofield
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I realized that FT-90 has announced on RigPix BW 12/24kHz for -6/-60dB while other radios have 12/30kHz for -6/-60dB. Should it be the reason for my better feeling maybe?
I'll second the vote for the 780. Mine is superb for Air Band monitoring. IMHO, still the best scanner Uniden produced. Simple, sensitive, selective and reliable. The Service Search is a great feature for finding active frequencies in your area.
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Alain
Member
"(Icom 208 is not available on the classifieds market...)"OK guys, monitoring station is almost completed. Antenna is in place 12m high on the tower incl. all filters and pre-amp then LMR400 coax feed line down to shack where FT-350E and borrowed FT-90 are connected yet. (Icom 208 is not available on the classifieds market...)
Multi-channel air traffic reception is now in temporary mode only with 3 different channels at the same time.
It sounds good. I am surprised how good performer is FT-90 micro-commander on air band...
-m
Strange, I just picked up another one off of eBay this past month. Clean! No rust, no drips, no errors of any kind.
There are a few there right now...
Icom Ic-208h for sale | eBay
Get the best deals for Icom Ic-208h at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!
www.ebay.com
FFPM571
Member
For mobile use an ICOM A120 Is what I use.
I consider my BC 780/785, PRO-43, SDS200 as excellent performers. The BCT-15X is almost as good and the best bang for the (airband) buck in my opinion. The hand held BC125 and more costly BCD325P2 are good as well, but not in the same class with the 15X and the others. Programming software is available for all the Uniden radios and the ICOM as well. I don't own the ICOM but I'm sure it is also excellent if not superior as previously stated.
Equally if not more important will be your antenna and cable selections. I use RG-8X cable for VHF and more costly LMR-400 for UHF applications.
An extendable whip is a cost effective antenna to start with, extended to ¼ wave 22-24 inches for civ air band and ~10 inches for military air band. Inexpensive air band base j-poles, ¼ wave ground planes, and discone antennas are all available through Ebay and other vendors. I use bolt cutters to trim my discone and ground plane for desired civilian or military bands. I trimmed my TRAM discone for 125 Mhz and it performs very well throughout both civ and mil-air bands. The j-pole is excellent in civilian air. The ground planes are robust and easy to trim/tune for a particular frequency or band. Many people advocate for the DPD antennas, but I don't own one.
Mobile use is another consideration with a BNC mag mount antenna providing many affordable options. As others have mentioned, the Diamond RH-77 is a reasonable compromise for mobile or hand-held multi-band performance. You can use your mobile set-up indoors with a 16 in grated steel pizza pan from Walmart for ~ $5, as it will function as the ground plane.
-Bob
Just an example of my current set up so you see what we mean for decent ground plane using pizza or baking trays.
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The VHF ant feeding this TRX-1 which is actually decent on air!
michaelscoofield
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Thanks Bob.
Antenna is Diamond D-777 at 12m height on the tower incl. all elliptic BPF filters and low noise pre-amp then LMR400 coax feed line down to shack where FT-350E and borrowed FT-90 are connected yet. (Icom 208 is not available on the EU classifieds market for reasonable prices...)
Multi-channel air traffic reception is now in temporary mode - only with 3 different channels at the same time.
The ADS-B and other stuffs will be added later...
-m
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