A question on the display of the Arduino ATS20 mini HF receiver.

[davidv555]

Hello all,

I saw this mini HF receiver on youtube. It's more of a hobbyist type of HF receiver.

On the bottom right corner on the display is something like S:3 80%. What does that mean? I've searched online and youtube and there is no answer.

This HF receiver is made in china and includes no manual. I'm guessing signal strength but not sure. If you have one or you can see a youtube video
on this receiver and know what it means, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks

 

[majoco]

I bought an ATS-25 max a few weeks ago and it's brilliant in what it can do, but still not a substitute for a 'proper' communications receiver. They do include a very brief manual but it's just a broad brush over the operation. It's very sensitive - in fact too sensitive as it overloads easily on my loop - the inbuilt attenuator acts more like an RF gain and the AGC (thankfully it can be turned off) is too quick to return to full gain and brings up the background noise between words on SSB. I have a step attenuator in the antenna lead which stays on -20dB or even more. I can get WWVH on 5MHz on the whip antenna - that's an indication of its sensitivity. There is a pseudo spectrum analyser which it quite useful but it's best use is for the HF broadcast bands, a memory system which was stuffed with European VHF frequencies which I had delete one at a time! To quote some tennis player - "you can NOT be serious"!

 

[davidv555]

I bought an ATS-25 max a few weeks ago and it's brilliant in what it can do, but still not a substitute for a 'proper' communications receiver. They do include a very brief manual but it's just a broad brush over the operation. It's very sensitive - in fact too sensitive as it overloads easily on my loop - the inbuilt attenuator acts more like an RF gain and the AGC (thankfully it can be turned off) is too quick to return to full gain and brings up the background noise between words on SSB. I have a step attenuator in the antenna lead which stays on -20dB or even more. I can get WWVH on 5MHz on the whip antenna - that's an indication of its sensitivity. There is a pseudo spectrum analyser which it quite useful but it's best use is for the HF broadcast bands, a memory system which was stuffed with European VHF frequencies which I had delete one at a time! To quote some tennis player - "you can NOT be serious"!

Thanks for the reply. I'm still thinking about this mini hf receiver. It has more cons than pros. You are right it is very sensitive to overloads. the ats-20 has lots of shuffling as you rotate the tuning kbob.

If one is a serious DXer to SW/HF. This is not a good choice. But it's ok for the casual SW listener who just wants a radio.

 

[majoco]

Another test of the sensitivity of the ATS25 max - at 0500z/1700local Shannon Volmet was S9 100% readable which compared very well against my JVC NRD515 - I'm very happy with the "toy"!
I think the 'shuffling' you and I get is when the RF filters in the front end get switched from one to the next, maybe leaving the AGC line with no signal so it goes to full gain - if you go slowly across the step it doesn't make that noise. The only time I have the AGC selected 'on' is when I'm on AM or something that is continuous like Wefax.