Dawn
Member
There were a few service monitors and test equipment that used a scanner as the heart of the instrument.. The only ones that I know of were Helper Instrument's SM-512 which used an original Electra Bearcat 210XL inside and Automated Industrial Engineering/Measurements made one based on a later Uniden Bearcat Mobile chasis.
Before the Helper SM-512, Helper made an external Modulation Monitor which was a box with two meters that read frequency error, deviation, modulation density(compression) with a neat set level deviation indicator using a scanner off the air. This unit gave way to the SM-512 that added an offset generator/amplifier/attenuator to get a calibrated rf output. These two are the only ones I've ever seen and worked with. These were neat, but limited to the scanner bands and images. They allowed off the air measurements at a time when most service monitors had either broadband mixers or tuned front end plug ins that still were limited in sensitivity.
There were also some test sets made around CB radios as an alternative to the B&K,Sencore,Hickock, and Lampkin 109.
Anyone remember any of these? Were there any others? I've always wondered what other companies tried this route.
Before the Helper SM-512, Helper made an external Modulation Monitor which was a box with two meters that read frequency error, deviation, modulation density(compression) with a neat set level deviation indicator using a scanner off the air. This unit gave way to the SM-512 that added an offset generator/amplifier/attenuator to get a calibrated rf output. These two are the only ones I've ever seen and worked with. These were neat, but limited to the scanner bands and images. They allowed off the air measurements at a time when most service monitors had either broadband mixers or tuned front end plug ins that still were limited in sensitivity.
There were also some test sets made around CB radios as an alternative to the B&K,Sencore,Hickock, and Lampkin 109.
Anyone remember any of these? Were there any others? I've always wondered what other companies tried this route.