RadioBanter - Opto Scout Opinions Wanted

Found this elsewhe-

Well first of all you need to know about the most common problems with
the Scout.

1. If you leave in continuously powered from a 12 volt supply day in
day out as I did in mar car glove box you will knacker the internal
Nicad battery pack. 12volts is fine for fast charging, and for that to
work properly you need to be able to supply 12 volts at 1.5 Amps. So
small ‘wall wart' type DC supplies are usually not suitable. If you
want to leave it permanently powered from an external source use an
external 8 volt regulator.

2. The input stages are very sensitive to high levels of RF or
electrostatic discharge. Fit a couple of back to back diodes or a
small choke across the BNC connector to prevent the input RF amp from
popping off. You can tell if your Scout has been blown up fairly
easily. Switch it to normal frequency counter mode with no antenna
connected, it should be giving random readings around a certain part
of a frequency band. Now connect an antenna, the frequency readings
should be quite different 10 or more MHz away) . If they aren't then
it is more than likely that you have a problem.

3. The interboard plug and socket connectors go intermittent after a
while. If you have this problem then try resoldering the board
connections whilst the two boards are plugged together. This re-flows
the tinning on the mating contacts of the connectors and should cure
the problem.

Next you need to know how to maximise the sensitivity to get the best
results.

The Scout is a broadband device it receives all signals in the
30-1300MHz range and tries to make sense of them. In order to do this
the wanted signal has to be about 20dB stronger than the background
noise (all the unwanted signals mushing around). If you look on a
spectrum analyser the strongest signals in an urban area are likely to
be in order of magnitude, Band II FM broadcasts, 225MHz DAB
Multiplexes, UHF TV channels, 153MHz paging, 138MHz paging, 466MHz
paging . So in order to improve the results you need to remove as much
of the unwanted stuff as possible.

The easiest way to do this is to use an antenna tuned to the bands of
interest or feed it via a band pass filter. When I have the Scout in
my pocket I use a short 4" dual band antenna which has a deep notch in
its performance at Band II (88-108MHz) This gives good rejection of
broadcast signals and is reasonably good for 150 and 450MHz. Bigger
antennas provide too high a signal level from Broadcast stations and
so actually reduce the detection range. In the car or when I connect
it to a roof mounted antenna I connect a Band II notch, 500MHz low
pass filter and 153MHz notch inline with the antenna. This gives very
good results and I can sometimes detect base stations at 1-2Miles
away.

I also have an OptoXplorer but I really wouldn't recommend it. It is
sensitive and you can lock out annoying frequencies, but you still
need to remove as many unwanted signals as possible, to get the best
results. Also the constantly varying audio level from it as it
receives broadcast signals with high levels of deviation and then PMR
signals with low levels is very annoying. I think a Scout reaction
tuning a radio would be a much better idea, especially if like the
AOR's you have the internal band plan switching enabled.

Not my comments UKM

"DeWayne" wrote in message ...
Would appreciate any pros or cons about the Opto Scout. I plan to use it for
reaction tuning with my Icom R10. What about the new digital Scout? Public
or private opinions welcome. Thanks!!!!!

DeWayne K9KZ