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Galaxy R-530 & Sony SW1
I just bought these two off Ebay and was wondering if anybody has any
experience with these two radios. I bought em both for obvious collector reasons. The R-530 has the Wadley loop circuit which I'm interested in. And I got the SW1 because it's one of the first micro portables with descent performance and I collect Sony's. I would like to find the Original Barlow Wadley XCR-30 someday. -- 73 and good DXing. Brian ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A lot of radios and 100' of rusty wire! Zumbrota, Southern MN Brian's Radio Universe http://webpages.charter.net/brianhill/ |
The Barlow-Wadley XCR-30 was an amazing radio in its day and well worth
adding to a collection. You can still find them in good condition in South Africa for about $80, but shipping costs to the USA would kill you. (probably $80/100!) -- John Plimmer, Montagu, Western Cape Province, South Africa South 33 d 47 m 32 s, East 20 d 07 m 32 s. RX Drake R8B, SW8 & ERGO software Sony 7600D GE SRIII BW XCR 30, Braun T1000, Sangean 818 & 803A. Hallicrafters SX-100, Eddystone 940 GE circa 50's radiogram Antenna's RF Systems DX 1 Pro, Datong AD-270 Kiwa MW Loop "Brian Hill" wrote in message ... I just bought these two off Ebay and was wondering if anybody has any experience with these two radios. I bought em both for obvious collector reasons. The R-530 has the Wadley loop circuit which I'm interested in. And I got the SW1 because it's one of the first micro portables with descent performance and I collect Sony's. I would like to find the Original Barlow Wadley XCR-30 someday. -- 73 and good DXing. Brian ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A lot of radios and 100' of rusty wire! Zumbrota, Southern MN Brian's Radio Universe http://webpages.charter.net/brianhill/ |
"Brian Hill" ) writes: I just bought these two off Ebay and was wondering if anybody has any experience with these two radios. I bought em both for obvious collector reasons. The R-530 has the Wadley loop circuit which I'm interested in. And I got the SW1 because it's one of the first micro portables with descent performance and I collect Sony's. I would like to find the Original Barlow Wadley XCR-30 someday. Look again, the Galaxy does not use a Wadley loop. It uses a phase locked loop synthesizer to generate the first local oscillator signal every 500KHz (or is it 1MHz in the Galaxy?). A Wadley loop, while providing the same overall effect, is a result of the right mixing, adding and subtracting, in the signal chain. What confuses people is that the design of the synthesizer in the Galaxy uses a similar bit to the Wadley, putting the reference frequency through a multiplier that puts out signals at every harmonic of that reference. IN the Wadley, that signal is used to generate the needed beat signals, in the Galaxy that signal is compared to the local oscillator in a phase detector to lock the local oscillator. Visually change the multiplier to a programmable divider chain, and in the Galaxy you'd have a more recognizeable synthesizer. It just came before programmable dividers were cost effective, just as the case with the National HRO-500, so they went with the muliplier, though there is a tradeoff in use and performance compared to a synthesizer with a programmable divider. Change the mulitplier in the Wadley to a divider, and the thing won't work at all. Michael |
"John Plimmer" wrote in message ... The Barlow-Wadley XCR-30 was an amazing radio in its day and well worth adding to a collection. You can still find them in good condition in South Africa for about $80, but shipping costs to the USA would kill you. (probably $80/100!) Hi John. I'll take one if you find it and give you a finders fee. Please remember me if you find one. -- 73 and good DXing. Brian ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A lot of radios and 100' of rusty wire! Zumbrota, Southern MN Brian's Radio Universe http://webpages.charter.net/brianhill/ EMAIL- (Hide the $100 to reply!) |
"Michael Black" wrote in message ... "Brian Hill" ) writes: I just bought these two off Ebay and was wondering if anybody has any experience with these two radios. I bought em both for obvious collector reasons. The R-530 has the Wadley loop circuit which I'm interested in. And I got the SW1 because it's one of the first micro portables with descent performance and I collect Sony's. I would like to find the Original Barlow Wadley XCR-30 someday. Look again, the Galaxy does not use a Wadley loop. It uses a phase locked loop synthesizer to generate the first local oscillator signal every 500KHz (or is it 1MHz in the Galaxy?). A Wadley loop, while providing the same overall effect, is a result of the right mixing, adding and subtracting, in the signal chain. What confuses people is that the design of the synthesizer in the Galaxy uses a similar bit to the Wadley, putting the reference frequency through a multiplier that puts out signals at every harmonic of that reference. IN the Wadley, that signal is used to generate the needed beat signals, in the Galaxy that signal is compared to the local oscillator in a phase detector to lock the local oscillator. Visually change the multiplier to a programmable divider chain, and in the Galaxy you'd have a more recognizeable synthesizer. It just came before programmable dividers were cost effective, just as the case with the National HRO-500, so they went with the muliplier, though there is a tradeoff in use and performance compared to a synthesizer with a programmable divider. Change the mulitplier in the Wadley to a divider, and the thing won't work at all. Michael Hum? I'm just going by what I read. Fred Ostermans book needs an update! Where did you get your info? The tech manual? Thanks -- 73 and good DXing. Brian ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A lot of radios and 100' of rusty wire! Zumbrota, Southern MN Brian's Radio Universe http://webpages.charter.net/brianhill/ EMAIL- (Hide the $100 to reply!) |
"Brian Hill" ) writes: Hum? I'm just going by what I read. Fred Ostermans book needs an update! Where did you get your info? The tech manual? Thanks The block diagram and the description in the review for the receiver in CQ magazine back in 1968; the receiver was on the cover. Plus, all the ads at the time never mentioned the Wadley loop. This is not the first time people have ascribed the Wadley to the Galaxy (and the HRO-500 for that matter). I've always assumed they didn't didn't grasp the differences and were making a leap based on some information. But if such a standard as Osterman's book makes the mistake, maybe everyone4 is getting the misinformation from that. Micahel |
"Michael Black" wrote in message news:cn89b9 The block diagram and the description in the review for the receiver in CQ magazine back in 1968; the receiver was on the cover. Plus, all the ads at the time never mentioned the Wadley loop. This is not the first time people have ascribed the Wadley to the Galaxy (and the HRO-500 for that matter). I've always assumed they didn't didn't grasp the differences and were making a leap based on some information. But if such a standard as Osterman's book makes the mistake, maybe everyone4 is getting the misinformation from that. Micahel I don't know? He doe's list lots of receivers in his book so there's bound to be a few mistakes. -- 73 and good DXing. Brian ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A lot of radios and 100' of rusty wire! Zumbrota, Southern MN Brian's Radio Universe http://webpages.charter.net/brianhill/ EMAIL- (Hide the $100 to reply!) |
Brian Hill wrote in message ... I just bought these two off Ebay and was wondering if anybody has any experience with these two radios. I bought em both for obvious collector reasons. The R-530 has the Wadley loop circuit which I'm interested in. And I got the SW1 because it's one of the first micro portables with descent performance and I collect Sony's. I would like to find the Original Barlow Wadley XCR-30 someday. Brian: The Sony SW1 is an excellent performer for its size. I took mine the world over and it served me just fine. There is a problem which plagues the little receiver and that is the decoupling capacitor in the audio amplifer---they need changing. Nearly every SW1 that I know of (including mine) required replacement of those capacitors---and the job is not for the faint of heart. The radio will play just fine with earbuds but with speaker it just makes a loud buzz. I wrote a detailed service note that I posted to this newsgroup about two or three years ago---do a search under SW1 and RadioGuy and I think you will find it. RG |
"RadioGuy" wrote in message ... Brian Hill wrote in message ... I just bought these two off Ebay and was wondering if anybody has any experience with these two radios. I bought em both for obvious collector reasons. The R-530 has the Wadley loop circuit which I'm interested in. And I got the SW1 because it's one of the first micro portables with descent performance and I collect Sony's. I would like to find the Original Barlow Wadley XCR-30 someday. Brian: The Sony SW1 is an excellent performer for its size. I took mine the world over and it served me just fine. There is a problem which plagues the little receiver and that is the decoupling capacitor in the audio amplifer---they need changing. Nearly every SW1 that I know of (including mine) required replacement of those capacitors---and the job is not for the faint of heart. The radio will play just fine with earbuds but with speaker it just makes a loud buzz. I wrote a detailed service note that I posted to this newsgroup about two or three years ago---do a search under SW1 and RadioGuy and I think you will find it. RG Hi RG. Yes I've saved your service notes. I think a lot of the early Sony's had cap problems. I've fixed two Pro80s that had cap problems too. Thanks B.H. |
In article ,
Brian Hill wrote: "Michael Black" wrote in message ... "Brian Hill" ) writes: I just bought these two off Ebay and was wondering if anybody has any experience with these two radios. I bought em both for obvious collector reasons. The R-530 has the Wadley loop circuit which I'm interested in. And I got the SW1 because it's one of the first micro portables with descent performance and I collect Sony's. I would like to find the Original Barlow Wadley XCR-30 someday. Look again, the Galaxy does not use a Wadley loop. It uses a phase locked loop synthesizer to generate the first local oscillator signal every 500KHz (or is it 1MHz in the Galaxy?). A Wadley loop, while providing the same overall effect, is a result of the right mixing, adding and subtracting, in the signal chain. What confuses people is that the design of the synthesizer in the Galaxy uses a similar bit to the Wadley, putting the reference frequency through a multiplier that puts out signals at every harmonic of that reference. IN the Wadley, that signal is used to generate the needed beat signals, in the Galaxy that signal is compared to the local oscillator in a phase detector to lock the local oscillator. Visually change the multiplier to a programmable divider chain, and in the Galaxy you'd have a more recognizeable synthesizer. It just came before programmable dividers were cost effective, just as the case with the National HRO-500, so they went with the muliplier, though there is a tradeoff in use and performance compared to a synthesizer with a programmable divider. Change the mulitplier in the Wadley to a divider, and the thing won't work ^^^^^^^^^^ Minor quibble: comb generator (or something like that) at all. Michael Hum? I'm just going by what I read. Fred Ostermans book needs an update! Where did you get your info? The tech manual? Thanks There was a really good thread on the Wadley Loop in the rec.radio.amateur.homebrew newsgroup several years back. The really cool feature was how the first oscillator was used to mix both the incoming RF (to the frequency range of the 1 MHz wide first IF), and (with another mixer) to tune one of the harmonics out of the comb generator into the range of a narrow bandpass filter. This was amplified and mixed with a crystal oscillator (in such a way that the offset/drift of the first LO was inverted) and that was used as the second LO to mix the first IF down to the second IF's frequency range. So as long as the harmonic of the reference was in the range of the synth's bandpass filter, the offset and drift of the first LO was canceled. How good is a FRG-7 with intermod, though? Mark Zenier Washington State resident |
Mark Zenier ) writes: In article , Brian Hill wrote: "Michael Black" wrote in message ... "Brian Hill" ) writes: I just bought these two off Ebay and was wondering if anybody has any experience with these two radios. I bought em both for obvious collector reasons. The R-530 has the Wadley loop circuit which I'm interested in. And I got the SW1 because it's one of the first micro portables with descent performance and I collect Sony's. I would like to find the Original Barlow Wadley XCR-30 someday. Look again, the Galaxy does not use a Wadley loop. It uses a phase locked loop synthesizer to generate the first local oscillator signal every 500KHz (or is it 1MHz in the Galaxy?). A Wadley loop, while providing the same overall effect, is a result of the right mixing, adding and subtracting, in the signal chain. What confuses people is that the design of the synthesizer in the Galaxy uses a similar bit to the Wadley, putting the reference frequency through a multiplier that puts out signals at every harmonic of that reference. IN the Wadley, that signal is used to generate the needed beat signals, in the Galaxy that signal is compared to the local oscillator in a phase detector to lock the local oscillator. Visually change the multiplier to a programmable divider chain, and in the Galaxy you'd have a more recognizeable synthesizer. It just came before programmable dividers were cost effective, just as the case with the National HRO-500, so they went with the muliplier, though there is a tradeoff in use and performance compared to a synthesizer with a programmable divider. Change the mulitplier in the Wadley to a divider, and the thing won't work ^^^^^^^^^^ Minor quibble: comb generator (or something like that) at all. Michael Hum? I'm just going by what I read. Fred Ostermans book needs an update! Where did you get your info? The tech manual? Thanks There was a really good thread on the Wadley Loop in the rec.radio.amateur.homebrew newsgroup several years back. I've posted explanations (or what I hoped were decent explanations) in the past to various newsgroups. Oddly, one of them landed on the Wadley Loop page, http://www.qsl.net/vk3jeg/b_wadley.html but whoever put it there had changed a word or two, so it looks like I'm saying the HRO-500 used a Wadley loop, when I was correcting someone who said it did. The really cool feature was how the first oscillator was used to mix both the incoming RF (to the frequency range of the 1 MHz wide first IF), and (with another mixer) to tune one of the harmonics out of the comb generator into the range of a narrow bandpass filter. This was amplified and mixed with a crystal oscillator (in such a way that the offset/drift of the first LO was inverted) and that was used as the second LO to mix the first IF down to the second IF's frequency range. So as long as the harmonic of the reference was in the range of the synth's bandpass filter, the offset and drift of the first LO was canceled. How good is a FRG-7 with intermod, though? That's the question. It adds an extra mixer stage in the signal chain in order to get the "synthesizer". It is a neat arrangement, but just a few years later, the same effect came from having a PLL synthesizer out of the signal chain. Though as I write this, I do wonder if someone looked at the Wadley loop and wondered how to get rid of that extra mixer in the signal chain, and realized a bit of change would fix that. Obviously there is vast similarity between the Wadley loop and the synthesizer in the Galaxy and HRO-500, with that multiplier of the reference (and yes, comb would fit better there), and the need to tune the MHz knob to get a beat note. Michael |
Michael Black wrote:
Look again, the Galaxy does not use a Wadley loop. It uses a phase locked loop synthesizer to generate the first local oscillator signal every 500KHz (or is it 1MHz in the Galaxy?). A Wadley loop, while providing the same overall effect, is a result of the right mixing, adding and subtracting, in the signal chain. What confuses people is that the design of the synthesizer in the Galaxy uses a similar bit to the Wadley, putting the reference frequency through a multiplier that puts out signals at every harmonic of that reference. IN the Wadley, that signal is used to generate the needed beat signals, in the Galaxy that signal is compared to the local oscillator in a phase detector to lock the local oscillator. Visually change the multiplier to a programmable divider chain, and in the Galaxy you'd have a more recognizeable synthesizer. It just came before programmable dividers were cost effective, just as the case with the National HRO-500, so they went with the muliplier, though there is a tradeoff in use and performance compared to a synthesizer with a programmable divider. Change the mulitplier in the Wadley to a divider, and the thing won't work at all. Michael The Panasonic RF-3100 used a 'semi-synthesizer' design which generated the MHZ ranges and combined these with conventional analog tuning within each MHZ range. ----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups ---= East/West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- |
starman ) writes: The Panasonic RF-3100 used a 'semi-synthesizer' design which generated the MHZ ranges and combined these with conventional analog tuning within each MHZ range. But I don't see why you'd call that a "semi-synthesizer". If it's like what's in the Galaxy and the HRO-500, it's a real synthesizer, but what it is synthesizing is all the crystals 500KHz or 1MHz apart that are needed for the first local oscillator. In something like the Collins R-390, they have those crystals, but they can add up and take up space. The fact that there is a tuneable oscillator to cover the 500 or 1000KHz range does not make it any less of a synthesizer. It's merely not completely digital tuning. Michael |
Michael Black wrote:
starman ) writes: The Panasonic RF-3100 used a 'semi-synthesizer' design which generated the MHZ ranges and combined these with conventional analog tuning within each MHZ range. But I don't see why you'd call that a "semi-synthesizer". If it's like what's in the Galaxy and the HRO-500, it's a real synthesizer, but what it is synthesizing is all the crystals 500KHz or 1MHz apart that are needed for the first local oscillator. In something like the Collins R-390, they have those crystals, but they can add up and take up space. The fact that there is a tuneable oscillator to cover the 500 or 1000KHz range does not make it any less of a synthesizer. It's merely not completely digital tuning. It was called 'semi-synthesized' because as you say, it was not fully digital. ----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups ---= East/West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- |
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