I tried that today and it works quite well once you know what to do.
Connect vertical output to line level input of a regular stereo
receiver or amplifier, plug in the headphones.
Digital storage OFF. Get in close to the signal of interest, changing
spans as you get closer, switch to manual sweep, and at suitably high
resolution modes, tune in on the signal. Going to manual sweep
makes this fast and easy, and you don't even have to go to zero span,
but of course, going to zero span and entering oscilloscope mode can
assist you to get optimized signal quality, not clipping on either
the top or the bottom of the waveform.
I went signal hunting in several ranges and started with the local FM
radio stations for a wideband signal introduction, then went to the
VHF weather radio station at 162.55 MHz, then went into the aircraft
band (108-136 MHz) to try to track down some aircraft transmissions
with limited success, and then went down to the AM radio band, and
then found some amateur radio traffic around 14.3 MHz, voice and CW
both. And a few assorted international stations in various parts of
the HF bands, too. Switching the bandwidth filters allowed me to
get good recovered audio quality on every signal I tuned in. Having
very good headphones and a nice amp certainly didn't hurt.
I'd guess there are some limitations on what you can get out of the
video output. I can't imagine that it really has the bandwidth
necessary in order to, for example, be usable as a video source
with an external output. (Say I tuned in a TV station at the
appropriate bandwidth setting.)
CJ
--- In TekScopes@..., "Stan and Patricia Griffiths"
<w7ni@...> wrote:
Hi Chris,
I used to demo the 492 as a "receiver that looks like a scope".
This made
it much easier for the average person who was not familiar with spectrum
analyzers to quickly grasp how it worked. I used the video output
to drive
a Radio Shack telephone amplifier by plugging the video out directly
into
the suction cup microphone input on the amp and I think the levels
are just
fine. The Radio Shack telephone amp is powered by a 9 volt battery
so it is
portable and cheap. Use zero span and slope detection for FM
signals and
peak detection for AM signals. At shows where I was exhibiting more
than
one spectrum analyzer, the 492 provided the audio for a TV signal
and the
2710 provided the video. For those of you who may not know, you can
actually get a TV picture to display on the screen of a 2710 spectrum
analyzer. The biggest complaint about this was that it was not in
"color".
My response was that "green is a color".
Stan
