is the 1V sensitivity low enough to detect a part 15.219 signal if the pickup antenna is in close proximity (say max 10ft from) to the transmitter?
i have a hard copy manual coming from Delta.
it is crystal controlled and receives off air. it's presently on 1600 khz i believe and i need to move it to 1630 khz.
crystals are about 50.00
it's not.
Not even close. You can't even drive that sucker connected directly to the RF output of a Part 15 transmitter. 1 VOLT is a heck of a lot compared to the usual measurements of millivolts and microvolts. I don't see in the specs online that this is meant to pick up signal off the air, but rather when connected directly to the exciter of the AM stereo transmitter.
I have however had good luck with the unit here http://radioassociates.com/ for checking modulation of my Part 15 AM transmitter, and I've compared results against other equipment in many configurations and believe the indicated modulation to be within the margin of error of the human eye watching analog meters. I've used this with off air monitoring of my Part 15, as well as with 1000 and 5000 watt broadcast transmitters, comparing the indicated modulation to those installed at the station, in both off the air and directly wired configurations. It's kind of a PITA to use, but it seems to work nicely. I've been meaning to write up a test/review but just havn't had the time.
Tim in Bovey
i'm trading it for an inovonics 530 for my FM which will do full modulation monitoring down to 250uV.
i'm getting a set of belars for fm and i will leverage them to the inovonics 520 which is the am counterpart of the 530. it's good down to uV's as well and has an agile prescaler like the 530.
The cheapest and accurate modulation monitor for AM is a scope.
i have a scope with a CRT but i want something small and low power that i can put in the rack and have blinky LED's that also serves a function.
Submarines put their scope up to see what's happening above the water.
Radio stations are already above water and put their scope down into the modulation to get a good look.
I have a scope, but I have numerous transmitters.
The transmitters are in separate locations.
Wheeling the scope around is a huge management baffle.
If you would like audio indication in a rather good looking, somewhat impressive, somewhat inexpensive device, check this out:
It's just a real cheaply made LED audio level meter. I suppose it would be actually calibrated as a VU meter, but it's not a modulation monitor per se'. At the station office over on main street I have a rack on the desk with a mixer and some other doodads in it for client recording, etc. I bought one of those and simply have it connected to the audio of a radio receiving my signal from the transmitter that's actually at my house a half block away. So when people walking by look in the window, they see a 19" wide pair of LED lights moving with the station audio. I actually caught a guy sitting outside the station listening to a portable radio who wanted to see if the lights REALLY moved with the sound! They do! LOL. It is a cheap box. It looks OK, but it's in a plastic cabinet and it's no pro piece of gear, but for functional display purposes it's pretty cool. It has level controls so you can tweak the response of the lights to the source for proper tracking.
Tim in Bovey