[farmnet] Icom PCR-1000

[Bdale Garbee]

In Toronto this weekend, Mark Kanawati mentioned the Icom PCR-1000 as being
a good receiver for a variety of things, including the 38.4k downlinks on 
some of the Surrey sats... since it has switchable IF bandwidths including a
50khz and one that's very wide... and covers from 100khz to 1.3Ghz.

I've done a bit of web surfing today, and they're on sale right now through
sometime in March for $349 from AES and HRO.  The optional UT-106 DSP board
that gives automatic noise reduction and notch filters, and which is the same
DSP optionally used in the IC-706 radios, is about $140 through HRO right now,
and about $10 more through AES. 

For a small yet versatile receiver that's easy to take along and use with a
laptop, it looks like a good deal.  I've found mods on the net to unblock the
cell stuff at least in some serial number ranges, and sources for a program
to talk to in under Linux plus other neat programs that can use it under
Windows, so I think I'll buy one.

Just thought I'd pass along the info.  It's just a receiver, not a transceiver,
but for automated sat downlink watching, weather sats, and stuff like that...
it looks pretty neat.  Actually, the notion of using one of these for the
downlink also allows some other simplex radio like the Icom 706 or Yaesu
FT-100 the chance to perform well as part of a full-duplex portable satellite
station...

The web page for the PCR-1000 is 

	http://www.icomamerica.com/receivers/pc/

Pointers to mods and alternate software are at

	http://www.webdeals.net/pcr1000.htm

and elsewhere...

Bdale