Yesterday, 11th January I went to the Winter VHF Day in the town of Ringsted.
As always great to meet other VHF-up people and exchange tall tales.
There is also a small flea matket, and I got two things home.
A programmable attenuator 0 - 120dB in 10 dB steps. specified up to 2 GHz. Another addition to the test equipment for the higher frequencies.
The second thing was a bit of a surprise. Someone had a Uniden scanner, the 3300 on the table, and when I asked the price he said DKK 20.- (about $3) so I took it home, thinking that if it's a brick, it doesn't matter.
I tried to switch on with the battery - of course it was dead. I found a suitable DC connector and connected 12V. Switch on, and the4 display showed something that looked like a functioning radio. Neat.
Now to find out how to program frequencies, so we can see if it really worked. Downloaded the manual and spent some time to get the right menu going. Finally I could enter a frequency.
When I looked up the spec, the scanner should be able to run from 1240-1300MHz, so I entered 1297.500MHz, and restarted the radio, transmitting on that frequency.
Bingo! Signal received. (Hearing audio feedback) The receiver works.
I have not yet tested sensitivity, but even if it has poor sensitivity, I can use a preamp, and possibly a filter.
Now, a $3 radio that works on 1300MHz, that is what I call a bargain.
