"WELL, IT LOOKS COOL...."

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KENWOOD SM-230

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Greetings one and all, as I catch up on my Blog posts! (Having a slipped disc really gives you time for stuff like this). My main topic today are "Monitor-Scopes" for Amateur Radio's, but first my disclaimer: I'm no expert with these, but I have picked up some useful information which makes me smarter than I was two weeks ago.

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I mentioned to a friend of mine that I purchased a used monitor scope. His response was: "What does it do besides looking really cool next to the rig?" And that my friends was a very good question. The only thing I knew about these devices was that I would be able to monitor my outgoing audio, or adjust my audio by looking at the screen and transmitting into a dummy load.

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On some EBay auctions you might see a line like "Pan Adapter 8 installed", and all I knew from those auctions was that the monitor was a LOT more expensive if it had the Pan Adapter installed. I've only found monitor scopes made by Heathkit, Yaesu, and Kenwood (maybe ICOM never made one, or if they did, it's pretty darn scarce). Usually each model scope was made for a current lineup. For instance Yaesu had the YO-100 and YO-101 for the FT-101 series, YO-301 for the FT-301 Series, YO-901 for the FT-901/2 series, and Kenwood had the SM-220 for most of their rigs, and the SM-230 for recent high-end radios. One thing to note: while you get the impression that these can only be used on that series radio, it isn't necessarily so (unless you are using the Pan Adapter, but more about that later).

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My first purchase was a YO-100, which didn't get hooked up for about 2 years. It worked fine, but didn't really match my other rigs. From there I bought a Yaesu YO-901, followed by a Kenwood SM-220. The 220 would be the ideal match for my Kenwood, but I couldn't pass up the YO-901, which had the Pan Adapter option installed.....I have to digress at this stage to point out an observation I made while checking on monitor/scopes: I've seen two YO-901's with the option installed and forsale at one price, and I've seen many SM-220's without the option in the auction, however, they did have the Pan Adapter selling separately, so I have to ask - "Are Kenwood Owners more apt to pull out options and sell individually vs. Yaesu owners who are more generous?? "
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Back to the story.... So, if all you want to do is check your outgoing signal, or are adjusting your audio so that the waves are near perfect and not "Flat Topping", then you can use any scope on any rig. As you can see from the backside of a monitor-scope, it has standard SO-239 HF connectors for your passthru, there is nothing special about that.
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But when you start talking Pan Adapters, it gets a little more complicated. I wasn't really sure what a Pan Adapter did, much less how to connect it up. But from what I understand (and, feel free to write in and correct me if I'm wrong, or if you know of other uses for it) with the Pan Adapter installed it gives you a look at your bandwidth on either side of you, like a snitch - letting you know (and see) if there is any activity on either side of you.
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So why can't this feature work on any other rig, like the monitor?? Because it's matched to the IF frequency of your rig. So if you had a Pan Adapter -8, and your rig's IF was 6Khz, it wouldn't work.
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Maybe you knew all of this already. Maybe you know more, but if you were like me, any information about this expensive and mysterious device is well worth it.
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Here is a short (3min) video I ran across on youtube

That's it for now - Woody

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