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Sony XDR-F1HD
- Thread starter KB1OKL
- Start date
KB1OKL said:
It's more than abundantly clear at this point that you got a bad tuner. You really should return it. Your experiences definitely do not match the other reports of how good this box is.
dumber than a box of hair said:
Don't ruin the fantasy of KB.
WE just ordered a pair of these for translators we maintain. That means UPSs and the whole deal, but everything I have read is that these are the best anywhere. Frankly, "I" don't believe the reviews. Some just enjoy complaining. Then again, maybe it's just a really bad area. He live in finge country on most FM's. But I suspect the AM section, at least, is bad. It's way too good of a piece of EQ to be as described. Swap it out KB.
Clouseau
clouseau said:dumber than a box of hair said:
Don't ruin the fantasy of KB.
WE just ordered a pair of these for translators we maintain. That means UPSs and the whole deal, but everything I have read is that these are the best anywhere. Frankly, "I" don't believe the reviews. Some just enjoy complaining. Then again, maybe it's just a really bad area. He live in finge country on most FM's. But I suspect the AM section, at least, is bad. It's way too good of a piece of EQ to be as described. Swap it out KB.
Clouseau
Yep, it is a great analog tuner. If it works in HD, that is nice, but not a deal breaker considering how well these can perform in analog. In my world, HD is a non-issue. Let me know what kind of UPS actually works with these things. It seems it needs to be one that continuously runs off the inverter, rather than one that switches at a power interruption. The switching glitch will make the Sony revert to "530 AM," which is not good. I'd like to install them on a few translators myself, but I haven't had time to figure out the power management scheme.
clouseau said:dumber than a box of hair said:
Don't ruin the fantasy of KB.
WE just ordered a pair of these for translators we maintain. That means UPSs and the whole deal, but everything I have read is that these are the best anywhere. Frankly, "I" don't believe the reviews. Some just enjoy complaining. Then again, maybe it's just a really bad area. He live in finge country on most FM's. But I suspect the AM section, at least, is bad. It's way too good of a piece of EQ to be as described. Swap it out KB.
Clouseau
I did almost exchange it and still may, but this will be the second exact same Sony tuner on this board that was bad, Mike Walker also had a bad one several months ago. Is Sony's quality control really this bad? The FM section is very good in analog, but the AM section is typical after thought quality like so many other tuners, at least mine is. I find it hard to believe that only the AM section and the FM HD section is bad, kind of a coincidense.
KB1OKL said:
Your point about Sony QC is very well taken. They're not known for bad QC, IMHO. However ISTR Mike's exchange fixed his issue. Your AM lack of performance at 5 miles seems unlikely to be the normal HD limitations. Then again, if you get an indication with WBZ but no decode, I'd expect that for your area. You're sure the AM actually has HD running? (Like someone couldn't tell.)
Who knows. I'd probably go somewhere even closer to the transmitter just for grins, but that's just me. I actually drove 40-50 miles to test my Accurian on AM. Good Luck and let us know.
Clouseau
Chuck said:
Well I'm not real proud of what I'm about to say, but "we're going to address that issue when they arrive".
We've always used some other tuners other than specific translator equipment. I'm especially interest in the "High RF" performance. Since the unit draws 13 watts (I believe I read) it should be managable. UPS will cost more than the tuner, though. I'll advise.
Clouseau
clouseau said:
The "High RF" performance is astounding. The power management issue is not. Worse yet, at least on the radio I have, is the buttons on the top of the case are "ultra sensitive." Merely breath near one, and it changes channel (or worse). YMMV.
If you find a workable ups solution, let me know. I'd been contemplating a large gel cell battery, a battery charger and an inverter to get the job done. It's not pretty, but it might work. My phone number is on the station’s web site. I'd enjoy the visit.
Chuck said:
According to the K6STI website, the main power supply in the XDR-F1HD is unipolar with two outputs around 10 and 5 volts, so you might get by without the inverter (and its hash); just parallel the gel cell directly across those rails through LM317 regulators and series diodes.
I currently use an XDR-F1HD as a translator receiver at a county-owned public safety tower with emergency power, so we decided on a 1250 VA UPS, which is also large enough to keep the transmitter running at full power for about 6 minutes. Generator startup time is usually less than 15 seconds, so it does the trick.
Last week, one of my clients installed these tuners at several of his most "difficult" translator locations and reported that the improvement greatly exceeded his expectations.
Play Freebird said:
That's a pretty good (and simple) idea. It might just do the trick. I guess it’s time to pop the top off of mine and see if there is enough room for the regulators. I'll bet there is.
Has anyone figured out how to get a composite (MPX) feed out of these things? I have no problem with using left and right audio to feed the translator, but I use the MPX output of our current receivers to feed a Via Radio RDS detector which in turn controls the transmitter. If it does not see the unique RDS code from the originating station, the RDS detector will switch to a secondary off air source (same signal, just off a different translator). If it has no signal, then it shuts the thing down until RDS is returned.
This has worked much better than relying on the presence of "just any signal" using the translator receiver’s internal relays. Skip has been a real problem this year, much more so than I ever remember. The receiver almost always picks up some kind of signal but it isn't always the intended one. The RDS detector helps to insure that the signal rebroadcast is the intended one. While it doesn’t seem to be 100% effective, it is a lot better than whatever is in second place. I guess I can try using the existing analog receiver for RDS control, and get audio from the Sony, assuming I have enough signal after losing 3-4 db in an antenna splitter.
I do know that in my experiments, I’ve been able to get clean and quiet stereo audio from the Sony, when using our existing receivers, I’ve had to revert to mono to keep the noise floor down.
Chuck said:
AFAIK, there's no easy way to get to the composite baseband, because the DSP demodulator takes the audio down to discrete L and R. Even if you were able to pick off wideband composite and feed it directly to the input of your exciter, this would bypass the stereo noise reduction function, the proprietary feature that gives this tuner such superior performance on weak signals.
But you have a very good reason to use RDS for transmitter control and I would like to do the same. If the RDS data and clock signals are accessible, it shouldn't be difficult to program a PIC to make a relay close if a particular PI code is received.
Does anyone here know if the Sony service manual includes schematics of each of the modules? I also wonder what's available at the point labeled D RDS on the display board -- see the left side of this photo from K6STI's site:
http://www.ham-radio.com/k6sti/lcd.jpg
Some encouraging news: Several days ago I received a call from a manufacturer of professional broadcast equipment who is quite interested in licensing this technology from Sony to develop a high-end FM rebroadcast receiver. I made sure to mention that an RDS decoder with "PI loss alarm" would be a valuable feature.
All I can say about the XDR-F1HD is that I am extremely impressed. It has completely improved my DX activities - FM, and now AM!
On FM, the radio is unbelievable. RDS and HD, in addition to a great tuner, for $50 (after a rebate). Two features I really wanted but were unable to find except in expensive radios. Excellent adjacent-channel performance; my Yamaha T-80, with "narrow" filters, cannot compare. Almost heroic resistance to overload; with my last tuner, pointing my antenna to near the Duluth tower farm 9 miles away or even in the opposite direction would generate intermod (or simply overload?) across the band. I barely ever hear any intermod now. The DSP also seems to clean up a lot of noise and sounds really good, though I would prefer the ability to NOT have it soft-mute very weak signals (though this is not as much of a problem for DXing as you might expect it to be). Reception with the APS-9B (a mid-sized FM yagi) on a rotator I have outside is incredible; HD signals from at least some of the Minneapolis - St. Paul stations are semi-reliable in the summer, and common, if not normal (at night) in the winter. I've even decoded, on occasion, the HD signals of KNOW 91.1 and KTLK 100.3, despite having local analogs on 91.3 and 100.5, both with HD Radio.
I just really started using it for AM last night, and I am very impressed. The radio's DSP does wonders on the AM band. I managed to catch very short decodes of KOA and WSCR with the included whip, which is actually fairly good.
My only complaints other than the soft-muting are that 1) I've lost the remote, 2) it would be nice to manually switch between HD and analog (there's a mod for this however), 3) the backlight is really bright and doesn't shut off, 4) it would be nice to have some control of the audio output level, 5) the signal meter is crappy, and a S/N ratio read-out as found in other radios would be great for antenna aiming. But these are fairly minor complaints in comparison to the greatness of this tuner.
On FM, the radio is unbelievable. RDS and HD, in addition to a great tuner, for $50 (after a rebate). Two features I really wanted but were unable to find except in expensive radios. Excellent adjacent-channel performance; my Yamaha T-80, with "narrow" filters, cannot compare. Almost heroic resistance to overload; with my last tuner, pointing my antenna to near the Duluth tower farm 9 miles away or even in the opposite direction would generate intermod (or simply overload?) across the band. I barely ever hear any intermod now. The DSP also seems to clean up a lot of noise and sounds really good, though I would prefer the ability to NOT have it soft-mute very weak signals (though this is not as much of a problem for DXing as you might expect it to be). Reception with the APS-9B (a mid-sized FM yagi) on a rotator I have outside is incredible; HD signals from at least some of the Minneapolis - St. Paul stations are semi-reliable in the summer, and common, if not normal (at night) in the winter. I've even decoded, on occasion, the HD signals of KNOW 91.1 and KTLK 100.3, despite having local analogs on 91.3 and 100.5, both with HD Radio.
I just really started using it for AM last night, and I am very impressed. The radio's DSP does wonders on the AM band. I managed to catch very short decodes of KOA and WSCR with the included whip, which is actually fairly good.
My only complaints other than the soft-muting are that 1) I've lost the remote, 2) it would be nice to manually switch between HD and analog (there's a mod for this however), 3) the backlight is really bright and doesn't shut off, 4) it would be nice to have some control of the audio output level, 5) the signal meter is crappy, and a S/N ratio read-out as found in other radios would be great for antenna aiming. But these are fairly minor complaints in comparison to the greatness of this tuner.
kc0ltv said:
You are the third or fourth person to mention this. Do I have a special variety? Both of the tuners I received yesterday have a Low-Med-High backlight option on the menu. Just wondering if people are missing this of if they've upgraded the unit. BTW while there "IS" a control, it's a little bit of a pain to use as it's buried pretty deep in the menu tree (As opposed to a step switch).
BTW this unit was the first to display an HD icon on WOAI here, about 130 miles away. No decode, but does get an indicator.
Clouseau
The feedback I’ve heard on this tuner has been overwhelmingly positive, and after reading this thread, I decided to forgo a few evenings of “holiday cheer” and BUY ONE! Amazon wanted $86 for it, but no rebate was indicated [maybe it has expired or Big A didn’t know about it – and it’s tucked away in the box].
I should have it in time for my Christmas pilgrimage to my parents’ residence in east-central Indiana... DOZENS of FM HDs [many at adjacent channel addresses], many more FMs made “difficult” due to adjacent channel spacing, and EIGHT HD-[in]capable AM stations with dependable daytime analog service [albeit at 4.5k] – five at 50kw including WLW [near “local”] and WIBC [very strong].
Shocking as it may seem, I’ve freely volunteered to contribute cash to iBiquity’s royalty pot I strongly suspect I’ll keep this little box just for its analog RF properties, but as Paul Harvey said: “Stand-by for NEWS!” ‘Promise to keep an open mind.
I should have it in time for my Christmas pilgrimage to my parents’ residence in east-central Indiana... DOZENS of FM HDs [many at adjacent channel addresses], many more FMs made “difficult” due to adjacent channel spacing, and EIGHT HD-[in]capable AM stations with dependable daytime analog service [albeit at 4.5k] – five at 50kw including WLW [near “local”] and WIBC [very strong].
Shocking as it may seem, I’ve freely volunteered to contribute cash to iBiquity’s royalty pot
I strongly suspect I’ll keep this little box just for its analog RF properties, but as Paul Harvey said: “Stand-by for NEWS!” ‘Promise to keep an open mind. - Status