PCATS tuner. Thanks!!

Hi all

First of all, thanks PCA for your nice kit !! Less than a week delivery! I could solder it in about 2 hours, and it worked perfectly! Very nice explained and organized. It tune all stations in my area, even weakest ones, always with near full 'power' indicator... I put special care in grounding the antenna lead.

I have some quoestions (maybe asked here before, I couldn't find them...): Why RDS station name keeps in the screen when I change the dial? F.e.: I'm in RNE 3 (93.2) , and begin searching until the next one (93.5), wich doesn't have RDS. But my screen still shows RNE 3... My old Pioneer erased any RDS name when not received.
And, is there any 'search' feature? It is very usefull when I'm driving and don't want to look at the dial.
What is the debug function for? (bars and the dial)
One more quoestion: Is there any way to use the 'extended' functions of the new Europe tuner? (LW? service bands?)
I'm using 2.0 final + hijack 339.

Well, PCATS tuner Kit #74 is already working!!

Cheers:

Miguel.
Madrid.

2HOURS!?!? That is FAST. It took me about three times that long.

Yeah, that does sound fast. But the actual soldering of the kit only took me about 2hours too. It was the family interruptions and the mechanical assembly aspects that ate my time.

I admit to not yet having managed to get it down under 4 hours, but I am being exceedingly careful (it's not my property after all!).

There are known issues with RDS and AF tuning in the 2.0 release. You could go back to 2b13 (not b11), but that also has problems.

did you have problems with the pre-moulded aerial connector? Took me 2 attempts(first attempt the coax signal wire snapped) to figure out how to actually get the board in with the connector soldered....it's a tad awkward.

Adrian

Mine snapped the first time too.
Luckily there was more than enough slack.

Best L120 I ever spent.

Hi again

Well, I really was so impatient to mount it, plus I've been working on electronics for 5 years, that it took me only 2 hours, but I did it very carefully... above all, grounds and shields. I do know that with that kind of signals (Rf, Bf, audio, video...) grounding and routing is the most important on a PCB design. Even routing the antenna cable is important!
Now I feel it has more sensibility than desired... weak signals marks near-full strenght bar. I guess it would difficult an eventual "seek" function...

New kits come with a new antenna cable. It avoids one problem (mounting the connector), but adds a new one: it has to be solded once passed through the hole at the bottom of the box. It difficults to put the tuner PCB in place becouse the fat antenna cable has to be bended enough to let it go... (sorry for my terrible english )
Once everithing was in place, I plugged it on, and it lighted on !!
I didn't solder the coaxial cable (won't use it) and second blue terminal (to feed an electronic antenna or so).

I read about some RDS errors on this version of soft, but this one didn't sound familiar to me... Most of the times, I'm listening to a station with no RDS, and the screen shows the name of the last RDS one. Well, I can avoid it storing the new one with its own name.
Other functions, such as traffic, are not very usefull to me since most of the traffic available stations here don't really offer it (only two of about 20).

Well, I'll be waiting for a new 3.beta version!
I thought it was expensive, but it's a fantastic kit. Thanks again, PCA !!

Cheers:

Miguel.

hehe...good to hear I wasn't the only one who had problems with the antenna cable....

Mine worked first time without problem...probably took me a similar amount of time, plus extra time sitting there figuring out how to actually get the bottom PCB into the box with the soldered antenna lead.... I was almost contemplating hacking the box to get it to fit, but eventually found a method of getting it into the box.....

Adrian

Im a little on the worried side (hotmail's over protective spam filtering might be to blame?), Im order number 75 and I still aint heard anything.
hmmm...

I'm order number 75 and I still aint heard anything

Be concerned, be VERY concerned (sorry couldn't resist that )

Seriously though, I was no. 73 and I got my notification about a fortnight ago, heck my tuner arrived last Monday .

I would contact Patrick and explain your situation, good luck.

Cheers, Sim

emailed.
If that doesnt work I'll see if I can find his phone number. If that doesnt work I'll turn up at the doorstep

worrying over, got the email today

Any chance someone can give me some detailed help here? I can't get the PCB in the box with the cable in there! It just won't go. I actually wish I had one of the cables that needed to be assembled, seems like that would be easier! Thanks.

I'll have a go at explaining how I finally managed to do it:

Have the box in front of you, with the holes pointing to the right.

Drop the furthest edge of the pcb in, but rotate it slightly clockwise, so you have the pcb tilted and at an angle, theres not much of an angle because the tuner module fouls on the case.

Push the pcb down and rotate counter clockwise.

It's easier to try this action without the cable, you should be abe to insert the pcb into the box without covering the antenna hole at all....

...that's probably completely confused you, but it's the best I can explain it...I sure as hell couldn't draw a diagram.

Adrian

Hmm... anyone else want to try? I still don't get it... Thanks!

I pulled the cable through 'till there's an inch or two of cable left inside, I then put the end of the pcb nearest the aerial cable into the case first at an angle, you can then pull the rest of the cable through, don't worry too much about moving the cable soldered to the board, you're unlikely to damage anything. Once you've done that the rest of the board should slide in quite easily. It is much easier with one of patricks new aerial leads.

Hmm, well, I have one of the new cables and that's what I'm having trouble with. I don't see how you get the PCB in the box with the cable already in there...

Apparently, there _is_ a spoon.

-Zeke

Heh, I need a new sig! Off to think of something clever...

-Zeke

I connected the antenna lead after the lower board was mounted in the box.

I connected the core to the protection device that is common to the tunner module's input. And soldered the 'screen' to the housing of the tuner module.

I have experience great reception on FM.