cobalt pet shortwave / mediumwave weblog

16 March 2008

beeping ka2100 buttons question

An anonymous reader posted the following recently, and I'm putting it on the main page so more people can see, and perhaps respond, to it:
Just got a KA2100 and am impressed so far. Good service from Universal Radio. KGO in San Francisco comes in crystal clear 1000 Mi away in BC. Still playing with SW. Anyone know how to turn off the beep when the buttons are pressed?
By the way, nice job catching KGO, which is here in my hometown.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's very simple. Hold down the snooze bar on the top of the radio and all but an ocassional beep will be stopped.

Murumo said...

Love this blog. Keep up the good work. I can't wait to get my Grundig back and start listening to shortwave again.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info on turning off the beep on the KA2100. Much more pleasant to use the radio without it. Got another question. Maybe the guy that took his radio apart can answer this one! The 50 ohm antenna connection on the back says FM/SW and the 300 ohm connection says AM. Do I have to move the connection from my (as yet unpurchased) antenna based on the band I'm tuning in, or do the connections come together in the receiver.
Anyone tried the longwire antenna from Northwest Antennas? Being from Canada, I don't have to pay duty for this one.
My radio seems to have good selectivity.I can get KNBR 680 in San Francisco 900 Mi. away up here in BC with no bleedover from the local 50kw CBC station on 690.
Happy DXing

Anonymous said...

This is likely to be a non-issue, as one would want to use different antennas for AM/MW, SW and FM.

A fixed longwire antenna just doesn't make much sense on AM, an easily rotated tuned loop is far more practical on this band. (It would take another class of receiver to make use of, say, a Beverage, or more likely two. That already is specialist's territory.) For example, see AM Loop Antennas.

On shortwave, a tuned loop, typically with only one winding then, still is no bad choice, particularly if you live in an area where signal levels are high enough to cause significant problems with mixing products (I do). The set itself has a broadband frontend and appreciates a little preselection. That also helps image rejection on the lower bands, like 60m.

For FM, performance should already be good with only the telescopic whip. The set has an unusually high-performance frontend for a portable and can take an external antenna, although I'd still avoid pointing it at a local flamethrower.

The PAL antenna connector seems to be a bit of an issue for our North American friends, apparently it may take a few adapters. This is a common connector for FM tuners here in ol' Europe.