It can really help to read chips & circuit boards etc if you also use a small flashlight at different angles to the magnifying glass. Great review, thanks! I love my ATS-20, too!
I've had mine about 3 weeks, I love it. Only issue I have found is that it is prone to overload with strong signals. I use it with a homebrew interface for decoding CW, RTTY & SSTV.
I bought the ATS-20+ version last week, same except for an allegedly better quality rotary encoder, and it has a separate USB-C Jack for charging the battery. Fun little receiver. I haven't done any firmware upgrades yet, but it has a pretty active community of hobbyists/developers.
I would be concerned that buttons and encoders held in by solder might have the solder crack over repeated stresses of button pushing and knob turning.
same concerns apply for most designs if directly pressing on the small switches on a circuit board, reversed or not. the longer legs can flex more before cracking solder too. a lot will depend on the force the microswitch needs to actuate.
Wait, it says TUNE-BFO-ATS , Beat Frequency Oscillator -BFO- is for Morse Code CW reception, remember Hallecaster and Radio Shack shortwave radios BFO was to clarify CW.
No external VFO so must be u sing an internal PLL, probably a simple one at that. Wonder if you could inject an external VDO in and avoid that problem....
@@Paul_VK3HN the ATS-20 uses an Arduino controlling an SI4732 that's about as much as I know. There's diagrams on the net, as well as some videos opening them up and getting a close look at the board and chips on the board (but the board designs are different on many of them even though they say ATS-20).
The ATS-20 is good for tinkerers. At some point the rotary encoder will need to be replaced. The ATS-20+ is a better option for those who don't want to mess with things.
Do you know about the Radio Design 101 series by MegawattKS? Here is a link: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-r_p7AHsSOdw.html During the epilogue he tests different radios including one based on such a radio on chip. It is not too good at receiving weak signals in presence of stronger signals. Not necessary a problem but just something to be aware of.
