I received this via the CB band, here in Lincoln.

Can any language expert please tell me if it's Russian ->

http://youtu.be/bFziHjdJ5Gk

Cheers,

Chris.

It's been a little while but I've finally tested out the 80kHz filter I've got in my Sony ST-SB920. I'm really impressed.

Here in Stone, Staffs (back home for Christmas) I can now make out BBC C&W on 94.8 without splatter from BBC Stoke on 94.6 and likewise (even more surprisingly!) I can hear BBC H&W on 104 and 104.6 even with the Stafford relay on 104.1 (polarisation on my side though) and BBC Derby on 104.5.

BBC Lancashire on 103.9 and BBC Nottingham 103.8 are also both there.

I think there may be a slight lift to the South as I'm getting Sunshine on 106.2 weakly.

I'm experiencing improved tropo to Holland/Belgium - probably associated with a cold weather front running roughly east-west across the two countries.

I'm picking up Family Radio from Hooglede on 96.2 as a first - 500 watts only. It peaked with full RDS and stereo almost noise free.

It probably won't last too much longer as the front moves away, but this is the 4th time I've had improved tropo for relatively few hours when I specifically noted the passing of a weather. Strangely enough a few days ago it was the wife who actually pointed out that the barometer had dropped a lot - when I was enthusing about the good reception (she 's a treasure you know).

Rgds

David

I can hear a few of the Dutch stations fading in and out of the noise, nothing too spectacular though!

I've had BBC Oxford and BBC Gloucestershire (104.7) briefly appearing out of the noise.

Getting BBC Northampton on 104.2 which is a first for me here (only ever had it on 103.6). I'm so impressed with this filter mod! BBC Cymru is at RDS strength on 104.3.

I get BBC Oxford on 95.20 most days just above the noise and Devon on 103.40MHz. These are two of my markers when looking for tropo openings as they can roar in with stereo and RDS during tropo openings. Gloucester on 104.70 is more difficult because of Bath on 104.60.

Yes the only Gloucestershire reception I get usually is Cirencester on 95.8 along the A420.

I'm in Staffordshire currently though at home for Christmas. Oxford's one of the first to come in in a tropo here too!

Adam,

Speaking of your ST-SB920, did you use just one 80Khz filter, as a replacement for the "narrow" filter, or did you replace any of the others too? Mine now has 3 x 150Khz and 1 x 110Khz.

Chris (M6NDT).

I'm not 100% (I did it ages ago but haven't played with it properly since) but I think I still have 3x 230kHz in the wide slots, and just the one 80kHz in the narrow slot.

Here's a full bandscan I've just done (3 element Triax beaming SSE towards Sutton Coldfield) minus the national stations:

94.6 BBC Radio Stoke (Alsagers Bank)
94.8 BBC Coventry & Warwickshire (Meriden)
95.1 BBC Radio Manchester (Holme Moss)
95.3 BBC Radio Derby (Stanton Moor)
95.4 BBC Radio Wales (Wrexham/Rhos)
95.6 BBC WM (Sutton Coldfield)
95.8 BBC Radio Merseyside (Allerton Park)
96.0 BBC Radio Shropshire (The Wrekin)
96.2 Capital (Mapperley Ridge)
96.4 Free Radio (Sutton Coldfield)
96.9 Signal 1 (Pye Green)
97.2 Free Radio (Turners Hill)

100.4 Smooth Radio (Winter Hill)
100.7 Heart (Sutton Coldfield)
101.6 Touch FM (Lichfield)
101.8 CrossRhythms (Stoke)
102.0 Touch FM (Lark Stoke)
102.2 Capital (Birmingham/Metropolitan House)
102.4 Touch FM (Burton-Upon-Trent)
102.6 Signal 1 (Alsagers Bank)
102.8 Capital (Drum Hill)
103.1 Free Radio (The Wrekin)
103.4 Heart (Wrexham/Rhos)
103.6 Ambur Radio (Walsall)
103.7 BBC Coventry & Warwickshire (Lark Stoke)/Moorlands Radio (Biddulph)
103.8 BBC Radio Nottingham (Mapperley Ridge)
103.9 BBC Radio Lancashire
104.0 BBC Hereford & Worcester (Malvern)
104.1 BBC Radio Stoke (Stafford)
104.2 BBC Radio Northampton (Northampton)
104.3 BBC Radio Cymru (Llangollen)
104.5 BBC Radio Derby (Drum Hill)
104.6 BBC Hereford & Worcester (Kidderminster)
104.7 BBC Radio Gloucestershire (Churchdown Hill)
104.9 BBC Radio Leicester (Copt Oak)
105.2 Kerrang! (Sutton Coldfield)
105.4 Real Radio (Winter Hill)
105.7 Smooth Radio (Sutton Coldfield)
105.9 City Talk (Allerton Park)
106.0 Gem 106 (Copt Oak)
106.1 Real Radio XS (Manchester/Sunley Building)
106.2 Sunshine (Ridge Hill)
106.5 Signal 107 (Shrewsbury/Shelton Water Tower)
106.6 Smooth Radio (Waltham)
106.9 Silk FM (Sutton Common)
107.1 Signal 107 (Oswestry/Selattyn)
107.2 Signal 107 (Kidderminster)
107.4 Signal 107 (Telford/Heath Hill)/Tower FM
107.7 Signal 107 (Wolverhampton/Mander House)
107.9 Oak FM (Hinckley/Barwell Water Tower)

Hi Adam,

Looks like you're doing well, with your ST-SB920, as it is.

If you were to use narrower filters in earlier the stages of the tuner, you may well find that the 80Khz filter would be too narrow, (losing RDS and resulting in audio distortion on loud stations).
If you were to use narrower filters at stages 1, 2 & 3 (the "wide" setting), the filtering "skirt" would be much tighter, (if that makes sense). Apparently, the greatest "leakage" of filtered signal, occurs at filter 4 (the narrow setting) and least at filter 1, so the result you're seeing is not a true 80Khz, because there is also quite a lot of signal leakage (as if final filter was non-existent) from the previous, amplified 3 stages.

A good transmitter to look for, as indication of a "lift" to the south-east, is Mendlesham (Kiss 106.4). When I lived in the West Midlands, this was the first transmitter to show up, when "lift" conditions to the SE started.

Cheers for now,

Chris.

Thanks for that, very useful I remember trying to source some 150kHz ones for the wide setting at the time but being unsuccessful. On the narrow setting as you say RDS struggles and some things (especially the likes of Heart and Capital) distort quite badly.

Kiss is definitely one that pops up fairly regularly in favourable conditions.

Merry Christmas to you by the way Chris!

I have 80k filters in my exact same tuner, admitted they do work well, but I find that they make some weak stations disappear. I live in North East England, so not all that interesting but I did have BBC Norfolk on 95.6 the other week. Never actually had that one before. I can also sometimes hear BBC Radio nan Gàidheal on 104.2, if I beam horizontal and north, but it has BBC York there too, I think I need to try it again, probably tomorrow, and see if I can filter out York with the 80k. BBC York is on 104.3.

Hi Adam,

Merry Christmas to you also.

As you've already noticed, narrow bandwidth/selectivity helps to dig out the stations, but at the expense of distortion on loud (high deviation) broadcasts.

I have to say, I didn't enjoy having to perform the de-soldering/soldering of those tiny ceramic filters. My heart was in my mouth, as I hoped all would be OK. Fortunately, it was .

Chris (M6NDT).

Hi Jack,

After installing the new filters, did you set the adjuster labelled "Narrow Gain"? You need to adjust this (with "narrow" selected) for least noise (hiss), while tuned to a weak station (preferably not too close to a strong station). My adjuster ended up being fully clockwise, for best results.

Chris.

Haha I would've been awful at the soldering as I don't have a steady hand and I'm not very practical!

Luckily my ex boyfriend's Dad (who used to be a broadcast engineer) did it for me. He put sockets where all the filters go so they're easily changeable now

Hmm, not sure actually, Oliver installed the filters, but I think he did lower the narrow gain, not sure.

I did the same (installed SIL sockets). For me the best combination was found to be 3 x 150Khz and 1 x 110Khz..

I wouldn't do the soldering work for anyone else, in case I messed up their tuner in the process!

Chris.

In that case, I would imagine Oliver did the adjustments. It wouldn't do any harm for you to make a note (or take a photo) of where the adjuster is now, then adjust it for least noise (hiss), as I described earlier.

Chris.

That's interesting. Where would you say the best place to source the filters is? I got my 80kHz from a guy in Italy recommended to me by Nick on here I think. I'd certainly like to have a play around to optimise it. The 230kHz ones are very wide and I don't really ever listen to much radio on FM other than to DX. Im guessing the 150s are fine for sound quality and RDS though still in any case?

I know what you mean, I certainly wouldn't have trusted myself with the soldering. Especially as these tuners are getting rarer and I was lucky to find one for a really good price (and it's in excellent condition!) on eBay.

Not much in the land of DX for me, so I've stuck with AM, RTL 1440 is here with slow fades!

Merry Christmas to all!

I got my filters from here ->

http://www.digikey.co.uk/product-det...710-ND/1219341

The web site is a bit of a minefield. Remember, you're looking for "Ceramic FILTER 10.7MHZ (centre frequency), 150KHZ (bandwidth)"

I ordered 10 x 150Khz, as there is a hefty delivery charge of £12.00, no matter what quantity you require. I've run out of them, otherwise I'd let you have some.

Chris.

I have a Sony ST-SE520 and it does not have a wide/narrow bandwidth like the 920 and had 3 230khz filters and it was wide as a barn door.
In this receiver the filters are in the tuner can (size of a cig packet) but I replaced them with sil sockets and 3 110khzfilters the sound quality has not suffered and RDS comes through perfectly but selectivity is superb and has made a vast difference here with the crowded band.

There are 4 bandscan vids of the Sony tuner on my youtube channel 2 before filter mods and 2 after.

https://www.youtube.com/user/radioredcat

Andy

I've just taken delivery of a working Sony ST-311. I'll play with it 'as is' for a few days before fitting some narrower filters but what I have observed is that even as it comes there is a very marked improvement in selectivity when switching to narrow IF.

A few comparisons with the Sony ST-SB920 if anyone see one for sale.

UK version has one FM aerial socket {European has two)
IF narrow/wide - front panel button
RF Att - front panel button (10-15dB attenuation)
None of the buttons are behind a flap.
There is no option to display the PI Code (unlike the SB920)

Internally - a mixture of standard and surface mounted chips. The RDS chip is surface mounted - but I've found the jumpers on the top side of the board to take off a feed. I'll practice on the dead one I got a few weeks ago (came to an amicable settlement with seller) before removing the ceramic filters and fitting SILs.

Another interesting point - the board layout puts the 4 ceramic filters in a line. The 920 has a very convoluted layout which might explain the reports of signal leakage.

I bought enough filters to try all combinations a few months ago - I'll start with the 4 x 110's that are coming out of the Yamaha I'm retiiring (two problems with it - no tuning knob and lower audio output than the Sony's).

I also note that the signal strength readout on each of the Sony's I've got are totally different by a good few dB - so only a guide.

David

Does it have better DX performance than the 920 Dave?