
20
CW Reception
1-800-773- 7931 W W W .PALST AR.CO M
To convert UTC to local time, you will need to know how many
time zones you are located east or west of Greenwich, England. If
you are located east of Greenwich, you add the number of time
zones, west of Greenwich you subtract the number of time zones.
Also, you need to remember that UTC never goes on Daylight or
Summer Time, so your offset will be different between summer
and winter if you live in an area that sets the clocks forward in
summer.
If you live in North America, one of the easiest ways to determine
UTC is to tune your R30A to the National Institute of Standards
and Technology’s shortwave stations, WWV or WWVH, which
broadcast simultaneously on standard frequencies of 2.5, 5, 10, 15
and 20 MHz. (WWVH does not transmit on 20 MHz.) They an-
nounce the UTC time every minute, with accuracy tied to the most
accurate atomic clocks on the world.
WWV is located in Boulder, Colorado, and WWVH is located
on
the Island of Kauai
in Hawaii. So you can tell them apart, WWV has
a male announcer voice, and WWVH has a female announcer
voice. One or the other of these stations should be able to be
heard on one of the frequencies 24 hours a day from anywhere in
North America.
.
You may find that having a clock that can be left set to UTC will
make it easier to figure out when your favorite shortwave program
is on. There are several low-cost 24 hour digital clocks available
from suppliers who cater to radio buffs.
CW Reception
CW (an abbreviation for Continuous Wave) or Morse code recep-
tion requires a bit more doing than listening to AM voice transmis-
sions. A CW transmission is simplicity itself -- a transmitter is
switched on and off by a telegraph key in the pattern of the dots
and dashes of the Morse code. However, if you tune in this signal
in regular AM mode, all you will hear is a kind of intermittent raspy
noise as the dots and dashes go by. To convert the CW signal into
a pleasant audio tone that is easy to read, there is a circuit in the
receiver called a Beat Frequency Oscillator (BFO). The BFO cre-
1-800-773- 7931 W W W .PALST AR.CO M
d. To store the previously tuned station in the default channel
number,
press the MEM button once.
e. To store the previously tuned station in a memory channel
other than the default:
First select the channel desired by using
the Tuning Knob or the UP and DOWN buttons. Empty channels
will be indicated by a FLASHING channel number. Previously
used channels will be indicated by a FLASHING channel number,
followed by the FLASHING letter “P”. Choosing to store in a previ-
ously used channel will cause the new station information to over-
write the previously stored information. Once the desired channel
number is displayed, press the MEM button once to store.
f. If you are in Memory Store Mode,
and decide that you do not
want to store a memory, turn the power off and wait 5 seconds or
so. When the R30A is turned on again, it will come up in Normal
Mode.
NOTE:
The memories in the Palstar R30A are non-volatile, the will
remain no matter how long power is disconnected from the re-
ceiver. Once a memory channel has had information stored to it, it
cannot be deleted or emptied, it can only be overwritten by new
information.
Digital Display
NORMAL MODE:
Displays received frequency.
MEMORY MODES:
Displays memory channel information.
FREQUENCY LOCK MODE:
Displays “
LOCDIS
”
6. MODE Button -
Repeatedly pressing the MODE button steps
through Amplitude Modulation (AM), Lower Side Band (LSB), and
Upper Side Band (USB) reception modes.
The currently selected
mode is indicated by the lights to the left of the digital display. The
bandwidth automatically switches to the width appropriate for the
reception mode selected.
7. BW (BandWidth) Button -
Switches between WIDE bandwidth
(5.8kHz) for AM reception and NARROW bandwidth (2.5 kHz) for
SSB reception.
The indicator is lit when bandwidth is NARROW.
Front Panel Functions
9