Ranger_RCI-5054DX_review_2003.pdf

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1、March 200271 Joe Bottiglieri, AA1GW?Assistant Technical Editor PRODUCT REVIEW Bottom Line The Ranger RCI-5054DX all-mode transceiver has made gearing up for 6 meters considerably more affordable. Reviewed by Joe Bottiglieri, AA1GW Assistant Technical Editor Its already clear that Cycle 23 will be go

2、ing down in ham history as the best yet for 50-MHz fans. For years, we younger folks could only stand by and listen qui- etly as Old Timers reminisced about the incredible worldwide 6-meter openings they witnessed during the peaks of the legendary cycles of the hollow-state age. Now, however, a few

3、of usbona fide members of “generation solid-state” have impressive 6-meter cycle-peak DX tales of our own to tell. Impeccable Timing Ranger Communications recently added several new transceivers to its Amateur Radio lineup. These include three tabletop/rack-mount transceivers two for 10 and 12 meter

4、s and a single- bander for 10and a mobile rig for the 6-meter band. The RCI-5054DX 6-meter all-mode, the focus of this review, first hit dealers shelves last July. Consider- ing the tremendous 6-meter propagation that weve been experiencing over the last several months, its hard to imagine Rangers r

5、elease of this radio could have been timed any better. The Big Picture The RCI-5054DX covers 50 to 54 MHz in the SSB, CW, FM and AM modes. Maximum power output is 25 W for SSB, and 10 W for the other modes. Features include 10 memory channels, a relative SWR indicator, an all-mode squelch, a noise b

6、lanker/antenna noise limiter, memory and VFO scanning, pro- grammable scan and band limits and transmit/receive frequency offset capa- bilities (for repeater and split operation). The 5054 shares faceplate, enclosure and chassis components with Rangers classicand somewhat hefty2900- series mobile tr

7、ansceivers. A peek under the covers of this new rig, however, reveals a big double-sided glass/epoxy printed circuit board thats rather sparsely populated with surface mount compo- nents. Frankly, theres an awful lot of underutilized space inside this cabinet. Its likely that the conversion to surfa

8、ce mount technology in its most recent prod- Ranger Communications RCI-5054DX 6-Meter Transceiver ucts (the changeover occurred within the last couple of years) provided Ranger with a tempting opportunity to decrease overall radio dimensionsand this should certainly be a consideration for companies

9、marketing contemporary mo- bile equipment. By retaining all of the existingalbeit oversizedexterior components used in the manufacture of some of its earlier radios, though, the company could avoid considerable re- engineering and retooling costs. While most of the other ham radio manufactur- ers ar

10、e focusing on ever smaller and sexier packaging, Ranger chose an alter- native route. They evidently believe they can lure traditionally frugal ham custom- ers with functional styling, but attractive pricing. Hmmmmaybe bigger is better? The transceivers large LCD display is easy to read from most an

11、gles. The exception: viewing angles below perpen- dicular to the screen. From these vantage points the segments essentially vanish. A mounting location on a high shelf or in an overhead console probably wont cut it. Glare and washout can also be a prob- lemespecially in a mobile installation. Keep t

12、hese factors in mind when choos- ing a permanent mounting position. Big frequency digits, a signal strength/ RF power/SWR bargraph-style meter and an extensive collection of feature icons appear as black segments on a teal back- ground. The display and key illumination can be set to one of three dif

13、ferent levels or shut off entirely. Front panel controls include the main tuning knob, a small army of pushbuttons and seven rotary controls. The tuning knoblocated in the upper left-hand cor- nerhas a detented action (40 clicks per revolution4 kHz per revolution at the 100 Hz tuning step size). The

14、re are also CHANNEL up and down buttons on the top of the included hand mike, and and buttons on the front panel. Any of these can be used to tune around in the VFO mode. The available tuning step sizes are 1 MHz; 100, 10 and 1 kHz; and 100 Hz. The step increment is selected via a “shift” key. Each

15、press of the SHF button repositions an arrow cursor under one of the digits in the display. The mike but- tons, the tuning knob or the / buttons are then used to increase or decrease the selected digits value. This arrangement works very well for rapidly hopping around on the band. The minimum step

16、size for transmit tun- ing is 100 Hz. A CLR (clarifier) control knoball right, RIT for you purists allows the receive frequency to be varied anywhere within 2.5 kHz of the transmit frequency. For the receive and transmit frequencies to match, the indicator on the knob must be set to the 12 oclock po

17、si- tion. It would be handy if the control had a detent at this “zero-offset” setting. I found the main tuning knob a bit too 72March 2002 Table 1 Ranger RCI-5054DX, serial number TIY00796 Manufacturers Claimed SpecificationsMeasured in the ARRL Lab Frequency coverage: receive and transmit, 50-54 MH

18、z.Receive and transmit, as specified. Power requirements: 13.8 V dc; current consumption not specified.Receive, 0.30 A; transmit, 4.6 A, tested at 13.8 V. Modes of operation: CW, USB, LSB, FM, AM.As specified. ReceiverReceiver Dynamic Testing CW/AM Sensitivity, 10 dB (S+N)/N: 0.5 V.Noise floor (MDS)

19、1: 50 MHz135 dBm AM, 10 dB (S+N)/N, 1-kHz tone, 30% modulation: 53 MHz0.44 V FM Sensitivity, 12 dB (S+N)/N: 0.25 V.For 12-dB SINAD: 52 MHz0.16 V Blocking dynamic range: Not specified.Blocking dynamic range, 20-kHz spacing: 50 MHz80 dB Two-tone, third-order IMD dynamic range: Not specified.Two-tone,

20、third-order IMD dynamic range: 50 MHz65 dB Third-order intercept: Not specified.Intercept: 50 MHz, 37 dBm. FM adjacent channel rejection: Not specified.20-kHz offset from 52 MHz, 60 dB. FM two-tone, third-order IMD dynamic range: Not specified.20-kHz channel spacing, 52 MHz: 59 dB. S-meter sensitivi

21、ty: Not specified.Maximum indication: 52 V. Spurious response: IF rejection, 65 dB; image rejection: Not specified.IF rejection: 112 dB; image rejection, 93 dB. Squelch sensitivity: Not specified.0.34 V at threshold. Audio power output: 2.5 W, THD and load unspecified.2.3 W at 10% THD into 8 . IF/au

22、dio response: Not specified.Range at 6 dB points, (bandwidth): CW: 340-2426 Hz (2086 Hz); USB: 346-2472 Hz (2126 Hz); LSB: 340-2425 Hz (2085 Hz); AM: 389-2252 Hz (1863 Hz). TransmitterTransmitter Dynamic Testing Power output: CW, FM, AM, 10 W; SSB, 25 W.AM, FM, CW, typically 10 W; SSB, typically 26

23、W. Spurious signal and harmonic suppression: 60 dB.Meets FCC requirements for spectral purity. SSB carrier suppression: 50 dB.50 dB. Undesired sideband suppression: Not specified.37 dB. Third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD) products:See Figure 1. CW keying characteristics: Not specified.See F

24、igure 2. Transmit-receive turn-around time (PTT releaseSquelch on, S9 signal, 200 ms. to 50% of full audio output): Not specified. Unit is not suitable for use on AMTOR. Receive-transmit turn-around time (“tx delay”): Not specified.SSB, 40 ms; FM, 30 ms. Composite transmitted noise: Not specifiedSee

25、 Figure 3. Size (HWD): 2.47.810.8 inches; weight, 3.2 lb. All dynamic range measurements are taken at the ARRL Lab standard spacing of 20 kHz. 1500-Hz bandwidth filter not available. Bandwidth on CW is approximately 2100 Hz. 2Intercept points calculated using noise floor method. small for my tastes.

26、 For weak signal work, I like to manually tune for activity at the smallest available step size. Id consider a larger tuning knob a welcome enhancement. The RF power output level and micro- phone gain; RIT and RF gain; and vol- ume and squelch are set up as concentric pairs of rotary controls. A six

27、-position mode selector switch stands alone. The inner and outer knobs of the concentric sets and the mode selector knob are nice and bigand that does make them easy to grip, but theres insufficient space be- tween them. Its difficult to make adjust- ments without accidentally changing the settings

28、of nearby controls. In this in- stance, Id gladly trade off some overall knob size for the increase in room be- tween that would result. Perhaps Ranger could look into marketing an optional set of replacement knobs? Ill bet it would be an extremely popular accessory pack- ageand not just with owners

29、 of this rig, but for those who have one of the dead- ringer 2900-series radios as well. Fourteen pushbuttons are arranged in March 200273 1086420246810 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Frequency Offset (kHz) Reference Level: 0 dB PEP 246810121416182022 140 130 120 110 100 90 80 70 60 Frequency Sweep: 2 to

30、 22 kHz from Carrier Reference Level: - 60 dBc/Hz Vertical Scale: dBc/Hz two rows just below the display window. These white buttons are backlit and trans- lucent, and function legends are printed in black on the surface of eacha par- ticularly nice design feature for nighttime mobile operation. The

31、 majority of these keys control just a single operationan- other mobiling plus. Rear-panel jacks include an SO-239 antenna connector, three 1/8-inch mono phone jacks and a flat three-pin dc power socket. The mating dc power cord is about 5 feet long and fused, in the positive lead only, at 7 A. The

32、phone jacks serve as connection points for a CW key, ex- ternal speaker and public address speaker. A dedicated headphone jack is not pro- vided. A multi-finned heat sink is at- tached to the rear apron. An internal speaker is mounted in the bottom cover. A mike hanger, an adjustable mobile mounting

33、 bracket with four large knob- style screws and a handful of associated fastening hardware are supplied. The 20-page Owners Manual, though brief, is more than adequate. The radio is simple and intuitive to operate, and the programming and operating instructions in the manual text are clearly worded

34、and easy to follow. A pin-out diagram for the 6-pin microphone connector is included, butunfortunatelya schematic dia- gram of the radio is not. Basic Feature Basics Memories The 5054 comes up in the VFO mode when the power is switched on. Pressing the MEM key activates memory mode operation. Memory

35、 channel one is always initially selected when entering the memory mode. Each subsequent stroke of the key then selects the next higher channel. A press of the MAN (manual) key will return the radio to the VFO mode. The tuning knob, microphone control buttons and the front panel and but- tons cannot

36、 be used to step through the memory channels, and the memories are not tunable. Splits Split transmit/receive frequency capa- bilitiesfor repeater, phone or CW op- erationare supported. Split offsets of up to 4 MHz are possible. The memories do not retain the mode, offset value or di- rection of the

37、 split, though. If you decide to use memory channels to store repeater information, youll have to select the FM mode and activate split operation sepa- rately. While the radio is in the split mode, the transmit frequency appears in the display when the transmitter is keyed. Scanning The transceiver

38、includes a scan fea- ture that will troll for activity on the pro- grammed memory channels or within a range of frequencies. The scan direction can be set to ascending or descending. The scan will stop on any signal that breaks the squelch, and will remain there until activity ceases for more than t

39、wo seconds. Facilities for locking specific memory channels out of a memory scan operation are not provided. The upper and lower scan limits are programmable. These two frequencies also serve as the upper and lower limits of the manually tunable range of the VFO. Once youve changed these setting fro

40、m their default values, to restore the full 4-MHz VFO tuning range, the upper and lower 6-meter band edges (50 and 54 MHz) must be manually reentered. This is a simple operation, though. This feature is handy when you wish to con- centrate your attention on a particular band sub-segmentthe bottom 80

41、 kHz or so to listen for CW beacons, from about 50.103-50.250 for SSB activity or within one of any of several different ranges for searching for FM simplex op- erations, for example. (See The ARRL Repeater Directory or visit ARRLWeb for the suggested ARRL 6-meter Band Plan). Noise Blanker/Antenna N

42、oise Limiter The 5054DX features both a noise blanker and a combination noise blanker/ antenna noise limiter. The noise blanker is designed to work on repetitive impulse noise (classic ignition interference). It wasnt effective on the computer hash thats generated by my late-model ve- hicle. The noi

43、se blanker/antenna noise limiter setting worked reasonably well on my particular flavor of automotive elec- trical interference, butunfortunately only in the AM mode. Public Address The RCI-5054DXs mode switch in- cludes a PA position. Connect an exter- nal speaker to the rear-panel PA jack, and you

44、 can use the rig to make door prize announcements at your clubs next hamfest, or to get the whole gangs at- tention at the Field Day site (“Hey, ev- erybody! I worked Western Samoa!”). An undocumented alternative application is to use it for evaluating the change in sound quality when testing substi

45、tute microphonesa feature thats typically referred to as a “monitor” function. SSB Operation The transceiver can operate in either the upper or lower SSB modes (6-meter RTTY, anyone?). Separate RF power out- put and mike gain controls are provided. The bargraph meter doesnt include a marker for the

46、ALC set point. I received good audio reports with the mike gain control adjusted so that voice peaks hov- ered at about two-thirds scale when the RF power output setting was set to maxi- Figure 1Spectral display of the RCI-5054DX transmitter during two-tone intermodulation distortion (IMD) testing.

47、The third-order product is approximately 22 dB below PEP output, and the fifth- order is approximately 35 dB down. The transmitter was being operated at 25 W output at 50.2 MHz. Figure 2CW keying waveform for the RCI-5054DX showing the first two dits. The equivalent keying speed is 60 WPM. The upper

48、 trace is the actual key closure; the lower trace is the RF envelope. Horizontal divisions are 10 ms. The transceiver was being operated at 10 W output at 50.02 MHz. See text. Figure 3Spectral display of the RCI-5054DX transmitter output during composite-noise testing at 50.02 MHz. Power output is 1

49、0 W. The carrier, off the left edge of the plot, is not shown. This plot shows composite transmitted noise 2 to 22 kHz from the carrier. 74March 2002 mum. The mike gain control also varies the transmit audio level when operating in the AM or FM modes. The same mike gain setting that I settled on for the SSB mode worked just fine for the other phone modes as well. The comparatively large (100-Hz) transmit tuning steps are pretty coarse for weak signal work, at least by todays stan- dards. Most contemporary transceivers tune in 10-Hz (or smaller) increments. Although this is usually