DRM Receivers

[Digger]

Thanks, Tom. My humble contributions to the GR-216 were few... I think Gospell made a good job with this receiver. Mine is sailing in the Arabian Sea at the moment and will hopefully arrive here towards the end of April. It seems like my new house is fairly quiet QRM-wise. Perhaps I was lucky. We'll see. However, there is very little to listen to on short wave. Most transmissions are in the night here in Japan.

[richardinprague]

Hello all,

Does anyone have any experience with a software reset on this receiver, please?

Switched on my DR111 after not using for a few months, and does not start properly. Goes immediately to searching for my saved selection in Preset 1-1, after a few seconds the backlight goes off, then it goes back to the restart screen and the cycle continues until I unplug it. It is unresponsive to any other control, not can I access the AM/FM options.

Unfortunately, no support for DR111 from new owners of Newstar, so Peter Senger suggests I float the question here.

Grateful for any responses please, here, or to my private email:

richardinprague@seznam.cz



Thanks

Richard
in Prague
+?

[Digger]

Hi Richard,

It could be that the backup lithium battery is dead. Open the set (6 screws on the rear panel). Open carefully as the cables are a bit on the short side. Measure the voltage of the battery which sits on the PCB where the speaker wires lead to. It should be 3 Volts if the battery is good. Less than 1 Volt may cause trouble.

Another way would be to reinstall the firmware. In this case the battery should first be replaced.

Hope this could be of some help.

[tpreitzel]

The logging function in r1.4 of the firmware apparently has some remaining problems which isn't a problem unless the logging capability is used. I'm sure that Gospell will address the remaining issues with the firmware in time. Until these bugs in the logging capability are fixed, I highly recommend disabling "USB logging", the default option. The GR-216 is probably still in limited production until these problems are fixed. In no way, shape, or form do these remaining bugs in the firmware prevent the use of Gospell's excellent DRM receiver. In analog and DRM, I think the GR-216 probably sounds the best overall in my limited collection of radios. I'm so impressed with the GR-216 that I hope Gospell includes an infrared, compact remote control in a future revision to its hardware.

[tpreitzel]

If anyone knows of a good quality Class 2 transformer 115VAC to 9VDC 2.5+A power supply, please post here so I can buy one to test my GR-216 from a source of DC power.

[PhilipOneL]

A couple of years ago, I bought this model for my DRM sets. It has served me well. It is rated 2.3 amps, but I think they have a heavier-duty model, too.

https://ca-en.alliedelec.com/triad-m...2300/70218041/

[tpreitzel]

Originally Posted by PhilipOneL

A couple of years ago, I bought this model for my DRM sets. It has served me well. It is rated 2.3 amps, but I think they have a heavier-duty model, too.

https://ca-en.alliedelec.com/triad-m...2300/70218041/

Excellent. You're the man, Philip. I appreciate it very much. I'll find the source of this problem as the GR-216 is just too good of a digital radio.

[tpreitzel]

Hi Tom

Thanks for you feedback. There's a known issue on DRM logging and we have fixed it through firmware update, the update is under testing and will be released after it passes tests which should be very soon.

As for the SNR, according to Recommendation ITU-R. BS 1615, the S/N figure required for mode B with spectrum occupancy 3 (10 kHz), 64-QAM modulation and 0.5dB average code rate is in the range 20.1-23.3dB depending on the channel model. It might need stronger signal for audio decoding. We suggest to try using external active antenna especially when you are not in the target area.

Best regards.

HC LIU 刘昊春

See, Gospell does care about its customers. Although I'm not necessarily convinced that the signal isn't strong enough, I'll keep this observation in mind. I'm fairly sure that my DR-111 (gone now) would have decoded these transmissions that the GR-216 doesn't currently decode with a signal of similar strength. I'll look into the possibility of splitting the input from my magnetic loop and comparing it with my SDR-4+ but it'll be awhile.

Last word. Thank you, Gospell, for the great DRM radio, GR-216, and valuing your customers enough to respond intelligently. I'm looking forward to the updated software. Gospell seems like a classy outfit to me.

[tpreitzel]

Since receiving my GR-216, I noticed a slight movement of an object within the case and wanted to identify the source. So, I gently removed the 8 screws from the rear panel and opened the case. I found that the transformer sits on a piece of plastic separate from the motherboard and moves slightly from side-to-side due to its weight. It's not a problem and you can see that Gospell's GR-216 is well designed and manufactured. Looking from the front, the transformer sits on the left, rear side of the GR-216. Since the transformer runs a bit hot, I'd like to see a few more vents along that rear side.

https://ibb.co/jfhRgc
https://ibb.co/mEj9jx

[tpreitzel]

I recorded this audio from my GR-216's speaker with a digital camera which only allows 12kHz bandwidth. Since the audio from the GR-216's speaker is only monophonic, the monophonic limitation of the camera poses no problem.

Although I'm not a fan of Van Halen, I recorded an FM station in non-compressed video (AVI) and then stripped the audio to uncompressed FLAC. The size of the file is ~ 5 MB. Unfortunately, I didn't check the format of the audio stream of the AVI file, but I don't think it was compressed either. So, the resulting audio should be fairly close to the GR-216's output despite the limited bandwidth of 12kHz. Turn down the volume before starting the file, i.e. unless you like Van Halen.

Personally, I think the monophonic speaker on the GR-216 sounds pretty good for a tabletop radio, i.e. fairly tight and clean.

http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php...15908170938313