AOR AR6000 User manual

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Mlko Riohards looks atthe new AOR AR6000 supewidooood mu timode rece ver
M ke R chards iakes a c ose
look at the latesi prolesslonal
grade,super lll deband
mu‖ mode rece verf「om AOR
」apan
AOR AR6000
The luning iesolu(on is l Hz lo「 a‖
frequencies up t。 3 15GHz a■ d2Hzf「om
3151o6GHz ln add tion to opeiatn9 as
a lvide range standalone receivei the
AR6000 inclJdes soivlale to p「 Ovide Fu‖
contiolじ■ng a PC
The AR6000 also featules an optonal
in phase and Ouad「 atule lQ)output
laclty This a‖ 。vs the leceiveito be
Jseo wth the suppled ARJQJ sonwale.
lyhichけ o9s al the usual benefts of
solware deined ttd o(SDR)such aS
sharO coni nuously var able Fiters point
anO cick tu面 ■
9 and lQ fecoiding The
Oemodulaton modes are comprehensive
and include a video decoder ior
monlo「 ng analo9ue closed― c icu t
te ev s on(CCTV)inkS
What You Cel
The AR6000 is houseO in a stu「 dy steel
enclosure、″th a speaker mounted
beneath the top panel The side panels
have fJbbelieet on one side and a
carry handle on the othe「 、vhich makes
the rece,ver easy to t「anspO「 t lo「
i e10、 ″o「 k ln add tion using an optOn31
k t the receive「 can also be 19in iack
mounted
The reaf Oanel is br stin9 w th
connect ons including t、 ″o high qJ8 ty
N― T/pe conΠ ectors fo「 antennas― see
F191
Powe「「 oqurements ale 40 6 to 16V
DC at2A mak■ 9 1 veⅣ easytO powe「
F「 om a vehicle supply The AR6000 was
suppled、 ″th a 9ood quaity 12V pOwer
OR has maintained a strong
reputa(on in the proressiOnal
scanning、 vor d for many
years,with its AR5000 series receivers
being pa"icular y pOpular The new
AR6000 1olows n the loolsteps ofthe
much oved AR5000 ser es but extends
the f「 equency coverage and adus some
new l・ atures
The Aほ 60000子ovides cont nuous
coveiage oFthe rad o frequency(曖 F)
spectrum from 9kHz thfOu9h to 6GHz
︱ ﹁ 雷︲
The AOR AR6000 su,er w,oband m」 limod3 reo3 vel
F19 1:AR6000 iear,anel connecl ols
□□
supply using a standard UK pOwei plu9
1oi ma ns operalon
The review model also iЛ cluded the
Op10na Q outpJtOoard and AR QJI
soヽ″ale that provioes an SDR interace
to the AR60oo
lve inclJdeO a br ef spec ficat on
foithe AR0000 in Table The FJ,
specrca10n can be lound on the AOR
」apan webste
www aoっ a comlrece vers18r6000 html
Technicalities
Des,9ning a receivei v th conlnuous
６一 ・ ③
EI S● ptemЬ o1 20,3r7m￢ T「Fロ

「
equency Resolut ont
Roceive lⅥ odesl
lHZ OHZ above 3 15GHa
Table l:Brief Specification for the AR6000
Frequeney Range: 9kHzt● 6GHz
the signal path is sp1l intO five b「 oad
bands as folows be ow 4 GHz,996MHz
toイ 5GHz 1 51o 2GHz 2 0to 2 5GHz
an0 2 5 to 3 2GHz Signals aOoveGHz
are appled tO a mlχ er and converted to
a nrstlF oF 294 51И Hz Signals belo、 v
l GHz under9o funher itelng wth seven
banks oF iter ng Signals in the range
2201o360MHz would clash、 vth the
294 5iИ Hz lF frequencメ sO these are
m xed uplo 1 7045GHz belore m x ng
do、vn again to 294 514Hz S19nals
beO″ een 25iИ Hz and l GHz are then
convened to the 294 5,И Hz lF where
they are amp r ed and llefed before
being sent to the nnal mixe「 This bi ngs
the signals do vn to 45 0514Hz Here they
are funher ampined and l tred belore
being passed to the analogue tO di91al
convetter(ADC)
Signals via Ant 2 take a sighty
direrent rOut because this inputis
des19ned to cover 9kHz lo 3 45GHz
S,9nals belo、 ″25 v Hz use a d recl di01al
route via a sA tchable attenuator and
on to a bank of eighi band pass n ters
as lolo、vsi 40 1o 500kHz.500kHz lo
1 6MHz 4 6to 3MHz,3to 5MHz 5
to 10MHz 10to 15MHz.45 to 20MHz
USB 6B CW AM FM WFM FM Stereo APCO P2510pion,
VFOs
Memo町 Channe s 2000(40 banks t1 50 channels)
Scanning speed 100 ohannelysl● ps per second(″ pica)
D mens ons e04(D,x220(W,x97(H,mm
ヽ″
oight
Frequency Ba■ dCo■ verslon type
D root oonversion
9kHzto 25MHz
Table 2:AR6000
Superheterodvne Stages
the AR6000 is due to the use oi sw tched
local n ters to contiol the output lrOm
the mixer stages and to reduce the level
of out of band signals ln cheapei less
sOphist cated designs,you、 v11 lnd that
much ofthis llleing is absent
ln Fi0 3 1ve shown a simpifed block
diag「am ofthe AR6000 Starting atthe
top end ofthe tequencv ran9e,s19nalS
between 3 15 and 6GHz va Anti aЮ
appled lo a Oownconvene「 bOa「d io
blngthem beow 2GHz■ ″o m χers are
employed lor this process,One loi 3 45
lo 3 8Gttz and a second lorthe 3 8 1o
6GHz ttnge Each m xei s precede0
by band pass fiters and the outputis
ilered w th ow pass llers toに move
any un、″anted mixing pfoducts Next
25 to 220MH2 Double oonvelも ion
220 1o e6oMH2 Tr ple oon ersion
360MHzlo 3 15GHz Double conveslon
315 0 6GHz Do″ l oonVerS on
coverage as、 ″ide as that ofthe
AR0000 is not an easy task To achieve
such vide coverage,l is necessary
to combine the best analo9ue RF
l・ chnolo9y'″ th the latest ln dig tal
prOcess ng ln very s mp e terms
the AR6000 uses RF up and down
converslon technlques as sho、 ″n in
Table 2 to converlthe incoming RF to a
4505,И Hz inalintermediate frequency
(F)This lF slgnalis then appled to
an ana ogue to digta cOnvetter(ADC)
to create a d191al「epresentat on of
the signalthatis processed by a fleld
prOgrammab e gat・ array(FPCA)to
complete the s19nal prOcessinO and
demoOulalon― see Fig 2 1n ad011on
HF signals up to 251.lHz are bandイ,lered
and difect sampled in practice the
s Ona path s rather mof・ comp ex so
lets take a closerlook at ho、 ″its done
Much ofthe addl ona comtte対 ,of
External
OMHz
Rei
GPS
l PPS
Fi0 2:A sim,1led bloGk」 a,子 am lOr the AR0000
□瘍￨
F t●

3o● k●
FI(●,
3● ●k
3,666H
F90:A IIook dia9ram ofthe AR0000 s,9na path
¨S・ 。
tomb。 .2013
252,OMHz
360MH′ to 1 3H
315GHz
iCH′ to 3 16GH′
 Ell

L
F, 4:Froli v ew oithe AR6000 showing the specI『 um sOOpe d s,la,
and 20 1o 251.lHz The outputfiom
the nloi bank ls appled io a 2511Hz
low pass n tei ampifed and passed
d reelly tO a separate ADC running at
65 Mega sam口 es per se∞ nd(MSps)
This in tuin feeds a specialst di91al
S Ona process ng(DSP)deV Ce that
leeds the ma n Cyc On‖ DSP FPGA
This FPGA handles al the nnalil。 lng
and demOdulaton fequ remenis of
the receivei FPCAs are used in this
pOstiOn because ofthe r high prOcessin0
speed and ne対 Ыl,sCnds,Om Ant2
b″een 25MHz and 3 45GHz folow the
same cOnversions as Ant,endino up
Feed ng into the FPCA
VVh the comp ex m x ng arrangements
with n a rece ver lke the AR6000 a rock
so10 1ocal oscl aloris essenial The
AR6000 emp Oys a loMHz temperature
∞n"dЮd ewstJ osdlator(TXCO〉
、
″th a basic stablly of 0 1 parts per
mmOn(ppm)Th S OSCmalor prOv des the
reFerence fOrthe 999 5MHz phase locked
oop(PLL)and the 45 05MHzlo 440MHz
d red d gi● I synthes sei(DDS)
Fo『 many proless Ona appicatons
such as d reclon inding and special
modulalon systems Frequeney slablly
tO± 0ppm s notsumc ent TheЮ lore.
the AR6000 can accept a 10,И Hz
external relerence o「 the l pulse per
secc nd(PPS)「Om a dObd pO● 1。 面ng
system(GPS)r・ Ce vertO prov de
lmproved frequency slabl ty tO± O o4
ppm
lvlanagement of the inteinal s、 ″lching
and loca1 0scl alorfundions is handled
by a second FPCA、 ″hich is also a
Cyclon‖ running a SuperH reduced
nst「uclon set eompute「 (RISC)
arch teclure
MoЮ nex b市 ty s prov ded through
the use of a burered 45 051・ lHz final
lF output、 vth a band、″ldth of 1 5'И Hz
(■ 7 5MHz)The Outputlevel at th s
po nt s∽ brabO lo be+10dB wth
respecllo the RF signalinput sO is ideal
lor conneclon tO cuslom measulng
nstiumenls or demodu alon systems
The optona lQ modu e prov des a
usB Output wth an lQ stЮam thars
900kHz、vide but ri cOver more on this
latei
As yOu can see,the AR0000 is a
sophist cated beast and a lot of care
has been putinto opt mising the mix of
anal。 9ue and dig taltechnologies
The ful specincat On 10r the AR6000
can be found on the AOR Uapan、 veOs te
vrww ao"a com′rece vers′ar6000 h〔 ml
OperatiOn
Desp te the cOmplex infrastructure oF
the AR6000,opera10n is remarkably
stra ghぬn″ ard and fo10ws the
conven10ns oF previOus receivers in the
line
The front panel has a tra011。 nallook
wlh a arge rota"tun ng knOb,keypad,
analoOue leVel meter and a larOe lquid‐
cr.s● l displa´
The tuning knob dives a rota● .
encoder wlth approχ imately 20 steps
perrevOluton Hov・ evei the steps are
not ev dent n the rola‖ On,wh ch、 ″as
vew smooth Personaly l wou d have
preleFed a bi more we ohilo the knob
so that t eould be spun butthis is a
m no「 po nt
The keypad prOvided easy access to
the、vide range of tatures and althe
keys had a pOsilve Feel、 vth a subte
beep to conl『 m operat on Operators
have a love‐hate relat onship、 ″th beeps
and youll be glad tO hear thatthe
AR6000 can be adlusted from slentto a
veけ oud Oeep v a an 8 stp adluЫmenl
Fo『 manualtuning l lound the best
technique、 ″as to keyin the requ red
Fr・ quency and then use the tuning knob
lo comp ele the process Keypad entr.
、″orked exacJy hO″ it should,thatls yOu
luSt have to type the s19n icant di。 ls
and hl Enlei Forexamp e,to enti
the malne VHF Channel16 01stress
frequenり ,you lusttype 158 6 Enter
(MHZ bu●O Tuttno b any tequency h
the ineredible range ttas instantaneous,
sO yOu cOuld Oo from 60kHz to 6GHz
in an instant The AR6000 also has ive
va ab e iequency OscmatOrs(vFO)

that can be setto di「 erent Frequencies
any、 ″here in the 60kHz to 6GHz range
One ofthe prob ems assoc ated wih
such a wide tuning range is antnna
seleclon As l ment oned ea「 lei the
AR6000 has two antenna inputs one
of、″hich handles the ful iange up to
6GHz,whie the other handles a reduced
iange but OfFers O recl samping of the
HF Oand Antenna sedion can be set via
fiont panel contiol computer interlece
or automatcaly ln aulo mode,antenna
s、″tchinO Is determined by the tuned
frequenw butis user conngurable,
sO yOu can setthe changeover point
between Ant 4 and 2 to sut your anlenna
system For nslalalons that ac more
complex the optonal AS5004 automa‖ c
antenna s″ ith unt is avalable
The coniguraton ofthe AR6000
enables recep10n of up to three separate
frequencies simu taneously To achieve
this,one fr・ queney has lo be below
25'И Hz and the other tr7o have to be
above 251MHz.within 517 Hz,less than
00kHz Oand、
viOth and using the same
receive mode
One ver・ pO、 ″elultuning oplon On
the AR6000 was the bultln spectium
scope(Fig 4)Th s waS aclvated by
pressinO and holding the Func button lor
a couple oF seconds ヽVhen at‐livated,
the spectrum display shoヽ ″s a spectrum
wdththatsadiustableFrom400kHz
through i。 loMHz w de The refresh
rat was very last so l cou d study band
actvly n rea■ime,wh ch was a great
way to check lor oca aciv,
Scanning and Searching
The AR6000 receiverincludes al the
standard scanning and searching opt Ons
yOu、″ou10 expectto ind on this type
ofrece ver The memoゥ OankS Can be
inked to create advanced scanning
patterns and individual memo「 es can
be excluded、″here necessar. Pr olty
scan is included so yOu can keep an eye
on a Favourte channel、 ″hle seaiching
out other aciv,e seWhere The seach
funclon、″as particular y easy to use
because the search range could be set
by puting the starlfrequency in VFO A
and the end frequeney in VFO B
The AR6000 a so has whars knOwn
as a Cybei search Th s is able to search
at100 channels per second and stores
the h ts ln signat strength ordet,Ⅳ th the
strongest stat ons f rst
The receiver also includes decoding
of conlnuous tone coded squelch
system(CTCSS)di91a「 cOded squeloh
lns」 e the AR6000 wlh the ld lemove
(DCS),dua卜 lone mulイ requenw
(llTMF)s gnalng and vo ce nveβ on
descrambing
A arge memo「 .capac ty s impOflant
Wい い に
,pe Of rece市 er and lle AR6000
has inteinal space lor 2000 channels
These are segregated into 40 banks
of 50 channels each to help A th the
memo"organisat on ln add tion to
holdinO the frequeney and mode each
memorv can slore al the ma n iece ver
setings alono wth CTCSS′ DSC toneS
and a 42 characler comment
P「Ogramm ng memoles ffom the Front
pane was very easy AI hadlo do was
tune to the requ red lrequenc press
and hold the Enter key and the receiver
aulomat caly seletled the next avalable
memOn′ ′u this point l coじ ld easly
choose a direrent banに memory number
li necessarv
You wi note from the photographs
thatthe AR6000た atures a secure
d91a(SD)oard制 。t On the front pane
Ths can be usedto hoO mOre memo"
channels orto make au01o recordings
thus further expanding its capa01 ties
The aud o recom ng● clly worked wel
but could have been so much better f
t had been inked to the squelch,so
thatthe recording could pause bel″ een
transmisslons
Computer Control
So″are for d iect computer control
ofthe AR6000 is avalable free of
charge from the AOR suppOrt ste Th s
sottware is based on that proviOed lor
the eaHier AR5004 D and AR2300 range
of receivers but、″th optOns changed
to match the AR6000 s tatures The
sollware is standalone but l found l had
to run itin VVindows XP compat blly
mode on a Windows e system
Control oithe AR6000 s features is
achieved using a numOer of separate
、″indo、″s including One that sho、 ″s the
ful spectrun display、 vth a very 9ood
refresh rate
VVhie PC controlls very usefut one
ofthe main benefts oFthe soll、 ″are is
for memoⅣ management because l
makes the p「 ocess so much simp er
The use of a PC also gives vl蔵 ualy
lmt ess memory capac w ln a praclca
s tua‖ on,yOu could use the oontrol
solll are in the omce tO load the
AR6000 wth althe memo「 v and search
閥 ¨ S・ ptomb.12013

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data necessar・ lor a panにuar poect
ln ad01lon to ena01ng Ful cont「 ol of
the AR6000 via a connected computei
the controlinte face makes t easy to
create yOur own cusOm sotware lorthe
AR6000 To help wlh this the iece'ver
is suppled w th a separate manualthat
descr bes al the avalable commands in
detal The commands、 ″ere al plain text
Oased fo「 example to set the frequency
to 436MHz yOulustSend cF36 over
the selalinterace using the cOntiol
manual l was able to「 econfgure one of
lη y PythOn Oand occupancy programs tO
use the AR6000 in no time at al
le SDR Software
As l mentoned eariei the review
mode was supp ed with the op10na lQ
output boam and the Att Q‑l solware
package The lQ Output board extracts a
イ125Msps lQ stream frOm the AR6000 s
main DSP device and sends this via a
standard∪ sB pon wth a data rate of
72 Megabis per second(MbpS)Th S
IQ stream s then used by the AR Q―
l sollwac to prOv de a 900kHz w Oe
spectrum sice thats centred on the
AR00oo s dialfrequency
The ARJQ―‖sonware has been
produced by,И iciotelecom in ltaly so
l uses a very simlarinterace tO the r
Perseus SDR recelvel The sol、″
are was
suppled on d sk and is a slandalone
productthat can be placed in a directory
of your cholce Also ineluded oo the
CD‐ ROM were the som″aに 。lvers for
the interace and the instalat on p「 Ocess
lvas veⅣ wel covefed in the suppled
pr nted manual
Opeialon ofthe sollware was
vey stra ghtlo,″ ard and iolowed
the convenlons used by most ofthe
pOpular SDR soい ″
are packages The
screen display was dominated by the
spectrumlvvate fal display and included
measurement markes so l was easytO
use the mouse curso「 to make frequency
and s19nalleVel measurements
Tuning around v thin the displayed
spectrum was best done using the
mouse cuisOi where a douO e clck
tuned the receiverlo that point The
spectium bandwidth eould be setto one
of nine preset values between 3 5 and
900kHz w th the nariovver band、 vidth
being panicular y helpFul lof signal
analysis
Uust belo、 ″the main display is a
secondarv spectrum display that sho、″sa
closer view Of the current y tuneO signal
Here you can adlustthe demodu ator
band、″idth in preset steps Or you can use
the mouse cursoi to drag the bandwidth
lo the des fed setung
One ofthe most pOweru Features
is the 10 recording because this can
be used to recom the enire 900kHz
spectrum to d sk as an lQ stream
formated as a vvバ ′lle The sorヽ ″
are
is conigured to lmt eachヽ ハル
や
υlle
to a max mum of2GB(3 m nutes 40
seconds)wth new mes beぃ O created
automalca y asthe imt s I・ ached
Recorded 10 11es can Oe played back
through the same sonware and l
panicula‖ y‖ ked the laclly the diag the
replay curs。
「10 the appropr ate seclon
ofthe nle The main advanta9e oflQ
recording is the leclty b repeatedly
examine a portion of the spect「 um The
ma,Or agenc es make exlens ve use of
this technolo9y and ieco d s、 ″athes of
spedrum loi automatc ana ys s us ng
ma nfttme computers
Performance
Assessing the pero「 mance ofsuch a
wide range receiveris something Of a
chalenge and l can t possibly assess
everyth ng t does so rve chOsen to
look atthe most pOpular act vty areas
Antenna choice is also di″ icul and at
least lvo antennas are requ red lorth s
frequenw range Fo「 the rev evv l used
the new We‖ brook ALA1530S+lmpelum
lorfrequenc es be ow 30MHz and a
discone lor evervthing above that When
you getinto the higher UHFlmic「 owave
frequencies you realy need to move
onto specialst antenna systems
At lo、″f「 equeney,the 60kHz MSF
transmission came booming in and the
tuning accuracy appeared spot on A
ookthroughthe ong and med um wave
bioadcast bands in the evening sho、 ″
ed
thatthe AR6000 can handle stiong
signals extremely、 ″el The hlgh gain
VVelbrook antenna can deiver s19nal
levels of around 30mV atthe anlenna
terminals and the AR6000 handled this
、
″th no slgn of oveloaO problems Simia:
con01lons apply on the lo、 ″er lrequency
O「 oadcast bands in the evening and
aga n the AR6000 hand ed them wth
ease Ho、″evethe most ikely use ofthe
AR6000 s lor signa s nterceplon and
this is wheie it s searchin9,scanning and
spectium ana yserleatures come nto
therown Fo「 HF signals,l oompared
the AR6000 to my dedicated amateur
ladlo kt using an´ υB sl・71th and the
perOfmance、 ″as a卜 ″ays atleast as
good in lerms ofsenst v″ and no se
and in some cases s10hJy bette「 The
var able width bul● in,spectrum display
was panicular y helpltllorlocat ng Oand
aciv tv
iMoving On to the VHF and UHF bands
the Cyber search was a rea lavoulte oF
m ne Nol on y O d l search verv qu ck y
(1 00 Channels or steps per second)but
it also produced a lo9 11e that shovled
the number of hiも lof each frequency
and the siOnallevel ofthe last h t This
AaS OeSt used wth the computer control
soヽ″are and the resut was a ver.clear
indicalon oFthe acJve fr・ quencies in
any O ven search band Sensi v,on
the hlgher bands、 ″as excelent and
compared lavouttb y wth othertop end
rece vers that lve rev ewed n Radο で
ノser
As you can see.the AR6000 is
blsuin9 wllたatures and 1 0nly
have space lcr、 ″hatlthink are the
most siOn ncant and int・ rest nO The
combinat on offul computei contiol
、
″lh lQ recording and an excelent
f「ont panellnte face makes the
AR6000 a ve"allractive rece ver
that wi appea to many d leЮ nt
users The Frequency range is one
oi the v・ idest available in a single
Юce ver and l was impressed by ls
peぼormance across that range ln
addilon to the cllntrol lacl t es,the
lF and lQ outputs along、 ″th the
Faclly lo use an externalfrequeney
relerence or GPS rece ver furlher
extend the AR0000's usefulness in
prOless Ona applcamons
The AR6000 s avalab e from
lVaters&Stanton and
・tals fOf
￡5699 95 The lolowin9 op10ns
are avalable the lQ5001 1Q output
board and soヽ ″are costs￡54995
the AS500,automat c antenna
s″ tch uni costs￡ 134 95 and the
CP6001 GPS「 ece ver lor improved
tequeney゛ abity lo± 0 01 ppm
oosts￡34995 A‖ pi ces include
20%VAT and deiveryto a UK
mainland costs￡ 1100
Waiers&Stanton PLC,Spa
House,22 Main Road,Hockley,
Essex SS5 40S
Telephone[phone]
WWW WSple COm
Mythankslo Wabβ &Stanton for
the loan ofthe fevie、 ″model and to
AOR uapan 10r generous y supp y ng
techn ca suppon lorthe rev e■ ●
Шー