ATS 25 PRO+ AIR

 The 6th ATS has arrived one week ago from Hamgeek, paid 104 euros. Few words about this: Hamgeek sells ATS receivers at a lower price than other web market places and delivers the parcel with an acceptable delivery time, just 15 days. On top of this Hamgeek is a web shop that sells products dedicated to radio hobby. Visit at www.hgeek.com.

A this point I have a basic ATS-25 first model that I bought some years ago, an ATS-25 Max, an ATS-25 X1, these all without any WIFI connection; an ATS-25 AMP, and ATS-25 Max Decoder both with WiFi connection, and the last one the ATS-25 Pro+ Air with wifi, Bluetooth, VHF reception (airband and 2 meters Ham Band).

As general evaluation: the 25Max, 25X1 and the 25Max Decoder are much better in reception and audio quality than the first version (ATS-25), they are much better also from the screen graphics. The ATS 25 AMP features manual selection between Hi-Z and 50 Ohm aerial and a LNA circuit, wifi  connection is very good and easy. The 25 Pro+ Air is in all details as good as the 25 Amp, but connectivity with WiFi is slightly more complicated to get working properly not during setting but during connection itself, Bluetooth works good in my model. The option of selecting Hi-Z or 50Ohm antenna is available in the menu of the setup and on the touchscreen but cannot be activated, I guess the receiver makes this selecion automathically, I remember I read this somewhere, not sure though.

After the 25 Max Decoder all versions have decoders for various modes: CW, FT8, PSK, RTTY Hell being the 25 PRO+ Air the one with more decoder options, for example PSK is not available in the ATS-25 AMP either in the MAX Decoder.

Reception in AM has Sync LSB and Sync USB which quality is acceptable even not being the best ever heard.

NFM is written in the modes as possible selection only in the ATS25 PRO+ because of the 2 m Ham band availability which is not there in any previous models. However NFM is shaded and cannot be activated.

The ATS 25 Pro+ Air has also the possibility to change colours and buttons aspect within the setup menu with many colours and shades.

here in the above picture the ATS25 PRO+ connected via buetooth to the Muzen external speaker that I bought in Kuala Lumpur in March 2024.

the scanning function works well as in previous models but the scale of the frequency has only 1 MHz, 100 kHz and something like 50 kHz and 10 kHz, the jump between 1 MHz and 100 kHz width is to wide, would have been better having an intermediate 500 kHz as an example.

To activate Air band reception and 2m Ham Band reception you need to change the chip from SI  4732 to SI 5351,this operation can be done within the setup menu as in the picture below. The receiver will reboot shutting down and starting again immediately after.

On the 2m band I was not able to receive anything even with the two meter GP antenna except the CW beacon IQ2MI on 144,415 kHz (in CW or SSB). In 2 m the selectable receiving modes are AM, CW, Digital modes and SSB, NFM - as written above - is shaded and cannot be selected, why is this happeing is unknown to me.

Airband available in AM and Sync L / U. I could not receive anything as well.

UPDATE January the 24th: the receiver does receive also on 2 m HAM band, to tune an NFM transmission the user has to keep the AM on same frequency of NFM but tune the BFO to - 3 kHz with a badwidth filter of 3000 Hz. AM transmissions on Airband can be easily received knowing strong signal frequencies from airport in the surrounding area.Various digital signals can be received as well on the 161 MHz Marine Band.

Shortly about the tuning knob: this ATS 25 Pro+ Air has a metal tuning knob which should be an aesthetic upgrade compared with previous models where the knob is in plastic. This new metal knob does not bring any advantage: it has a very smooth surface and the grip between the knob and fingers is difficult; operating with 1 finger for small adjustments is almost impossible it simply does not turn unless you firmly take it with two fingers.

Anello per Youloop

Mi è sempre sembrato complicato lavorare con la Youloop dal momento che è un antenna costruita con semplice cavo coassiale.

Ho pertanto deciso di inserirla in un tubo in polietilene rigido da irrigazione con diametro 1 pollice, Il tubo è fissato in una scatola per usi elettrici. Questo assemblaggio lo tenevo in garage ed era una vecchia loop per onde medie he avevo costruito anni fa e che non utilizzavo più.

Per darle un po' di "sprint" l'ho collegata ad un amplificatore alimentato da un powerbank da 3A; è un amplificatore low noise e ad ampio spettro da 0,1 a 60 MHz che avevo acquistato in rete un paio di anni fa.

il risultato finale, visibile nella foto qua sotto, permette ora di manovrare e direzionare la loop in interno con maggiore facilità. Attualmente è collegata con il Malahit SDR V3 in DSC su 8414.5 kHz in contemporanea con un ATS25 a 8414.5 kHz collegato alla end fed esterna da 25m. E' un confronto un po' impari, ma fra qualche ora vedremo su anche la Youloop amplificata si comporta con onore.

Monitoring 16m band

17490 kHz    09:27UTC    China Radio International SNR22dB English service

17530 kHz     09:30UTC    Radio Farda Udon Thani SNR16dB Persian news + ID

17550 kHz    09:35UTC    CNR1- Beijing SNR5dB Chinese

17570 kHz    09:37UTC    China Radio International SNR25dB English - Round Table

17650 kHz    09:40UTC    China Radio International SNR24dB English - Round Table

17670 kHz    09:42UTC    China Radio International SNR15dB Chinese

17690 kHz    09:45UTC    China Radio International SNR11dB English - Round table

17720 kHz    09:46UTC    V. of America Udon Thani SNR17dB Chinese

17750 kHz    09:48UTC    Sound of Hope SNR5dB Chinese Music

17790 kHz    09:50UTC    Vatican Radio  SNR11dB Russian  

17850 kHz    09:58UTC    Radio France Int.  SNR8dB French

Reception in JN45KN

RX ATS-25 (Si4732)

Ant: Miniwhip PA0RDT

ATS-25 RECEIVER (SI4732)

 I got the receiver dispatched few days ago after buying on Amazon. Mine one was priced around 160Euros. I went for the version offered with a soft touch VFO since the experience I had with the traidtional VFO from the ATS-20 was just very bad.

The receiver is sligtly bigger than the ATS-20 and offers a nice dimensions touchscreen for operations.

With its whip antenna - in short waves -it does not pick up any signal with the exception of few strong broadcasters, in Medium wave it just receives the 900 kHz of RAI - Milano which broadcasting center is roughly 50 km away from my home.

With external aerial on shortwave broadcasting bands, it just does the work one is expecting: good signals, fine audio quality, using attenuation features it can also manage quite strong signals without that much of intermodulation and overloading. Basically no difference with other general purpose desktop receivers I own. 

I connected the recevier to two different internal active loops (the GS5-SE + ML3 Grahn Spezialantennen and the AOR LA-400) and also inside the house it gets many signals, also weak ones. During late afternoon and early morning with the AOR LA-400 I could receive all the available broadcasters from Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, both Koreas, The Philippines, Taiwan),Guam, Mariana islands and also Radio Habana, Radio Marti, WRMI, WWCR. No issues with european stations and midde east ones.

On SSB seems to me that the audio quality of the ATS-20 is slightly better  and also a little less noisy.

I like to remark that the reception with the AOR-LA400 was really amazing and that the small Japanese loop outperformed the Grahn GS5-SE+ML3 when the two are compared on this small ATS-25. This looked weird to me and the testing of the ATS-25 turned into a comparison between the 2 loops on various bands. I must mention that the roof of my house (the shack is just under the roof) is built in wood...basically the same as being outside. 

I thought that next would be to find a loop as small as the AOR with energy supplied by battery instead from the home AC line.

Et Voilà!! I found this (cheap) internal active loop, chinese made, at 80 Euros on Amazon, on ebay it can be found also at just 60 euros. Surely it will not perform as the AOR LA400, but it costs 5 times less. Is called "GA-450 loop" it's smaller than the AOR (only 20cm diameter vs.30cm diameter of the AOR), it covers medium waves and shortwaves from 2300 up to 30000 kHz. And finaly it is powered with a 1000 mAh internal rechargable battery, I have not that many expectations and illusions but let's see what happens when it's delivered.

   

Here following some more pictures of the screen options of the ATS 25.

Usefull features are: the direct input of the fequency from a key-in screen, and the "seek" up and down along the band. The seek functions I would suggest to be activated with a step of 1 kHz search otherwise it simply skips many stations which are indeed there; seeking up down it finds 1 or 2 or 3 stations, surfing the band with manual VFO you find >10. Which is the level of signal below which the seek functions does not stop? Unknown.

Interesting is also the INFO screen with many details on the signal and the reception.

In FM I just made a quick tour: with it's whip antenna signals are there, audio not bad, RDS works.