Let me see if I can help... A panadapter is a lot like a piece of professional equipment called a spectrum analyzer. If you are so inclined you can read about spectrum analyzers too but what it gives you is a plot of amplitude vs frequency. Most often in a panadapter the center frequency is the frequency that your radio is on and the graph provides you information about what is going on in the radio spectrum around you. So you can literally see that there is another CW contact going on just below you or you can tune into the SSB portion of the band and literally see the contacts going on then simply put a curson on a particular peak and poof you're instantly tuned and listening to that station. This becomes handy if you're on a quiet band as you can look at the panadapter and get an instant snap shot of whats going on on the whole band at once with out dialing around. And during a contest it can help you find stations and/or help you find holes in which to call.
Hope this helps. On Sun, 2009-08-16 at 19:28 +1200, Bryan, ZL1NI wrote: > Does anyone know of a Dummies Guide to Panadaptors that covers: > > What is a Panadaptor? > What is it used for? > Why a ham might want one? > > > Bryan, Zl1NI > > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:[email protected] > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
