Vin,
Perhaps I can give you some additional thoughts on the
RX320 and the Pegasus because I do have both.
Even though the RX320 and Pegasus do share a lot in
common, the Pegasus is a significantly better
receiver. Here are my key points of observation:
1. Sensitivity - for all practical purposes equal.
2. Selectivity - again more or less equal.
3. Noise Reduction - Pegasus wins hands down, the
RX320 doesn't even offer it as an option, in the
Pegasus it is very effective. It doesn't really pull
weak signals out of the noise, it will however get
rid most of the band noise around relatively strong
~S8+ signals.
4. FM mode - Pegasus only.
5. RS232 communication speed - If you are interested
in experimenting this may be a critical factor, it was
for me. The RX320 is too slow (1200 baud) to do any
meaningful fast tuning operations, the Pegasus can
keep up to anything you do with the tuning controls on
the user interface, mostly because it uses 56K baud. I
can easily exceed the tuning capability of the RX320,
so much so it will be "catching up" for as much as 10
seconds after I stop tunning. This especially
troublesome when tuning by dragging the mouse across
the sweep window.
6. Firmware updates - Pegasus a simple RS232 download,
RX320 its on a EPROM, Ten Tec to date has not offered
any updates to the RX320. They have done several for
the Pegasus.
7. DSP chip - the RX320 uses a ADSP2101, whereas the
Pegasus uses a ADSP2181 running at a somewhat faster
clock speed, the ADSP2181 also has more on chip memory
and other such goodies.
8. Notch filter - RX320 no, Pegasus yes, it too like
the noise reduction works very well in the Pegasus.
In the end if you look at the RX capability alone the
Pegasus is considerably better. I originally was going
to use N4PY's program for the Pegasus with a RX320,
but I found for the things I wanted to do the RX320
simply wasn't up to the task. What I did instead was
get a second Pegasus, Carl N4PY has made it possible
to use the second Pegasus as the second RX, it
performs very well. I use it to sweep the band while
listening on another frequency, if I see a signal pop
up on the band range I'm sweeping I just click on it
and I'm instantly there. Other times I can run two
instances of his control program and have completely
separate rigs. If you're needs aren't as demanding the
RX320 is still a bargain at $300.
I hope this helps.
73,
Duane
N9DG
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