Re: unblocked R2

>nal12 emails me:
>n> I have one and love it But id love to get a Unblocked one with NO
>n> gaps, Ive been searching on how to unblock it ;-) also i have a
>n> Question if you can answere the UNBLOCKED" UK /EUROPE VERSION
>n> 0.495-1.3GHZ WITH NO GAPS do they.  do they work in the USA , ive
>n> herd or read sometime ago the USA and the UK/Japan are alittle off
>n> set on their frequencies not matching up, but having a unblock from
>n> their with no gaps would it work just fine or what ?  Id love just
>n> to find out how to unblock mine and the how too's diagrams and
>n> all...well thanks for your time ...West San Jose Calif
>
>All I know is all I can hear on those frequencies are digital buzzes
>anyway, and I suspect it's the same outside Taiwan too. I'll CC the
>list.

I have a Canadian R2, which is completely unblocked.  The frequencies that 
are blocked in the USA are the old analog cellphone channels.  These phones 
transmit using plain FM (though it's 12 kHz deviation instead of the 5 kHz 
normally used for amateur/business/public service).  The R2 would let you 
listen to cellphone audio if you were so inclined.

However, few people have analog cellphones any more, so I suspect there's 
not much to listen to.  Most carriers have converted most of their analog 
bandwidth to one of the digital modes (TDMA, CDMA, or GSM).  The R2 ought to 
be able to receive TDMA and GSM and convert them to noise, while it won't be 
able to receive CDMA at all.  And in most of the rest of the world, analog 
cellular either never existed, or has been shut down.  So you're not likely 
to find much to listen to with an unblocked R2.

An unblocked R2 *is* useful nonetheless.  I've used mine to figure out which 
cellular carrier owned a particular cell site, and which set of 3 
frequencies is used for the control channels.  (This only works for the 800 
MHz channels, not the 1.9 GHz ones).  If you want to listen for the second 
harmonic of a transmitter operating at 440 MHz, it's nice to just tune the 
R2 to the frequency you care about without being blocked if it happens to 
fall in one of the forbidden ranges.  But this is just saying that a 
continuous-coverage receiver is nice, there's not much "thrill" involved.

As for unblocking an existing R2, I don't think that's possible.  As I 
understand it, the various country versions of the R2 use a different 
version of the CPU, programmed with a different frequency table.  There are 
no jumpers you can cut or install in order to modify an already-blocked R2.

Other than frequency ranges, the one difference I'm aware of between a 
US/Canadian R2 and the European models is that European R2's have a 9 kHz 
step size when tuning the AM broadcast band.  North American AM stations are 
placed at multiples of 10 kHz, which the R2 can do anywhere, but European 
ones are apparently at 9 kHz spacing and the R2 provides that step size for 
that band in Europe.

        Dave 



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