You can determine whether it is a Paragon or a Paragon II by looking at
the model and serial number label on the back panel. The original
Paragon is model 585 and the Paragon II is model 586. I you cannot look
at the rear panel, or if the label is missing, there are some
differences on the front panel that will tell which Paragon it is. The
original Paragon has a "label" function by which you can associate
alphanumeric labels with memorized frequencies. There are silk screened
letters next to most of the pushbuttons on the gray panel which
surrounds the VFO knob. The Paragon II only has labels ON the buttons,
NOT next to them.
Regarding the "AM transmit " on the Paragon II, it is really SSB with
reinserted carrier, and you can select which sideband you want to
transmit. This is not the same AM produced by actually modulating an RF
amplifier stage in the transmitter, and it also differs from most recent
rigs which use a balanced modulator to produce DSB and then reinsert a
carrier. Most rigs that have AM transmit mode these days use the usual
balanced modulator to produce DSB. They either introduce a DC bias to
the balanced modulator to unbalance it in order to let some carrier
through, or the reinject the carrier in some later stage, all of this
without passing the DSB through the sideband selecting filter. In the
Paragon II the DSB from the balanced modulator does go through the
sideband selecting filter. The carrier must be reinserted after the SSB
filter. This results in a signal which can be demodulated by an AM
detector with no BFO, yet quite different from typical AM. It is
bandwidth limited by not just the audio circuitry, also by the SSB filter.
DE N6KB
|