Installation of your new N4PY Paragon 1.9 Chip To install your new 1.9 chip in your paragon, remove the top cover. If you have a voice board in your Paragon, you will have to remove it. Thsi chip is not compatible with the voice board. Next locate the EPROM chip in the ROM/RAM/RTC board. This chip should have a silver label on it. Gently remove this chip with a small flat blade screw driver. Once you have removed the old chip, place the new chip in the socket. Take care to notice the orientation of the chip in the socket. The notch on the chip should point down to the bottom of the radio. Also make sure all the pins are in the socket before applying pressure to insert the new chip. Sometimes the new chips have all their pins spread apart just a little more than the size of the socket. You can simply lay the new chip on each pin side on a table surface and bend all the pins slightly to get the spacing just right. Paragon 1.9 N4PY Operational Differences Up and Down arrow function - The UP and DOWN arrows on the Paragon now work as follows: In AM mode, UP and DOWN change the frequency 5 KHZ with FAST off and 10 KHZ with FAST on. The 5 KHZ change is very useful for listening to international shortwave broadcast stations. The 10 KHZ change is very useful for listening to American AM broadcast stations. SHIFT UP and SHIFT DOWN will move you to the bottom of the next higher or next lower AM broadcast band. In all other modes, UP and DOWN move you to the next higher or next lower HAM band. The location of the band will be either the bottom of the CW portion if you are in CW mode, the bottom of the phone portion if you are in USB or LSB, or the bottom of the RTTY portion if you are in FSK mode. SHIFT UP and DOWN move you up or down 5 or 10 KHZ depending on the FAST setting. Display of 10 HZ digit - The 10 HZ digit is now always displayed. The SHIFT 10 HZ key is no longer functional. Initial Conditions from Reset - The initial time and date is no longer set. This causes the time and date to be maintained if the rig is reset with the reset button on the side of the Paragon. The 63 memories are also no longer cleared at reset time. The initial frequency is 15 MHZ in AM mode with the 6 KHZ filter selected. Manual Clear of Memories 0 to 62 and Scratch Pad - Memories 0 to 62 and the scratch pad can now be cleared by pressing SHIFT followed by PERIOD followed by ENTER. This procedure will be aborted by pressing any key other than ENTER as the third key in this sequence. This will clear all the memories and load memory 0 with a frequency of 15 MHZ in AM mode with the 6 KHZ filter. The memory 0 tag will be set to your calsign. Internal HAM Jumper - The internal HAM jumper is no longer tested. The Paragon will transmit anywhere from 1.75 MHZ to 30 MHZ. Page 2 Set Scan Rate - The set scan rate function has been changed. When SHIFT RATE is selected, the current rate is displayed. To change it, press a numeric key (0 to 9) and the new rate will go into effect. The default rate set at reset time is 4. Tuning Rates - The tuning rate in CW, FSK, LSB, and USB with FAST off is now 1.2 KHZ per revolution. All other rates are unchanged. If SHIFT FAST is pressed a new high speed rate of 240 KHZ per revolution is in effect regardless of mode. Tuning rates are now as follows: CW,FSK STEP SIZE (HZ) KHZ PER REV NORM 2.5 1.2 FAST 20 9.6 SH/FAST 500 240 LSB,USB STEP SIZE (HZ) KHZ PER REV NORM 10 4.8 FAST 20 9.6 SH/FAST 500 240 AM,FM STEP SIZE (HZ) KHZ PER REV NORM 50 24 FAST 100 48 SH/FAST 500 240 AM Frequency Display Offset - In order to better place an AM signal in a filter passband, 1200 HZ is subtracted from the actual carrier frequency while in AM mode only. This causes better audio fidelity when using the 2.4 KHZ filter while the display reads the true AM carrier frequency. Page 3 Serial Port - The TENTEC CIV command set is now implemented. The paragon has a CIV address of 04. This is the same as the Icom 735. In addition command 14H to set the clock has been added. The original PARAGON commands are deleted. The implemented commands are: 00H to 0AH 0FH to 11H 14H 18h The 14H sets the time and date. The format of the data field is a 6 byte BCD field of day, month, year, hours, minutes, and seconds. Also, two commands are added for reading and writing the alpha memory tag. Command 10H read alpha characters for the active memory channel. The data portion returned has a 7 byte ASCII file containing the 7 alpha tag characters. Command 11H writes 7 alpha characters to the active memory channel. Your serial cable must have just 3 wires in it. I made a cable with a male DB 25 that plugs into the paragon and a female DB 9 on the other end that plugs into the PC serial port. The cable is 2 RG/174 cables. The first cable has the center lead going to pin 2 on the DB 25 and pin 2 on the DB 9. The second cable has the center lead going to pin 3 on the DB 25 and pin 3 on the DB 9. The shields on both cables are connected together and go to pin 7 on the DB 25 and pin 5 on the DB 9. Memory Clear for memories 1 to 10 - The STO ENTER sequence will save the current operating frequency and mode in the lowest numbered unused memory. In order to take better advantage of this function, the SHIFT LOCK key sequence will now clear memories 1 to 10. The idea here is to use memories 1 to 10 as temporary memories. Frequency Scan - Store the starting scan frequency in memory 60 and the ending scan frequency in memory 61. Press the VOICE key to start the scan. The scan will begin with memory 60. The scan will stop on each frequency for an amount of time depending on the scan rate setting. In CW, FSK, USB, or LSB mode, the frequency will be incremented by 200 HZ if FAST is off, or 1 KHZ if FAST is on. In AM or FM mode, the frequency will be incremented by 5 KHZ if FAST is off, or 10 KHZ if FAST is on. This will continue until the value in memory 61 is reached. At that point the scan will start over with the value from memory 60. The scan will continue indefinitely. To stop the scan, press VOICE. To stop the scan and return to the frequency displayed before starting the scan, press CLEAR. Receive and Transmit Offset - The receive and transmit offset values are now displayed down to the 10 HZ digit. Page 4 Initial Power on with no internal memory saved - If the Paragon is powered off and the internal battery is not supplying power and the external power supply is not supplying power, after about 1 to 2 minutes, the internal memory and clock will lose their values. When power is restored, this condition is checked for and if found, all memories 0 to 61 and the scratch pad will be cleared. The clock will be set to January 1 at 0100 and memory 0 will be set to 15 MHZ, AM, 6 KHZ filter with your callsign as the tag. New Split Button Operation with Receive and Transmit Offset - The split button will now convert split frequency offset operation to split frequency VFO operation. This allows better control of both transmit and receive frequencies while at the same time allowing an easier method to get to split frequency VFO operation. With receive offset on, pressing the split key causes the active VFO to get the original VFO plus the offset value as its new value. The inactive VFO gets the original active VFO frequency. With transmit offset on, pressing the split key causes the active VFO to remain at its current value. The inactive VFO gets the original active VFO plus the offset value frequency. The offset function is then automatically disabled, and split frequency operation is enabled. Receive and Transmit Offset no longer automatically cleared - When the receive and transmit offset functions are turned off, the offset value is now saved. When the offset function is turned back on, it will be at its last value. The clear key is used to reset the offset back to zero. Memory Tune - Only memories 1 to 40 are now scanned in the memory tune modes. The other memories are used for frequency scan limits, callsign display, and band stacking registers. Page 5 Special AUX Antenna Control - I have installed a relay to switch to a receive only antenna jack. This jack is toggled between enabled and disabled with the period key. An 'R' is displayed after the time to show the receive only antenna is connected. The relay is controlled with the receiver blank line (previously unused) to a transistor switch to enable or disable the relay. The receiver blank line is labelled "RX BLNK." on page 6-83 of the Paragon schematics. New Memory Tune by Mode - If memory tune is started by pressing SHIFT MTUNE, the mode that was active before the keys were pressed is the mode that will be searched. Only memories that match this mode will be recalled as the tuning knob is turned. To end memory tune by mode, press MT to restore the original frequency before memory tune by mode selected, or press RCL to stay at the new frequency. Memory Tune - Memory tune can now be exited and either have the original frequency or the new memory tune frequency selected. Press MT to get the original frequency or press RCL to get the new frequency. Direct Frequency Entry - Direct frequency entry no longer uses the period key. The ENTER key must first be pressed. For frequncies below 4 MHZ, a leading zero must be keyed. The frequency range of the rig has been extended to 32 MHZ. Page 6 Band Stacking Registers - Band stacking registers are now implemented. Keys 1 to 9 correspond to band 160M to 10M. Press the band key to return to the last place on that band that the PARAGON was tuned when a band key was pressed. If the band key is the same as the band the rig is on, the frequency will alternate on each depression between the current and previous frequency for that band. Band stacking registers use memories 41 to 59. After a complete memory clear, the band stacking registers must be intialized. Tune any frequency on the 160 M band and press '1' two times. Tune any frequency on the 80 M band and press '2' two times. Continue this procedure up to the 10 M band. Now the band stacking registers will be setup properly. Deleted Functions - The following functions have been deleted: Set Time Set Date Global Memory Lock Global Memory Lock Clear Frequency Send - Pressing SHIFT A=B will cause the PARAGON to send its frequency and mode on the serial port as broadcast packets. This will allow logging programs to pick up the address form the radio. Page 7 Paragon 32 bit Utility Program. There is now a 32 bit utility program that works on any comport. To run the utility with comport 1, start the program as "par32". To run the utility with comport 23, start the program as "par32 c=23". With the program started, you will see 3 menu selections: 1) Load Paragon memories from file This selection will allow you setup all the paragon memories from a file. There is a default file supplied in the zip file. The file is called "par19.mem". You can open this file with notepad. The file is column sensitive so be careful not to change the columns that anything is in. All changes should just be by over typing on top of the old characters The first thing you should do is change the memory tag in the file to your call sign. You will see "N4PY" as the default call sign. Make all your changes to the file and then press F3 to save the changes. Next, load this file into the paragon. It will give you initial band register values and memories to test out the new memory system. 2) Save all memories to file Once you have your paragon memories just the way you want them, this menu selection allows you to save them to a file. 3) Set Paragon Date and Time Running this menu selection cause the current date and time in your computer to be placed in the Paragon. If you want the Paragon clock to be in GMT, then set your computer clock temporarily to GMT first.