The good news is that it arrived early from AliExpress. It arrived in a gray plastic bag, enclosing a shipping box that I will not be reusing.
The bubble-wrapped contents fared better:
And that was it. The power cable had a connector only on one end.
The only “documentation” was a label on the crumpled box that might be some inventory number and perhaps manufacturing date code for May 25, 2025, and a label on the back of the device saying “12V 1A Center +.”
There are YouTube videos of these things operating. Unicom Radio sells these (along with other radio stuff) and I give them a plug because they have some starter information on their web page. It appears that they sell some serious equipment. But back to the signal generator…
They say:
The device is designed to generate high-frequency signals at frequencies of 0.5 MHz – 470 MHz, with the possibility of their modulation by an audio signal with a frequency of 800 Hz. Allows you to smoothly adjust the RF signal strength within -70 – 132 dBm. It can be used to measure the sensitivity and selectivity of the receiving paths of various devices, as well as for other purposes.
Test Methods: During the test, the frequency of the signal source input transceiver is first set to -100 DB or any value. The intercom has audio output and then reduces the output strength of the source. For example, the -120 DB just heard the intercom audio signal but there was noise. The audio signal just hears that the -120 DB value of this output is the receiving sensitivity of the radio.
So, anybody bring a 12V power supply? No problem, I’ve been throwing AC power supplies into drawers for over 40 years. The photo below is just the 12V drawer. The first one I pulled out, something from DIRECTV, has the right polarity and seems to fit.
Dare I plug it in? The inner part of the plug was too small, so I had to pick a different one, a rather light-weight one suggesting a switching power supply. I’ll evaluate the noise later, but it seems to power on.
The controls are very low-level. The F1 button switches a “>” symbol to a “<” symbol that can appear in one of two places, pointing to some numbers. One of them is probably frequency, one power, one modulation type and one modulation frequency. The up and down arrows increase/decrease whatever value is pointed to and it’s possible to enter numbers directly sometimes for something.
I’m worried that the power supply might inject noise into the process, but since I was supplied with the right sized cable end, I could splice on other supplies.
Videos
Here I learned that the device accepts 8 – 12V power, not just 12.
What was less encouraging is the number of videos about how to repair the signal generator.
For more on Supplies, check this video.