Philips PM7800 Panoramic Receiver

I recently picked up an apparently working Philips PM7800 Panoramic Receiver, albeit with a sticker over the Philips logo saying ‘SIVERS LAB, Stockholm, Sweden’ on it. I’m quite fond of Philips test equipment and my radio pal was about to strip this for parts…parts which would be added to his hoard which he will never use. Most of us have such ‘collections’ I hasten to add.

I rescued this one for just a tenner and it does have a clear trace and does things. I would like to find a user manual, and hopefully a service manual, for the Philips PM7800 Panoramic Receiver, as it covers from 1 to 20GHz. I’m not convinced there will be much to find in that region of the ether…my interest usually wanes at about 146MHz.

An internet search brought up a couple of other amateurs looking for the same information a few years ago, and a number of surplus adverts for the receivers in the early 1990s. One I found was from John’s Radio…who were not a nice company to deal with in my opinion. It was on page 584 of the July 1993 issue of Wireless World, in the right hand column, about quarter of a page from the bottom.

Looking at the way the PM7800 is constructed, the left hand ‘scope’ part appears identical internally to the 10MHz Philips PM3200 oscilloscope. The right hand section looks like it was simply bolted on, with a wider front panel and top cover. The two chassis sections are still separate units…you can just see the join in the edge trim of the front panel in my somewhat dark photo.

If you are reading this, maybe you or someone you know can help please?