CQ WW

[Douglas Westover]

You can get complacent with the excellent K2
performance but a good contest weekend reaffirms
just how good it is. I haven't really been chasing "Qs"
in this one but having fun comparing the K2 with my
"other" radio, an ICOM 706Mk2G, a nice enough
BC band and SWL radio.

With a really crowded band the K2 sounds clean
between individual signals and shows no tendency
to overload whereas the 706 (with optional 250Hz
filter) just sounds continuously "muddy" with a
significantly elevated noise floor. Signals that
are solid copy on the K2 can be totally covered
by the noise. My favorite K2/706 comparison is
when W6YX, 3 miles "by crow" from my QTH,
is pointing NE from its hilltop right down my
throat. The 706 simply collapses and is unusable
for signals less than about 25kHz away whereas
the K2 doesn't even know he's there until
you get within about 2kHz.

And you don't have to pay $10k for the
luxury!

Doug
W6JD
K2/100 #1626
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[ayoshida]

Doug

I agree with you.
My K2 works very nice also on crowded band.
Where are you on bands, 10 is dead, 15 and 20 is rather good.

73 de aki, ja1nlx
[hidden email]
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~yy7a-ysd/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Westover" <[hidden email]>
To: "Elecraft" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2005 3:59 AM
Subject: [Elecraft] CQ WW


You can get complacent with the excellent K2
performance but a good contest weekend reaffirms
just how good it is. I haven't really been chasing "Qs"
in this one but having fun comparing the K2 with my
"other" radio, an ICOM 706Mk2G, a nice enough
BC band and SWL radio.

With a really crowded band the K2 sounds clean
between individual signals and shows no tendency
to overload whereas the 706 (with optional 250Hz
filter) just sounds continuously "muddy" with a
significantly elevated noise floor. Signals that
are solid copy on the K2 can be totally covered
by the noise. My favorite K2/706 comparison is
when W6YX, 3 miles "by crow" from my QTH,
is pointing NE from its hilltop right down my
throat. The 706 simply collapses and is unusable
for signals less than about 25kHz away whereas
the K2 doesn't even know he's there until
you get within about 2kHz.

And you don't have to pay $10k for the
luxury!

Doug
W6JD
K2/100 #1626
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[Paul Heller-2]

Douglas Westover wrote:

> With a really crowded band the K2 sounds clean
> between individual signals and shows no tendency
> to overload whereas the 706 (with optional 250Hz
> filter) just sounds continuously "muddy" with a
> significantly elevated noise floor. Signals that
> are solid copy on the K2 can be totally covered
> by the noise. My favorite K2/706 comparison is
> when W6YX, 3 miles "by crow" from my QTH,
> is pointing NE from its hilltop right down my
> throat. The 706 simply collapses and is unusable
> for signals less than about 25kHz away whereas
> the K2 doesn't even know he's there until
> you get within about 2kHz.
>
> And you don't have to pay $10k for the
> luxury!
>  

I decided to test my K2 against my IC-756ProIII in the CQWW to see how
the two rigs compared on 40 and 80 - after about 5 hours I stopped going
back and forth and just stayed with the K2 - it really does an excellent
job under contest conditions, and I've been amazed how clean it sounds
even when the band is full of extremely loud nearby signals.  Wow.

I decided to dig out my old SB-220 for the contest - the K2 drives it
easily - no complaints or strange behavior at all - just smooth,
consistent operation.  I'm doing the amp relay switching with the
keyer's PTT line, and I set a 20 ms lead to give the old relay time to
close before keying starts.

/Paul
 W3PH

--
Paul Heller
[hidden email]

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