Fun times on 20m SSB tonight

[WE0H]

Had some fun with my K2 running SSB on 20m. Was listening to a guy in
Florida boasting how life is too short for QRP and telling a guy local
to me about his beam and SB220. hi hi...So me, like a smart a$%, jump in
there with the K2 set to 5w. Yep he comes right back to me saying I am
light but in there decent. He asks what I am running. I cracked up
laughing and said a Butternut HF6V and a K2 set to 5w output...hi hi...

So the band starts to fold for that path and a guy in Tuscon AZ comes in
there and says my K2 is sounding great and about S-9. I said hold on a
bit and came back at him with 1w. Yep, he says the 1w is making it, but
real light copy near the noise floor. I try 2.5w then 5w and he says
that helped out a lot. So I let her rip at near 20w and got a almost
10/9 report out of him!!! I think fading had something to do with the
different signal levels but it proved QRP would do the trick on SSB.
Later on I had to get on my '930 as the band was folding. Chatted with a
bit over 100w on that rig until he faded down to a S-3 and said my 73's
es thanks OM.

Has anyone used a MC-60 mic with a K2? The first comment I got when I
went over to the '930 was more punch to the audio. The '930 was setup
kind of light audio with the ALC barely moving the needle.  I use a
MC-60 mic on that radio.  The mic preamp was on. I am using a MC-43s
hand mic on the K2, and it is set to the recommended audio and
compression levels. Would the MC-60 drive it a bit stronger yet not
destroy the audio quality? I suspect the K2 might be running super clean
audio with no compression or processing. Could it benefit from a bit
more audio drive or processing? I don't know. What do you guys run for
audio settings on the K2?

--
Mike
WE0H
K2 #6698
SKCC #5446

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[Geoffrey Mackenzie-Kennedy]

Hello Mike,

Here I use a Heil ProSet Plus headset which has the HC-4 and HC-5 mike
elements, although I do not use the HC-4 "DX" element with my K2/100 #3255
which does not contain any of the "official" mods. I do not use any external
mic preamp with this K2/100 because one is not required, i.e.100 watts pep
output is delivered on all bands without an external mic preamp.

SSBA and SSBC are both set to 3, but I do not use VOX. When using the K2/100
I try to avoid heavy ALC action, just a flicker of one bar, too much ALC
might result in "buckshot" splatter.

Because most of my operating involves DX, mostly on 40m and 15m, the nominal
bandwidth of the SSB transmit crystal filter in my K2 and other rigs is 2.1
kHz. If a DX's receiver bandwidth is set narrowish, I would suggest that
using a wider transmit bandwidth is not really desireable. I did modify my
K2's SSB2 filter to reduce its passband ripple, but the change in component
values could well be different in other K2's. I won't bore you with the
reasons for that.

I must admit that I set the PA bias while looking at the IMD products during
two tone tests, within the limits of allowed power dissipation of course.

Hope that this helps.

73,
Geoff
GM4ESD


Mike-WE0H  [hidden email]  wrote on Monday, April 20, 2009 at 5:04 AM

> Has anyone used a MC-60 mic with a K2? The first comment I got when I
> went over to the '930 was more punch to the audio. The '930 was setup
> kind of light audio with the ALC barely moving the needle.  I use a
> MC-60 mic on that radio.  The mic preamp was on. I am using a MC-43s
> hand mic on the K2, and it is set to the recommended audio and
> compression levels. Would the MC-60 drive it a bit stronger yet not
> destroy the audio quality? I suspect the K2 might be running super clean
> audio with no compression or processing. Could it benefit from a bit
> more audio drive or processing? I don't know. What do you guys run for
> audio settings on the K2?

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