[K3]- K3 in NAQP SSB
Locked
 
|
List:
The new K3 was run through it paces as the 20/40m position at K7ZSD's station for the NAQP SSB Test this last weekend. This was a 12 hour Multi-Two operation at 100 watts power. The ops were KR7X(me),K7ZSD, W7ZB and K7ZS. I was going to shake down the rig in the RTTY RU but that didn't materialize due to work interference. The K3 as set up has the ATU, latest mcu and dsp firmware, 2100, 400 and 250 roofing filters and the 100w PA. Contest observations: 1. Receive audio is very nice, especially with noise cancelling headsets and AFX set to midway. No listening fatigue and it seemed to be easier to pick out calls in the pile-ups (subjective). All ops agreed on this, loved the receive audio. 2. Transmit audio equalization was set up with the help of an audio expert in Arizona. Turned out the best Contest type audio was with some midrange boost and a Heil HC-5 cartridge and not the HC-4. Go figure. 3. Tne auto notch filter is your best contest friend. I was running 20 meters up around 14290+ when some dipstick took offense at contestors in general. The offended station tried to jam me with and amplifier and solid carrier. I just punched in the auto notch and worked 10 stations in a row right through the attemped jam. Didn't even hear the jamming with the notch on. Touche! 4. The roofing filters work just like you would want them to. As you dial down the width in SSB the signal gets skrinched down and eventually loses all intelligability. Works for me. 5. The noise reduction is especially helpful on 40m and we set it at the first setting. It wasn't used much as the station is in a fairly quite location. The noise blanker was not utilized for the same reason. 6. I will be ordering the KXV3 so the receive only beverages can be used on 80 and 160m. 7. The ergonomics are fine. The knobs could be larger, personal preference, but did not cause any concern in the heat of the contest. The rig ran very cool with no apparant heating at all for the whole test. The final tally is that this is a keeper rig and will be the run radio in one of the two SO2R positions at the station with a 1000MP Mark V as the other rig in the setup. I plan on another shake down in the WPX RTTY test as a SO2R operation. Just thought a few hands-on observations would be nice for the list. Ciao and 73 Hank / KR7X We did over 1100 Q's with 500 plus on 20m and 300 plus on 40m _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
|
|
Great information Hank, thanks for the update
Mike, N4GW -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of [hidden email] Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 4:28 PM To: [hidden email] Subject: [Elecraft] [K3]- K3 in NAQP SSB List: The new K3 was run through it paces as the 20/40m position at K7ZSD's station for the NAQP SSB Test this last weekend. This was a 12 hour Multi-Two operation at 100 watts power. The ops were KR7X(me),K7ZSD, W7ZB and K7ZS. I was going to shake down the rig in the RTTY RU but that didn't materialize due to work interference. The K3 as set up has the ATU, latest mcu and dsp firmware, 2100, 400 and 250 roofing filters and the 100w PA. Contest observations: 1. Receive audio is very nice, especially with noise cancelling headsets and AFX set to midway. No listening fatigue and it seemed to be easier to pick out calls in the pile-ups (subjective). All ops agreed on this, loved the receive audio. 2. Transmit audio equalization was set up with the help of an audio expert in Arizona. Turned out the best Contest type audio was with some midrange boost and a Heil HC-5 cartridge and not the HC-4. Go figure. 3. Tne auto notch filter is your best contest friend. I was running 20 meters up around 14290+ when some dipstick took offense at contestors in general. The offended station tried to jam me with and amplifier and solid carrier. I just punched in the auto notch and worked 10 stations in a row right through the attemped jam. Didn't even hear the jamming with the notch on. Touche! 4. The roofing filters work just like you would want them to. As you dial down the width in SSB the signal gets skrinched down and eventually loses all intelligability. Works for me. 5. The noise reduction is especially helpful on 40m and we set it at the first setting. It wasn't used much as the station is in a fairly quite location. The noise blanker was not utilized for the same reason. 6. I will be ordering the KXV3 so the receive only beverages can be used on 80 and 160m. 7. The ergonomics are fine. The knobs could be larger, personal preference, but did not cause any concern in the heat of the contest. The rig ran very cool with no apparant heating at all for the whole test. The final tally is that this is a keeper rig and will be the run radio in one of the two SO2R positions at the station with a 1000MP Mark V as the other rig in the setup. I plan on another shake down in the WPX RTTY test as a SO2R operation. Just thought a few hands-on observations would be nice for the list. Ciao and 73 Hank / KR7X We did over 1100 Q's with 500 plus on 20m and 300 plus on 40m _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
|
|
In reply to this post by kr7x1
> 4. The roofing filters work just like you would want them to.
> As you dial down the width in SSB the signal gets skrinched > down and eventually loses all intelligability. Works for me. Not clear how the width was reduced in your operation, but it should be done with the HI CUT control, not the WIDTH control. Once you get down to about 1.5kHz width, then you need to increase LO CUT about 100-200Hz for further width reduction before reducing HI CUT again. Done this way, most signal are very intelligible down to 1.5kHz or so. But using the WIDTH control gives reduced intelligibility even at 2.2kHz. 73, Ed - W0YK _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
|
|
In reply to this post by kr7x1
Very nice review and appreciate the objective report! I'm very much looking
forward to getting to play with one! -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of [hidden email] Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 1:28 PM To: [hidden email] Subject: [Elecraft] [K3]- K3 in NAQP SSB List: The new K3 was run through it paces as the 20/40m position at K7ZSD's station for the NAQP SSB Test this last weekend. This was a 12 hour Multi-Two operation at 100 watts power. The ops were KR7X(me),K7ZSD, W7ZB and K7ZS. I was going to shake down the rig in the RTTY RU but that didn't materialize due to work interference. The K3 as set up has the ATU, latest mcu and dsp firmware, 2100, 400 and 250 roofing filters and the 100w PA. Contest observations: 1. Receive audio is very nice, especially with noise cancelling headsets and AFX set to midway. No listening fatigue and it seemed to be easier to pick out calls in the pile-ups (subjective). All ops agreed on this, loved the receive audio. 2. Transmit audio equalization was set up with the help of an audio expert in Arizona. Turned out the best Contest type audio was with some midrange boost and a Heil HC-5 cartridge and not the HC-4. Go figure. 3. Tne auto notch filter is your best contest friend. I was running 20 meters up around 14290+ when some dipstick took offense at contestors in general. The offended station tried to jam me with and amplifier and solid carrier. I just punched in the auto notch and worked 10 stations in a row right through the attemped jam. Didn't even hear the jamming with the notch on. Touche! 4. The roofing filters work just like you would want them to. As you dial down the width in SSB the signal gets skrinched down and eventually loses all intelligability. Works for me. 5. The noise reduction is especially helpful on 40m and we set it at the first setting. It wasn't used much as the station is in a fairly quite location. The noise blanker was not utilized for the same reason. 6. I will be ordering the KXV3 so the receive only beverages can be used on 80 and 160m. 7. The ergonomics are fine. The knobs could be larger, personal preference, but did not cause any concern in the heat of the contest. The rig ran very cool with no apparant heating at all for the whole test. The final tally is that this is a keeper rig and will be the run radio in one of the two SO2R positions at the station with a 1000MP Mark V as the other rig in the setup. I plan on another shake down in the WPX RTTY test as a SO2R operation. Just thought a few hands-on observations would be nice for the list. Ciao and 73 Hank / KR7X We did over 1100 Q's with 500 plus on 20m and 300 plus on 40m _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
|
|
In reply to this post by Ed Muns, W0YK
Good tip! Makes perfect sense but I've just not really done enough
filtering with a real radio to figure this one out. I have found that dialing in a bit of shift can tend to help but my radio (TS-450Sat) only has the set of fixed rocks for filtering. -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Ed Muns Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 2:08 PM To: [hidden email] Cc: [hidden email] Subject: RE: [Elecraft] [K3]- K3 in NAQP SSB > 4. The roofing filters work just like you would want them to. > As you dial down the width in SSB the signal gets skrinched > down and eventually loses all intelligability. Works for me. Not clear how the width was reduced in your operation, but it should be done with the HI CUT control, not the WIDTH control. Once you get down to about 1.5kHz width, then you need to increase LO CUT about 100-200Hz for further width reduction before reducing HI CUT again. Done this way, most signal are very intelligible down to 1.5kHz or so. But using the WIDTH control gives reduced intelligibility even at 2.2kHz. 73, Ed - W0YK _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
«
Return to Elecraft
|
1 view|%1 views
| Free forum by Nabble | Edit this page |