K3 Receiver Performance
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A summary of what is to follow - "Wow!!!"
This radio was designed and advertised as a contesters radio and it certainly meets all the requirements. Ergonomics are excellent, all the necessary controls are well placed and what's more, work! I spent sometime in CQWW 160 CW this weekend, not a competitive entry with 406 Qs, 27 States and 50 countries but enough to assess the K3 rx. The general sound has already been compared to the "Drake R4B" sound. Yes. Very comfortable to listen to. The AGC constants are perfect, at least for me. The Width control coupled with Shift gives a very flexible selectivity selection and the Noise Reduction really eases help my power line noise problem. This morning around sunrise when the band peaked it was great to hear the W5s booming in, it was fantastic to be called during a run of Europeans by W6XI in Arizona, but the crunch came in the last hour or so at W2,3,4,8 sunset. The band was packed full of Eu, ranging from s7 to 40+over 9, and yet when I screw the width right down I can copy and work Stateside. Now, these condx are very similar to say 40m in CQWW CW and the K3 came through without a hitch. This is real radio, real contesting with a real contester's K3. Thanks Aptos !! Chris G3SJJ _______________________________________________ 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 |
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Chris
In the crowded band conditions, did you notice a definite change as you went through filter sides? David G3UNA > This morning around sunrise when the band peaked it was great to hear the > W5s booming in, it was fantastic to be called during a run of Europeans by > W6XI in Arizona, but the crunch came in the last hour or so at W2,3,4,8 > sunset. The band was packed full of Eu, ranging from s7 to 40+over 9, and > yet when I screw the width right down I can copy and work Stateside. Now, > these condx are very similar to say 40m in CQWW CW and the K3 came > through without a hitch. > _______________________________________________ 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 |
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In reply to this post by Chris G3SJJ
Chris,
I don't have a tx antenna for top band but my doublet was piling 'em in on receive; it was an opportunity therefore to give the K3 receiver a good test and your signal, being fairly local and a K3 was interesting to listen to. I was particularly interested in key clicks. I noticed recently that the K3 cw waveform had a very sharp trailing edge and was told that this had crept in after a 'very recent' firmware upgrade and will be fixed. I knew you were there +/- 250 Hz (with the filtering down to 50Hz/250Hz 8 pole roofing filter) but by 'ticks' rather than clicks and you were LOUD; generally the signal sounded excellent here. Presume you were using an amp and I seem to recall you may have an Acom 1000 which seems very good with respect to relay timings (better be - I have one :-) so perhaps the residual ticks *are* down to the K3 trailing edge which hopefully will be sorted soon. I agree with you about the filtering. I could search out a weak signal within about 250 to 500 Hz of a booming eu and wind down the filtering and could copy the weak signal with no sign of spurii or breakthrough (assuming no key clicks...!). I'm not so sure about the 'dual pass band' filtering; I assume this uses the wide (2.7 KHz) roofing filter in order to accomodate the wide skirts and often when I switched it in the wanted signal would suffer from agc pumping from adjacent inaudible stations.This fitted with the way the S-meter reacted and disappeared when the 'normal' narrow filtering was reinstated. One thing did surprise me and that was the AFX. Set to binaural and the filtering out wide I was surprised to find that loud slightly off freq signals would appear to drop in strength in the headphones when I switched in the AFX. This was quite unexpected and very marked and had the effect of bringing up the wanted signal; I can't see a physical reason for this to happen so maybe it's 'all in the mind' but nonetheless very effective. It seemed like the unwanted signals were being sent to the 'back of the hall' when you switched in the AFX and keeping the wanted sigs right in the front row. I've had my K3 a few weeks now and I'm still being surprised about it's performance and features; the more you become familiar with it, the better it gets. Have fun, Stewart Rolfe GW0ETF (K3 145)
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