I sent this to my contest club reflector, cross-posted here. I
neglected to turn off HTML and the Elecraft copy bounced. I checked
pretty carefully and it looks like it was a hard bounce. Nonetheless,
if you get this twice and are angry, shoot the administrator, not me.
... On the other hand, you may not want to shoot him, either. He's on
the critical path to your K3's! ;-)
---------------
IARU was my first opportunity to use the field test K3 under significant
contest conditions. It worked very well. I was able to operate comfortably
within 1-2 KHz of semi-neighbor W6EU who was S9 + 40-50 dB. Since it was a
QRP K3, the Alpha put out only 200-600 watts, depending on band. The K3
receiver sounded great and I got some unsolicited praise for the transmitted
audio and keying. I really like the filters and their controls. 400 Hz,
though, is too narrow for my taste. I often ran at a DSP bandwidth of
450-600 KHz when W6EU wasn't operating nearby but that required the 2.8 KHz
roofing filter. So I'll get a wider (>400 Hz) CW filter later. The
manual notch filter
is outstanding - steep, deep and smooth!
I operated on and off for a Writelog-computed 11 hours but there were many
10-29 minute gaps in there when I was corresponding with other field
testers, comparing the K3 to the MP (the K3 won) and doing interference
tests. No idea how much time I spent actually operating the contest but
rates were pretty good at times. Signals were disappointing and activity
seemed low during the daytime, but I have very limited experience with this
contest.
637 Qs
51 Zns
30 HQ
No idea how many points as Writelog wasn't properly trained. In fact, I
don't know whether the mult counts above are valid, either. I sure didn't
work very many Europeans!
/Rick N6XI
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