Post Dayton Traumatic Stress Syndrome...

[Tom-5]

Like many of you, I went to Dayton to see the radio that was ordered for
me (by K8AJ) actually looked like. It is rather un-nerving to order a
radio that is not even in production.

But.

It does look great. Nice LCD panel.

But looks only count on the first date.

The demo radio on the left had a whip antenna attached. The audio coming
from it sounded, well, Elecraftish! I usually hear the same sound from
the Ten-Tec's. Someone pays attention to the receive audio, and it just
opens up.

I had fun just stepping back and watching people go up and look at the
radio. Elecraft even ran out of brochures on Friday. I felt very good
about getting in on the first production run.

The only negative, the Amazing Lisa was not there.

It was a good weekend.

Tom K8TB K3 Cult member SN xxx




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[Dick Dickinson]

Hi Tom.

The Elecraft K3 so far looks like a slam-dunk to me.  I do not have hand's
on experience with either Elecraft or Ten-Tec equipment.  Therefore I could
use a little enlightenment on your comment below.

I'm a predominantly SSB operator and appreciate good quality, unadorned
sound.  Do you care to elaborate a bit?  ...on or off the reflector is fine.


Regards,
Dick - KA5KKT/4
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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The demo radio on the left had a whip antenna attached. The audio coming
from it sounded, well, Elecraftish! I usually hear the same sound from the
Ten-Tec's. Someone pays attention to the receive audio, and it just opens
up.

 - Tom K8TB K3 Cult member SN xxx

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[Tom-5]

Edward Dickinson III wrote:
 >Therefore I could
 >..use a little enlightenment on your comment below.

    Ed,

       I am talking about a very subjective situation. There are many
items that can add to a specific radios' "sound", both transmit and
receive. One area is phase shift, usually caused by an improperly
designed resistor-capacitor network in a roll-off or bandpass
configuration. What happens is that a signal at one frequency, say 500
Hz, is delayed by this circuit for a certain amount of time, and then a
signal at 1.5 khz is delayed a different amount of time. Your ear cannot
define this, but it doesn't like it.

    Did you ever notice at field day, that some radios the signal just
jumps out?  I do not like a perfect AGC in a radio. A perfect AGC will
keep the audio level the same, for all signal strengths. If the AGC has
a slope in it, it allows for a certain amount of dynamic range. If you
set the slope to be a 20:1 ratio, then an S9 signal will be some 4-6
times louder than an signal in the noise.Some people want a  "perfect"
AGC. The K3 will let you define it.

    One other area that really effects the audio sound is the distortion
that different sections of the radio add to signal. The real world
situation is that many times this distortion cannot be measured. It is
very easy to do a simple THD or IM distortion check, but then we get
into whats called TIM, or Transient Intermodulation  Distortion. All
circuits from the actual product detector to the audio stages proper
effect this audio quality.

At times the chase for the perfect audio signal does become silly.
Google around and you can see articles that are written by what I call
"AudioPhools".

    I have been in the radio broadcast engineering profession for some
35+ years now. Every few months we learn how simple audio is not.

    But the K3 continues the Elecraft Mojo.

    tom K8TB

p.s., Again, how a certain radio sounds is exceptionally subjective. The
above sentences are simply my thoughts, and are not valid where
prohibited.!!

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[dj7mgq]

Hi Tom,

 > But the K3 continues the Elecraft Mojo.

First of all, you've got me drooling again....

Secondly, just out of pure curiosity, do you know which roofing filter
and DSP filtering was in use when you heard the radio? Did you have a
chance to play around with the selectivity and/or equaliser?

vy 73 de toby
--
DD5FZ, 4N6FZ (ex dj7mgq, dg5mgq, dd5fz)
K2 #885, K2/100 #3248
K3/100 #??? (< #200)
DOK C12, BCC, DL-QRP-AG
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