Upgrade from k2 to KX3 for week station hunting?

[dw-4]

Hi All,
For those of you who are familiar with the K2, K3 and KX3, I'm
interested in your experiences with comparing those receivers ability to
pull week cw signals out of the mud for long-distance qso-ing.

Specifically have you found features in the K3 and/or KX3 that
out-perform the K2 for that type of cw operation?

Thanks in advance.
Duane - N1BBR

 

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[Chip Stratton]

My KX3 seems to be better than my K2. When you narrow the filter down on a
weak station with the KX3, the signal seems to pop up out of the noise
better than it does at narrow widths on the K2. I haven't found the APF
function of the KX3 to be very helpful to me, but others seem to have found
differently.

Part of the difference may be lie in the ability of the KX3 to squeeze down
to a much narrower filter width than the K2. Even at wider filter settings
the KX3 is easier for me to listen to however.

Chip
AE5KA


On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 9:38 AM, dw <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi All,
> For those of you who are familiar with the K2, K3 and KX3, I'm
> interested in your experiences with comparing those receivers ability to
> pull week cw signals out of the mud for long-distance qso-ing.
>
> Specifically have you found features in the K3 and/or KX3 that
> out-perform the K2 for that type of cw operation?
>
> Thanks in advance.
> Duane - N1BBR
>
>
>
> --
>  [hidden email]
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>

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[Jim Brown-10]

On 8/20/2013 8:20 AM, Chip Stratton wrote:
> Part of the difference may be lie in the ability of the KX3 to squeeze down
> to a much narrower filter width than the K2. Even at wider filter settings
> the KX3 is easier for me to listen to however.

I suspect a large part of the difference is that the IF filters in the
KX3 are DSP, which can be better shaped to optimize the total response
than the crystal filters in the K2. On SSB, the TX filter is used for RX
in the widest position, but the narrower settings staggertune the
filters, which produces a frequency response with lots of bumps and
grinds, and sounds varying degrees of awful. Part of that is due to the
phase shift associated with all of those filters. It's funny -- pro
audio guys understand the importance of good phase response to good
speech intelligibility, but RF guys generally do not.

The K3 and KX3 also have a lot less phase noise than the K2, which I
would expect to show up when digging weak signals out of big ones (like
QRN).

73, Jim K9YC
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