Posted by
Steven Pituch on
Nov 05, 2004; 9:17pm
URL: http://elecraft.85.s1.nabble.com/Proper-Use-of-the-Preamp-tp371354.html
Hi all,
I have K2 #402, and am planning to upgrade it someday. But I was using it
last night during the QRP-L fox hunt, and in its present state this K2 seems
to be quite exceptional listening to weak signals (or static) on 40 meters.
For most of the time, when I had actually located both of the foxes, they
were in the noise most of these times. I finally got both by waiting until
propagation got momentarily marginally better. My strategy was that I
figured that propagation would either get better (50% chance) or worse (50%
chance) and it was no use transmitting until I could copy most of what the
fox was sending. Why send when you can't hear the fox give your call sign
back?(HINT!!). Anyway since I was using all the performance my K2 could give
me listening to mostly static, I tried putting the preamp off. It is
usually on all the time. What I found was that I seemed to hear the fox
better over the static with the preamp off, but the volume was too low.
With the preamp "on" I had plenty of excess audio volume, but with the
preamp off I didn't have enough volume I felt necessary.
With the preamp "on" I also tried putting the af volume on full and then
reducing the rf gain slightly. This actually helped but I sensed that using
the rig with the preamp off and having a little extra volume would be
significantly better.
So I wonder if I need more af gain in the rig or maybe a little amp on the
way to the headphones. Or maybe I am imagining things and somebody with
more experience can set me straight.
Thanks,
Steve, W2MY/5
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