Re: K3 in a cw pileup - needs work

Posted by Barry N1EU on Feb 06, 2010; 11:15pm
URL: http://elecraft.85.s1.nabble.com/K3-in-a-cw-pileup-needs-work-tp4523884p4527366.html

Dave Hachadorian wrote

Tonight I used a pair of K3's in the Sprint practice. Several
times I had a pileup of four or five loud stations calling me.
With AGC turned on, they were all mushed together, and I couldn't
copy any of them.

So I turned the AGC OFF. Now this introduces another problem -
the very low threshold of the AF Limiter. The AF limiter, even at
its highest setting of 030 introduces gross distortion on loud
signals. This is even worse than the mushy AGC.

You need to maximize your rf/af dynamic range - that is what is going to turn that mush into a beautiful symphony of distinct signals of varying levels.  What has worked well for me is AGC off (although AGC on works fine as well), high isolation headphones, and the gain throttling techniques (most important) described by K3NA, W4ZV, myself, and others.

73,
Barry N1EU

(http://n1eu.com)