[Elecraft] opening "dead" bands

[Wayne Burdick]

In this e-mail I'll provide some information about the K2's SCAN
feature. At the end, I'll propose an interesting experiment that anyone
can participate in.

SCAN Mode

Frequently the bands are open, but you don't know it because your
receiver is sitting at one frequency--if it's turned on at all. It's for
this situation that we added the K2's "smart" SCAN feature. 

If you haven't used SCAN yet, I'd encourage you to give it a try. Set up
the A and B VFOs (A below B) for the desired scan range on any band,
then STORE this in one of the ten memories, but HOLD rather than TAP the
# key when prompted. The display will show "SCAN". To stop scanning, tap
any button. To resume scanning, you can RECALL the same memory (again
HOLDing the # key until SCAN appears on the display), or you can program
PF1 or PF2 as SCAN resume. The latter has the advantage that takes only
one switch press, and it picks up scanning where you left off. You can
select one of three scan rates, too: before you store the scan memory,
just tap RATE to pick 10, 50, or 1000 Hz steps. These translate to slow,
medium, and fast scanning. (The 1 kHz steps will jump right over some
potential signals, especially if you're using a narrow filter.) For more
details, see Advanced Operating Features in the K2 Owner's Manual.

I use SCAN while doing other things around the shack, and am often
surprised to hear the K2 unsquelch and offer up some unexpected DX. This
is especially true on the higher, quieter bands, such as 15 meters. Our
SCAN routine will generally unsquelch only when it finds a modulated
signal, not on steady carriers, hence the "smart" part. However, on very
noisy bands, such as 40 meters at night, you may need to turn the preamp
off (and even the attenuator on or RF GAIN down) in order to keep SCAN
from stopping too often. 

The Experiment

Here's a casual operating experiment we can do over the next few days
(or anytime) to see just how "open" some of these "dead" bands might
really be. Everyone who whose call ends in the letters A-L simply call
CQ on their favorite spot, at their favorite operating time; and
everyone whose call ends in M-Z, set up and run SCAN. If you don't have
a K2, you'll have to "scan" manually ;)

My call ends in an R, so I'll be scanning....right now I'm scanning on
15 meters.

73,
Wayne
N6KR

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