[Elecraft] Other Radios

[Douglas Westover]

My two cents. My OTHER radio is a Kenwood TS-870 which I
purchased fairly soon after it was introduced. The idea of DSP
i.f. filters really appealed to me. And I was initially not disappointed
the skirts on the things are fantastic. But soon the bloom was off the
rose...it doesn't matter how sharp your filter skirts are when just remotely
loud signals 50 kHz away de-sense the receiver, and forget the noise
blanker. I live reasonably close to two high power, reasonably active
stations, one of which is run by a bunch of avid contesters and if
either one of these guys is on I have to head for the WARC bands.

Another problem...when I finished my K2 and started playing with it
I was convinced that it must be broken. There was no noise, even
with the gain cranked up all the way! (Well, a slight hiss) Then I
tuned across a signal, WOW. The '870 noise level is unbelievable,
which I attribute to all the digital stuff. The really telling thing is if
you disconnect the '870 antenna and connect it to a dummy load
the noise level doesn't go down significantly! Listening to this over
any length of time is very tiring. (Geez, I'd better shut up, I'm trying
to sell the thing!)

So, though the K2 may not be perfect, it sure beats any other radio on the
market for my purposes. I notice the drift is greater with the KPA100
top so when the tuner comes out I'll probably order it in the EC2
configuration so I'll have the option of moving the amp out of
the case should I choose to.

Doug
W6JD
K2/100 #1626