[Elecraft] Second ( and final) impressions of the KDSP2

[Ron Willcocks]

Hi again,
             Having operated the KDSP2 for a couple of days now since
installing it I feel I am able to give a bit more objective review of how I
found the setting up and operating of it.
As I mentioned before, the actual building of the KDSP2 was a breeze, with
the usual good quality parts and instructions. I did wonder why the FET's
(Q5 and Q6) weren't packaged in anti-static foam, but they  worked OK for
the omission.

On first "test drive" the manual had to be consulted pretty closely and it
does a pretty good job explaining what is quite a versatile gadget. I did
think there is a small omission in not explaining the Menu that can be
toggled through from the "denoiser" entry (ie. pressing "Display" and
holding RCL several times to step through each menu) However, each menu is
explained fully in later directions, but it took me a while to be aware the
menus were there and could be toggled! ( Ok ...I'm slow....DUH)
First impressions of the filter were a bit dissapointing to tell the truth,
but I woke up to the fact that the centre frequencies of the default filters
were set for 600hz , whereas my K2's were set to 750hz. I adjusted the DSP
fiters centers to 750hz and things started to sound somewhat better.

The next morning I looked at my filters using Spectrogram, and was quite
surprised to see my K2's filters were close to 100hz away from where I
thought they were, so I put the DSP filter in Bypass, and redid the K2's
filters with Cal Fil.
I then turned the DSP back on and checked that the DSP filters were aligned
the same.
Now the DSP filter started to sound pretty good, and I ended up resetting
changes I had initially made to some parameters, back to the "factory
defaults". Probably the main changes I have made to customise my setup is
altering the bandwidths of each filter to where I like them. ( except for
CW1 and SSB1 which remain in Low Pass)
IMHO I would think it would be almost imperative to check the filters
relationship in the likes of Spectrogram.

My current impression of the KDSP2 ??. I like it. The KAF2 is  great little
filter, and I thought it worked great, but the KDSP2 is a different
arrangement again.  I like the sound of the filters available from AFIL and
the denoiser is whole new ballgame.  Background noise just washes away and
leaves the received signal. Very impressive.
I can't comment yet on the "autonotch" as I don't use SSB a great deal, but
I guess I will get the chance to try it eventually.The filters available
using AFIL certainly work fine on SSB, unlike the KAF2.
My congrats to Lyle for his design work and thanks to Elecraft for marketing
the DSP filter, making the K2 just that bit more versatile.
The only gloomy part of the whole exercise was having to pay almost double
what you chaps in the States do , thanks to our weak dollar here in NZ.
(Great for visitors coming on holiday here!)
Cheers......Ron ZL1TW
K2/100 #2204