[Elecraft] acceptable amount of drift?

George, W5YR [email protected]
Wed Jul 23 11:45:00 2003


Tim, the key words here are "acceptable" and "tolerate."

I have never used a rig that drifted that much and would be most unhappy
with one that did. My 746PRO and PRO2 remain within 2 Hz or less of WWV
indefinitely while turned on, but both have oven-controlled master
oscillators. Once you become accustomed to that level of dial calibration
and frequency stability, it becomes difficult to work with less. But, this
is subjective, remember.   <:}

My K2 is never closer than about 10 Hz in dial calibration and is much
further off on some bands. It does, however, seem to be stable enough that I
have never noticed the effects of frequency drift.

The second issue to be considered is the rig itself. Although full-dress
K2/100 kits cost more than my 746PRO, the K2  is of a much simpler design
which has both pros and cons. One of the pros is reported superior front-end
performance. One of the cons is the reported lack of accurate dial
calibration and associated frequency drift.

Basically, one cannot realistically expect the K2 to display the accuracy
and stability of the 746PRO or PRO2 regardless of price considerations. But,
I cannot toss the PRO2 into a small case and carry a complete station,
battery operated for several hours,  into the field and enjoy all the
operational features and performance that is usually required for such a
venture. With the K2 I can.

So, inevitably, like most things in life and especially with anything
involving engineering, there are compromises. We learn to accept what we
cannot realistically change  with and to enjoy what we have.

I suspect that your K2 can be improved, possibly quite a bit, but it will
never provide the dial accuracy and stability of a rig with an OCXO master
oscillator.

So, have fun with the K2 and as long as you can hear and work the other guy,
what's the problem?   <:}

73/72, George
Amateur Radio W5YR -  the Yellow Rose of Texas
Fairview, TX 30 mi NE of Dallas in Collin county EM13QE
"In the 57th year and it just keeps getting better!"
<mailto:[email protected]>





----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim" <[email protected]>
To: "Elecraft Reflector" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 8:01 AM
Subject: [Elecraft] acceptable amount of drift?


> Hi folks -
> I have no idea what is considered acceptable drift so maybe someone can
give
> me some feeback? My K2/100 has every mod every required done to it. Last
> night after about an hour ragchew with my code buddy he said it appeared
> that I may have drifted about 80Hz on 40 meters. He's an engineer and
> usually dead on about these things. If it did drift 80Hz in an hour, is
that
> a reasonable amount to tolerate? doesn't really bother me - just want to
> know if it's mormal. Thanks folks. 73/Tim NZ7C
>
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