[Elecraft] KDSP2

[Mike Harris]

G'day,

Reacting to the recent post by Wolf (DL2WRJ) I finally got around to making
the af gain control mod.  It's not news to say that the mod makes a very
significant improvement to the function of the af gain control.

During the final check out, for ease I reinstalled my KAF2, less fiddly than
the KDSP2.  All was OK so I swapped back to the KDSP2.  I noticed that there
was a significant increase in af level when the KDSP2 was installed.
Consequently I dropped both the SSB and CW filter gains from the default
0.0dB to -3.0dB, this more closely match the two af levels.  An S9 signal
just drops to nothing in the phones when turning the af gain right down.

My impression is that the DSP also sounds rather less, well, DSP if you
follow me.  Not sure I'll use the de-noise much.  The auto-notch is really
nice you just hear a brief burst of tune-up tone and then nothing.  I does,
nevertheless, illustrate the shortcomings of af filtering 'cos though you
can't hear the tone, your hear the background noise going up and down in
response to the agc action on the changing signal level.

The RTC is currently losing less than 0.5 second/day, it's not been going
long enough to gauge any better.

I'm not going to part with the KAF2, actually if I'd been able to compare
the KAF2 vs. KDSP2 I would have had to think real hard about buying the
latter, but don't let that put anyone off, I'm also left handed.

Regards,

Mike VP8NO (IOTA SA-002)
GQRP 10148
QRP-Canada #57
K2/100 #1400