[Elecraft] Final Update To Keying Mod Change

[Guy Olinger, K2AV]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" <rondec@easystreet.com>


>Gee, Guy, I'm not very happy with anyone who "sets up shop" and
starts
>transmitting within 500 Hz of my QSO. You may think that I'm
bothering you.
>I'll think that you're bothering me.

I will definitely agree that setting up at 500 Hz for casual QSO's is
impolite. If nothing else, have to understand that many RX deal poorly
with a signal even up 1 Khz, and cannot reject +/- 500 at all.

For contests, the use of spectrum is very tight, with high power
common. It is very clear just by observing that 500 Hz is about all
you can count on, and BOTH one's transmitter AND receiver should be
able to cope with it. 500 Hz in CW contests is pretty well universal.

Non-contest DX goes by where the DX station says he is listening.
Calling stations will call where they think they will be heard, and a
pile-up may cover many kHz.

>I understand that the "rules" are different in DX pileups and
contests. At
>least some ops think so.  That's why you seldom find me in either.

>My interest in this thread is that I want to find an inexpensive and
>reliable way to evaluate a rig for clicks. What we know is that just
>listening on another receiver is not reliable since overloading the
receiver
>will produce clicks indistinguishable from those produced by the
>transmitter.

If what you mean by "reliable" is that a random pick of a receiver and
filters may not give you a setup that can display clicks, I agree. The
setup needed is specific.

If what you mean is that NO receiver/filter combination can be safely
used for evaluation, I do NOT agree.

Given the proper setup with an RF step attenuator, and a good receiver
that has enough of a filter to suppress a carrier 250 Hz beyond the
filter skirts (as in an MP with INRAD 400 Hz filters in both IFs), the
level of the measured clicks can be seen to be precisely tracking the
step attenuator until the clicks disappear under the RX internal
noise. This is proof that the RX is not creating the clicks with
overloading.

I will grant you that SOME receivers WILL spread out a signal 20 over
S9. But you can't do a CW contest using one of them without going mad.

>The K2 without the modification is fine in regards to clicks, as Eric
or
>Wayne pointed our recently.

I completely disagree that the unmodded K2 is "fine".

The state of the art for key clicks these days is defined by an Orion,
or an Omni 6, and other transceivers that have no hint of clicks
beyond +/- 250 or 300 Hz. When Ten Tec was blasted by their own
customers for clicks in the Omni 6 Plus not present in the predecessor
Omni 6, TenTec publicly labeled the engineering change responsible as
an "error" and apologized. They did not attempt to pass it off as
state of the art because they could find another transceiver on the
market that had clicks.

The central question here is whether "state of the art" is defined by
the BEST, or defined by the WORST. If someone thinks by the worst,
then I have philosophical differences that far exceed any discussion
about key clicks.

The Omni 6 Plus had a lesser level of clicks than the unmodded K2 and
far less than the monstrous unmodded MP's. Ten-tec's acknowledgement
and Yaesu's stonewalling fairly well define the extremes of response
by commercial manufacturers.

I choose to judge Elecraft's response in the emergence of the click
mod and the circuit present in all new K2's as the succinct statement
of whether *Elecraft* thought the unmodded K2 was state of the art.

I also choose to interpret Elecraft's constant pursuit of circuit
upgrades as a real force in IMPROVING the state of the art, rather
than some kind of admission of fault.

In that regard, I would hope that those who waver on installing
improvements such as the click mod would consider Wayne and Eric's
leadership on these issues as sufficient reason, even if other
arguments seem less compelling.

73, Guy

>But this 'tweak' to make an improvement in
>extreme cases is an opportunity for me to play with measurement
>capabilities. But first I am trying to understand what the
improvement is.

>I'll probably add the "key click mod" to my K2 one of these days. Not
>because the K2 needs it. As Wayne or Eric pointed out here recently
the
>"stock" K2 is fine by current Amateur standards.

>I'll add the click mod
>because it's there. And when I do, I want to be able to see for
myself what
>improvement it made.

Ron AC7AC

-----Original Message-----
...The effect of MP's driving amps is well documented and altogether
too
frequent. Since I have used the same method to measure both MP and K2
clicks, I know the difference, and at +/- 250 Hz, the unmodded K2 is
not
ENOUGH better than an unmodded MP to keep from causing the same kind
of
difficulties for the same signal strength...

73, Guy.