[Elecraft] K2 insensitive on 20...or is it?

[Vin Cortina]

Cathy,

There was a geomagnetic storm recently which may be affecting things.  Wait 
a few days and see, or if you have the equipment, you can measure your 
receivers sensitivity if need be.


Vin  KR2F

K1-4 s/n:1977
KX1  s/n:1476


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cathy James" <prjames at mindspring.com>
To: <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 10:15 PM
Subject: [Elecraft] K2 insensitive on 20...or is it?


>
> I am seeing some odd behavior on my K2, and it may be just in my 
> imagination.
>
> On 40, with its normal higher background level of QRN, I can easily get 
> strong signals and strong noise levels.  With the AF and RF gains turned 
> up, I have comfortable armchair reception.  If the S/N ratio is bad that 
> night I may not get an intelligible signal, but it is clear that things 
> are working nicely.
>
> But when I attempted to look for QSOs in the recent Run for the Bacon, I 
> not only found very few CQers on 20, it seemed that both their signals and 
> the background noise (which of course would be lower on 20 anyway) were 
> very weak.  Even with the preamp on and the AF and RF gains at max, I 
> don't feel that I have armchair copy even on the *noise*.  The S/N seems 
> pretty normal, but I feel as though I can't turn up the volume to make the 
> combined S+N very loud on the speaker.  (Again, this problem does not 
> exist on 40.)  The noise level on 20 does change as expected when I vary 
> the filter width.  If I switch to USB/RTTY mode with wide filters and tune 
> in 14.070, the strong PSK signals there just about blow me out of my 
> chair, so it isn't always insensitive...
>
> I am probably just imagining this.  Has CW on 20 been lousy lately?  Any 
> objective way to test it?  I am a pretty inexperienced op who has really 
> only gotten serious about CW in the past 4 months, so I don't have much 
> experience to draw on.
>
> Cathy
> N5WVR
>
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