[Elecraft] The K3 and "homebrew": view from the E-lab

[Brett gazdzinski]

I have done 1 to 6, homebrew receivers and transmitters without any
starting design, superhets and kilowatt transmitters,
old push pull tube stuff, pi net continuous coverage, etc,
plus the old heathkit stuff (lots of it), regens out of
encyclopedias, home made circuit board things out
of the ARRL handbook, home built computers, etc, and its
all fun. The design/prototype/test part seems to be the most
fun and educational for me, finding a good simple local
oscillator design using junk box parts was very fun.

I think the K2 was a little over to the parts stuffing side
of kit building, but with so many parts, it has its own
flavor of kit building, and I rate it higher then the old
heathkit stuff.
And nothing heathkit ever designed worked so well, they
always seemed to compromise performance severely over cost.

It sure sounds like the K3 is case building and then you stuff
the modules into slots, do some calibration, and operate.
No way they could offer something as complex in any
other format.


I personally have no reason to upgrade to a K3 other than
the AM receiver part. It sure would be nice if the K3
ends up having a good hi fidelity AM receiver in it.
(20 to 5000 Hz, low distortion and noise)

Many AMers are using old R390's and such, a truckload
of tubes and gears, and it still needs work and
an outboard amp to sound good.

Most swl stuff is not setup to be a communications receiver,
and most is poor for anything other than swl stuff.

Modern ham gear seems to limit things to 300 to maybe 3000
Hz at 1.5 watts and 10% distortion, out of a 2 inch speaker...
add in plenty of IC chip hash from the 4 conversions and
they sound horrible on AM.

I hear flex radio is doing amazing things on AM with 
their stuff, you can set the fidelity, modulation, compression,
etc on both rx and tx, and they can sound better than broadcast
stations, but I don't want a computer in the shack.
I sure hope the K3 includes some of that type of stuff
on the AM mode.
I don't think I could sell the K2, but the 756 pro will
be gone in a flash if the K3 has nice AM receive!

Although I think the crew at elecraft are really amazing, maybe
they shot themselves in the foot with the premature release
of some k3 info, everyone is all lathered up now!

I suppose its time to list the 756 pro on ebay....



Brett
N2DTS