[Elecraft] RE: Elecraft K3

[Bill W5WVO]

Ed Rodriguez wrote:

> Hi Gang, any news on what elecraft will do to better the K3 on 6
> meters to better its performance?  I know it rocks on HF according to
> specs. ,  but my main reason to purchase a K3 would be for vhf/uhf
> work.. and casual hf work on 28.885 with the extra reciver to
> coordinate 6 meter contacts. and I guess lots of 6 meter operators,
> may concur.

Hi Ed,

You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard anybody who actually HAS 
a K3 and who has actually USED it on 6M complain about ANYTHING. Since 99% of 
the K3's magic happens at the IF frequencies, and this circuitry is the same 
for all covered bands, the only thing that could possibly be different about 
6M is the receiver's sensitivity / noise floor. 6M is a noisy band compared to 
other VHF/UHF bands, and you would have to live smack in the middle of nowhere 
to have so little manmade noise on this band (not to mention solar noise) that 
you could actually hear your radio's front-end noise floor. In my location, it 
isn't even close. If I turn the gain up on my receiver far enough to hear the 
receiver's noise with the antenna disconnected, and then connect the antenna, 
I practically blow out my eardrums. And in any event, if you were so lucky as 
to be in such a noiseless QTH, you would simply add a really good low-noise, 
minimal-gain external preamp into the receive antenna path, as described by 
Wayne. And then you could quickly switch back and forth between these two 
configurations as necessary.

The only thing that might be perceived as "better" would be to "build in" the 
dedicated 6M preamp. But I know a lot of VHF/UHF guys would rather pick or 
build their own preamp to suit their own unique receive circumstances anyway.

I'm going to be very interested in reports of new owners' experiences on 6M if 
there is any strong sporadic-E during the January contest -- and if not, then 
next June/July, which is a more realistic worst-case test of close-in dynamic 
range anyway. And as far as weak-signal scatter and EME modes are concerned, 
we could get reports of that at any time.

Bill / W5WVO