[Elecraft] K2/100 or K3/10?

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Quite so! One can think of it in terms of bandwidth too, since the bandwidth
varies in proportion to the data rate. Wider bandwidth signals, such as SSB,
can be thought of as spreading the same RF power over a wider frequency
expanse of noise, so the S/N suffers. 

Elecraft designed the K2 with a minimum bandwidth SSB filter to maintain the
best possible "punch" (S/N ratio) while maintaining good intelligibility. 

It's also important to realize that one can literally "work the world"
regularly running 1 watt or less on CW, so 10 watts of SSB ought to do quite
well and, from all reports, it does. 

Ron AC7AC

-----Original Message-----
 Just to throw a little theory in here, the ability to extract information
from a signal in a noisy environment is a function of both the signal level
and the information rate of the signal. CW has a much lower information rate
than does SSB (as does PSK, for example), and thus an SSB signal has to have
a much higher signal level relative to the noise than does a CW signal to be
understood. The 10dB difference in power that 100 watts provides over 10
watts doesn't quite make up the difference in information rate between a CW
signal and an SSB signal, but it goes a long way to equalize the difference.
Scaling this up, a 100 watt CW signal should be more or less as good a KW
SSB signal in terms of understandability in a noisy environment.

Bob W1SRB