[Elecraft] K3 noise blanker

[Rob May]

I received my K3 (#1417) Monday, had it on the air Tuesday.  I'm using a computer headset plugged into the the back of the radio with a foot switch to leave both hands free.  I hunt and pounced about 3 or 4 hours last night in the NAQP.  I was amazed at the NR and NB.  I have intermittent S9 power line noise here and I can eliminate that.  In addition, by playing with the NR setting and the AFX (a great feature that really does help on some signals) I was able to have clear copy on signals that I could barely tell were even there before.  I was so impressed that I went and got my wife to show her what it could do.  My other radio is a IC-718, so I'm comparing PC to a calculator, but still, very impressive.  I've using the latest beta firmware.

I have to say that the steep skirts of the 2.8 8 pole filter were worth the upgrade, it was great to be able to work stations that were less than 1 kHz apart.
Rob
NV5E



> Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2008 21:30:26 +0100
> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3 noise blanker
> From: sjp at sjprior.fsnet.co.uk
> To: w5wvo at cybermesa.net; jim at audiosystemsgroup.com; elecraft at mailman.qth.net
> CC:
>
> This is a 'me too'.
>
> Having, in waiting for my K3, read all sorts of accolades for the NB and NR,
> I feel, now that I have the radio in front of me, somewhat deflated. The NB
> is, it seems to me, no better than many others I have used (eg TS-850) and
> the NR does not seem, to me at least, to be any better than that on the
> TS-480 this K3 replaced. And, I have experimented with all the various
> settings available and am running the latest firmware.
>
> Having said that, I remain 95% delighted with the K3. The strong signal
> handling is fantastic, I like the ergonomics and the tx audio is simply
> excellent. I would not swap it for any other radio. But, the NB and NR
> have not lived up to my (maybe unrealistic) expectations.
>
> 73 Stephen G4SJP
>
>
> On 17/08/2008 20:45, "Bill W5WVO"  wrote:
>
>> Jim Brown wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, but what is NR and NB doing to signals you're trying to
>> copy?
>>> It's easy to fool yourself about how well it works when
>> listening
>>> ONLY to band noise. To be useful, the NB/NR must suppress the
>> noise
>>> while not doing too much damage to the signal you're trying to
>> copy.
>>> So far, I haven't been thrilled by what I hear of that.
>>
>> Have to agree with you on that, Jim. It's definitely a trade-off
>> between noise suppression and signal intelligibility. As with many
>> things, it works better on CW than it does on SSB.
>>
>> Once the major promised features of the K3 are in place (still
>> waiting for a fix for the SSB>CW VFO offset issue when changing
>> modes), I'm hoping the NB and NR code will be thoroughly
>> revisited.
>>
>> Bill W5WVO
>>
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>
>
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