[Elecraft] K3 noise blanker

[Craig]

Hi Stephen

I am  feeling much the same about my K3's noise blanker. I live in a semi rural area with many poorly maintained power poles and many electric fences. The noise types and frequency varies on a day to day basis. I find the K3's DSP blanker to be much more effective than its IF blanker.  The DSP blanker runs rings around the K3's IF blanker and i mostly leave the K3's IF blanker off because of lack of performance.   

My old crapped out TS830S  at my QTH has the best performing  noise blanker for dealing with these varying noise sources. It is surprising that the K3's IF blanker seems to distort signals even on its lowest setting  yet on the TS830S it seems to cope rather well in comparison, having both the ability to blank most power line noise and not distort signals very much. 

The TS830S has my vote for the best overall noise blanking performance on power line noise sources. Both the K3 and K2's noise blanker,  when they find the kind of noise they  "like" seem darn impressive. Unfortunately random noise sources dont behave in such a predictable and consistent manner.

The TS830S because if its pre-selection also copes much better when using the noise blanker in crowded conditions.  For these  reasons i will always keep this great old semi boat anchor radio whose receiver is no slouch either in IMD dynamic range performance. Its hard to believe that almost 30  years later  that it holds its own against the  technology marvels and tall poppies of  the transceiver world.


73
Craig
VK3HE




--- On Sun, 8/17/08, Stephen Prior <sjp at sjprior.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:

> From: Stephen Prior <sjp at sjprior.fsnet.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3 noise blanker
> To: "Bill W5WVO" <w5wvo at cybermesa.net>, "Jim Brown" <jim at audiosystemsgroup.com>, "elecraft" <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
> Date: Sunday, August 17, 2008, 4:30 PM
> 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"
> <w5wvo at cybermesa.net> 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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