[Elecraft] K3 Mojo

[T. David Yarnes]

Jerry and All,

The K3 does indeed rock!  I had much the same results as you 
working the Clipperton group.  I ended up (assuming they are 
now packing up to leave) with 17 band slots.  I missed 160 
ssb, 10 CW (much to my dismay), and 40 SSB.  40 SSB was a 
real brick wall for some reason, but it may be due to the 
tech problem I had which I described in an earlier post.  I 
got all 20 of the band slots with the VP6DX group (they 
didn't do anything on 6 meters).  All of this was done just 
with the K3 barefoot (100 watts) and an R8 vertical.  The 
ability to work both groups on RTTY "sans" computer was the 
really neat trick.

I also agree the Ducie Island group was easier to work, but 
I think there are several good reasons for that (including 
the fact they were using K3's!).  I'm not trying to be 
overly critical of the Clipperton group, but I think just 
about all the ops on Ducie were outstanding.  They were 
really knocking off the QSO's at a rapid rate with great 
efficiency.   Often the Clipperton ops seemed to be 
struggling a bit to nail down a contact--more so at least 
than the Clipperton ops.  I also suspect the antennas on 
Ducie were better.  I heard them better, and they seemed to 
hear me better.  I was using the same antenna (the R8) on 
both.  But in fairness to the Clipperton folks, they 
apparently had their hands full due to weather.  Antennas 
blew over and were damaged by lightning storms which 
frequent and drove them off the air (plus making copy 
difficult), etc.  I didn't hear much complaining about the 
weather on Ducie.  I also think the fact that they were 
closer to both of us may have been to our detriment on 10 
and 12 meters.  I heard them working midwest and east coast 
stations when I couldn't even hear them in Arizona.

The one big thing I have concluded from chasing both of 
these groups is that I probably need to add the 2nd 
receiver.  I thought I might be able to "live" without it, 
but that's the one feature where my Orion II beats my K3 
right now.  Trying to chase the split frequency for DX is so 
much easier with a second receiver, instead of constantly 
pushing the reverse button.  The VP6 ops especially were 
running some very big splits, and they were roaming over a 
fairly wide range of listening frequencies.  You really need 
to zero in within reason to where they are actually 
listening.  So I guess I'll be stuffing another $1k or so 
into the K3 some day soon.

Anyway, it's been fun!  The K3 made it even more so.

Dave W7AQK

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jerry T. Dowell" <ai6l at sbcglobal.net>
To: <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 9:22 AM
Subject: [Elecraft] K3 Mojo


>I am happy to report that the K3 is not lacking in the 
>traditional mojo. My
> first QSO with the K3 was TX5C, followed by working them 
> all bands 160M
> through 15M CW and SSB, excepting 160M SSB and 40M SSB. 
> This was barefoot
> with one antenna, a dipole at 15 ft. For 160, I had to 
> load just the center
> conductor of the coax, disconnecting the shield. The mojo 
> approaches that of
> the K2/100, with which I worked VP6DX CW and SSB 160M-15M 
> excepting 160 SSB.
> It took much less time with the K2, but that may have been 
> due to different
> operating procedures between the two DXpeditions.
>
> My first RTTY QSO with the K3, by the way, was with VK9NS 
> on 17M. For that I
> used MTTY with the AFSK A mode. It is interesting to note 
> that the K3 itself
> seemed to do a better job decoding than MTTY. Perhaps the 
> difference would
> disappear with optimum setup.
>
> It's a keeper!
>
> Jerry   AI6L
>
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