[Elecraft] K3 FW 1.87 problem

[John Reiser]

Hi,

Since getting my K3 # 384 in mid February, I have become an avid fan of PSK31 and RTTY.  In my 50 years as a ham, I never used the digital modes before I got the K3.

Everything worked fine for me until I updated to version 1.87 this morning.

As usual, I set the windows XP volume control (audio out) slider to half way.  I set the line control on the K3 to 2.  For PSK31 I set the power out to 25 watts.  I use the Digipan software and DATA  A for PSK31. For RTTY I use the MMTTY software and MFSK A.  

With that setup and FW v. 1.78 I would have no bars showing for ALC (as it should be for digital modes) and 3-4 bars showing for RF out (25-30 watts).  For RTTY I had used 100 watts out with the same line level setting of 2.

I had been very successful in making over 200 digital QSOs in 86 countries in a little over two months.

Now with FW v. 1.87, I find that I get 5 bars of ALC with a line-in level setting of 2.  And, I get virtually no RF output (1 bar) unless I set the RF out asked-for to 50 watts.  At the 50 watt-asked  setting I get about 25 watts out (with more heat).  If I drop the line-in level to 1, I get no ALC bars and also I get no RF out at any power-asked setting.  I haven't tried RTTY yet with v. 1.87, but it is sure to be messed up too.

My conclusion is that while 1.87 contains a lot of good fixes, in the process the ALC behavior with respect to digital modes got broken.

Also, we really need more resolution for the line-in level control.  With v.1.87 it is essentially an on-off switch that goes from 0 to 5 bars on the ALC meter as one tunes between 1 an 2.

I'm just reporting my experiences with the new FW for what they are worth.  I know all these things will get fixed in time.  Meanwhile, I may have to fall back to 1.78.

Many thanks and 73,

John, W2GW