[Elecraft] K3 on 6

[Gary Hembree]

Ron et al,
Compared to my XV50/K2 station my K3 is much more practical on 6 meters in a suburban, high noise, high EMI environment (metro Phoenix).  The attenuator had to be always on in my K2 to keep it from being overloaded by the XV50 RX output.  In addition I turned the K2 RF gain down to bring the system gain down to improve the audio S/N.  To use the XV50 at all here, because of internally generated IMD products, I had to build a N6CA terminating high pass/low pass filter to put in the antenna lead to filter out the multiple hundreds of kilowatts worth of FM and TV carriers that are being transmitted 10 miles LOS from my QTH.  
  
I have had no such difficulties with the K3.  With my 7/8 wavelength, 5 element Yagi at 45' I have heard plenty of MS pings and bursts and all of the usual tropo signals that I am used to hearing and working within 120 miles of here in mountainous central Arizona.  The sensitivity to dynamic range balance seems fine to me on the K3 as is.  Any further decreases in noise figure should be done with a low-gain external preamp at or near the antenna.
(See N6CA's web site for information on the terminating low pass filter and an excellent VHF preamp.)

73
Gary, N7IR