[Elecraft] K3: WPX CW

[Lee Buller]

I did not have time this weekend to put in a full effort in WPX CW.  To much planned and to many Super Cell Thunderboomers rolling through the plains of Kansas.

Just a few comments about the K3....SN:443 Latest Firmware

1.  The rig operated flawlessly for the 5 hours I was on...not a true test, but good for me.

2.  The K3 worked well with the AL80A amp and drove it to 900 watts with about 60 watts of power.  SWR was always good beteen the K3 and the amp on 40-20-15 meter bands.  TX Delay was set at 8 and then at 15 with no issues that I could determine in timing.

3.  Weak signal work was outstanding and copied very week signals from the Pacific and Europe.  Use AGC-S for most of the time, but also tried AGC-F.  There were very few "loud" stations on the band that would rock your earphones, but there were few.  The AGC seemed to handle most of them, but there were a few that it did not handle very well.  A 500 Hz 5 pole filter was used for CW and did the job well.  Played with the bandwidth and used about 400 Hz BW in the end.  Of course RIT was use with good results.

4.  The K3 seemed to remain very "cool" even though running at 32 wpm for an hour.

5.  Never had the rig on 15 meters till this weekend.  No problems to report.  Did not try 10 meters since there was no time in my busy holiday weekend.

6  The K3 worked flawlessly with N1MM Logger.  Used keying from the4 LPT1 port and KUSB for rig control.  

Not a lot of 40 meter action here due to very large storms (tornadoes) and a huge amount of lightening rolling though the area.  Shut down each evening around 8 pm because of lightening and disconnected the antenna and rotor lines.
Went to see Indiana Jones Movie.  In the morning, 40 proved to me pretty good working the Pacific with a dipole and 800 watts

Overall....the K3 was super! 

Final Note:  There would be some nice additions to the software, but are not really worth mentioning here because I am not familiar with the rig enough to know if they are already available in firmware.  I am behind in figuring out what is new from the last edition of the manual.  So, I will not comment until I can get a handle on the functions of the firmware.

Lee - K0WA




In our day and age it seems that Common Sense is in short supply.  If you don't have any Common Sense - get some Common Sense and use it.  If you can't find any Common Sense, ask for help from somebody who has some Common Sense.  Is Common Sense divine?