[Elecraft] Questions from a Liberal Arts Major

[Don Wilhelm]

Lee,

It seems that some owners are expecting an analog signal from a digital 
source or expect their receiver to be a precision measurement device.  
The digital steps derived to drive the S-meter correlate to the marks on 
the S-meter in whole S units, it does not indicate anything in between.  
It is good enough for most displays and radio control programs since 
they usually display the S-meter in steps of whole S-units anyway.  
Those that I have looked at do not indicate fractions of an S-unit, so I 
believe the S-meter resolution is adequate for most purposes.

There is an alternative for those who want better resolution, and that 
is the AFV and dBV alternate displays that can be dialed up in the VFOB 
area when CONFIG is set for TECH mode.  The resolution of AFV is 1 mVp-p 
and is the value of the receiver output.  dBV is relative to the 
receiver output level when the dBV scale was first entered and is in 1 
dB increments - that is just about as good as any analog meter commonly 
available - yes more precision is available in some meters, but they 
cost big bucks.

73,
Don W3FPR 

Lee Buller wrote:
>
>
> Ladies and Gents.....
>
> I have been trying to follow the threads on IMD performance of the K3 
> and the S-Meter thread of the K3.  Could someone explain (to a Liberal 
> Arts Major - not an engineering type)  what the issues are here and 
> why they are issues with this radio?  Maybe, I'm lost in all the 
> hullabaloo.
>
> Also....why is one person calling the S-Meter and the power connector 
> "junk" that cannot be fixed?
>
> Thank you for the education.....
>
>