[Elecraft] K3 and Perseus SDR panadapter/receiver

[Dave G4AON]

This week I bought a Perseus receiver and have it hooked up to my K3 via 
"com0com" and Ham Radio Deluxe to act as a panoramic display for the K3.

I am not using the insensitive IF out of the K3, instead I am using a 
home made ferrite hybrid splitter on the KXV3 RX RF out/in of the K3, 
one port goes to the Perseus, the other to the KXV3 RF input (not the 
main antenna socket). The loss through the splitter is 3 dB.

In order to run the above combination, the freeware program com0com 
(http://com0com.sourceforge.net/) is run to create virtual com ports 10 
and 11 -instructions for doing this at the Sourceforge web site. Power 
up the K3 and the Perseus (including it's perseus.exe software). The the 
latest version of HRD should be run twice, one application controlling 
the K3, the other the Perseus. In HRD click the "Synch" button and link 
the two radios together. I use the Perseus as "Master" (sorry 
politically correct people, but that's what it's called). It works great 
with full dual receive and "click and go", the K3 tunes within a hairs 
breadth of the Perseus which has the benefit of a 1ppm TCXO too. You can 
set the K3 as master and have the Perseus follow, but I mostly use the 
"click and go" where the Perseus drives the K3.

The noise reduction of the Perseus is currently better, in my opinion, 
than that in the K3 when dealing with wide band white "frying" noise and 
the Perseus has synchronous AM - needless to say it works very well on 
those 80m AM stations and of course broadcast stations.

The Perseus is more expensive by a long way than the simple Softrock 
receivers and LP-PAN, but it is darn good.

73 Dave, G4AON
K3/100 #80