[Elecraft] Is Elecraft K3 NTIA compliant?

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

If you're interested in every "jot and tittle" in the 896 page US National
Telecommunications and Information Administration (NITA) "Redbook"* I'd drop
a note to sales at elecraft.com and ask that question. Be sure to specify
whether the K3 is intended for fixed, land mobile for maritime use. 

Unless you're buying the K3 for use by a government agency or commercial
activity only the transmitter specifications should be of concern:

The NTIA Redbook" specifies a frequency stability of +/- 20 Hz for an HF SSB
transmitter in the K3's power class in fixed station service. That means
within 40 Hz of the intended frequency. 

The K3 specification shows a frequency stability of 5 ppm using the stock
TCXO or 0.5 ppm using the optional TCXO. So it meets the +/-20 Hz (or 40 Hz
total) requirement up to 8 MHz with the "stock" TCXO and meets the
requirement throughout its range (to the top of 6 meters) with the optional
high-stability TCXO. 

NTIA spex for spurs are a little more complicated. For SSB from 100 to 150%
of the authorized bandwidth from the assigned frequency the spurs must be at
least 25 dB down. For  150 to 300% the spurs must be 35 dB down and beyond
300% the spurs must be 43+10log(Py) down where Py is the mean output power.
The published specification for the K3 is for spurious products to be >50
dB, so it should meet the 63 dB spec at 50 watts mean power output. Note
that's not "peak" power, but "mean power" per the NTIA spec. And the
Elecraft spec *may* be better than that, saying "greater than 50 db. 

Of course, you'd want to equip it with the proper SSB xmit filter and set it
up properly However, the NTIA specifies 3 kHz the necessary bandwidth for
normal voice intelligibility. 

Ron AC7AC

*http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/redbook/redbook.html



-----Original Message-----

Is the Elecraft K3's transmitter NTIA compliant?

If not, are there plans for NTIA compliance in the future?

Howard