[Elecraft] UK Elecraft net report for Sunday 1st February

[Dave G4AON]

Fortunately the European QRM seemed to cause me more problems than the
others and eventually subsided.

We had a very lively and interesting discussion on several topics, these
included:

The K3 on AM with the later firmware (sounds OK and is tightly
controlled on bandwidth at +/- 3KHz).
K3 TX IMD figures, 120 Watts vs 100 Watts and the significant
improvement when the power is reduced to 25 Watts.
Determining the mod state of an early serial number K3 which came from
an SK estate.
Source of PowerSonic 1229 batteries for the K2, we couldn't find any in
the UK.
5 MHz UK allocation and re-tuning the early K3s, also potential spurious
problem on early serial K3s on 5 MHz - prior to the "MK 2" driver and PA
release around January 2008.
Why some microphones sound rough? We had two stations who started the
net with very poor audio but both fixed their microphone issues quickly.

We also discussed our top three firmware issues for attention by
Elecraft, these were:

1. SSB ALC not controlling the peak output well enough when running
reduced power to drive a linear.
2. Not being able to adjust many of the controls on the K3 while
transmitting.
3. A means of turning the EQ on/off without zeroing the settings, per
mode would be a bonus as would an "A" or "B" setting (applied to TX and
RX equaliser).

We also thought it would be helpful if a roadmap of firmware development
was released, so at least the user community would have an idea when a
particular feature would be looked at, or implemented...

I will post these separately to Wayne, Lyle and Eric for consideration.

Stations this week were:

G4DQP, Vince
G0MJW, Mike
G0VGS, Ian
GM0ELP, Doug
M0CIC, Roy
GM3SEK, Ian
M1PAF, Paul
G4JTR, Vin

73 until next week
Dave, G4AON
K3/100 #80, Acom 1000, dipole