[Elecraft] New K3 Firmware: Pileup-inspired AGC changes

[Jim Brown]

On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 07:32:03 -0800 (PST), Wes Stewart wrote:

>But I must say that having to turn off the AGC and ride the rf gain
>control in a modern whiz-bang super-duper multi-kilobuck radio 
>seems oxymoronic to me. 

Some do like to run the radio that way (W1UE guested at my QTH for 
CW Sprint a few weeks ago and that's how he did it), but I've never 
liked what I heard with the AGC off. But I DO like what I hear when 
I properly set RF and AF gains for the band conditions, in EXACTLY 
the same way that I would set the gains in the most modern and 
sophisticated audio mix console I use to do live recording! In the 
console, I set those gains for the mic I'm using on each input, what 
instrument/voice it will be picking up, how the musician plays (or 
speaker talks), how far they will be from the mic, etc. I do this to 
optimize that mix channel for the signal that I'm feeding it. 

In the K3, I'm optimizing the signal path for the range of signals 
it is seeing. No electronic product, and no AGC, can handle an 
INFINITE range -- if we want optimum performance from the radio, we 
must set the radio's gains to match signal conditions to the optimum 
range of the radio. That's nothing more than "Electronics 101!" To 
expect otherwise is to deny the laws of physics. 

73,

Jim Brown K9YC