[Elecraft] Hardware mods, what hardware mods?

[Steve Ireland]

G'day

 

It has been interesting reading the email from "Howard" and the various
emails that followed.

 

In regard to hardware mods, I have a K3 that is around 18 months old.  It is
about the only radio that I have owned over the last decade that I haven't
bothered to modify - because it works so well out of the box.  My FT-1000MP
and its two successor FT-1000s both went under the soldering iron as soon as
they were out of warranty. 

 

My passions are 160m and contesting and in a strong signal (fellow contester
1km away) and a weak signal (covered in heaps of noise) environment it kills
the two Yaesus - as its performance figures, as recorded on Rob Sherwood's
website, would suggest.

 

The so-called K3 hardware fixes are minor improvements to things that aren't
going to don't make a lot of difference to an operator like me - which
certainly could not say the same about the stuff I had to do to the MP
(serious IF blow-through/hiss cured by the Inrad IF board, plus clix on CW
that could make serious enemies) and the FT-1000 (the clix again, plus some
modifications to receive antenna switching to bring it up to snuff with the
MP).

 

Looking at the other radios I have used over the last 45 years (Drake B and
C-lines, Icom IC736, 751A, Yaesu FT101ZD, Kenwood TS-830S to name a few) for
me, it works better out of the box than any of them and sounds at least as
good.

 

With a K3 and a Softrock v6/buffer amp plus VE3NEA's Rocky (for contesting)
or CW Skimmer software, running under XP on an old P4 3GHz as bandscopes, I
have a set-up that is leading-edge for weak signal work, without bleeding
money. 

 

Vy 73

 

Steve, VK6VZ