[Elecraft] K3 Background noise

[Björn Mohr]

On 24 maj 2009, at 15.55, Jay Rodaman wrote:

> I have a problem with noise in the shack.
> On transmit it is picked up by the mic. Other than lowering the RF  
> gain I understand that
> there is a setting which could reduce or eliminate this
> some where in the config.  Any tgoughts would be appreciated.

There's a noise gate in the K3 that will mute between words. Its easy  
to configure and fast enough for speech. It's will make sure your  
background noise is not amplified and processed between words. As  
other pointed out, a close talk microphone like the Heil HC4 or HC-5  
will help a lot. I am running the HC-4 + compression + gate and have  
no problem with my rather loud amplifier fans.

 From Wayne's FW release notes:

MCU 2.45 / DSP 1.92, 9-29-2008 * TRANSMIT NOISE GATE ADDED: The TX  
noise gate can be used to suppress transmitted audio below a certain  
level, e.g. a noisy fan (not the one on the K3, of course). To use the  
noise gate, locate CONFIG:TX GATE, tap ‘1’ to turn it ON, then use VFO  
A to set the desired threshold. Since there’s no visual indication  
that transmit audio is below the threshold, you should adjust it using  
the transmit voice monitor (MON), ideally using headphones. Set the  
threshold high enough to cut off transmit audio due to shack noise,  
but not so high that it causes your voice to dropout too frequently.  
The TX GATE threshold can be adjusted in TX TEST mode.

73 de Björn,
SM0MDG
SE0X