[Elecraft] CQ Contest

[GW0ETF]

Dave,

I too operated SOSB20 as GW6W last weekend and concur with your observations
including being slightly uneasy at times at being able to slot in so close
to neighbouring signals - didn't suffer any 'band rage' though so presumably
they would be using something decent too. We were in the middle of a heat
wave and the ambient temperature in my small shack with the Acom 1000
running continuously was in the 80s (F) most of the day hours but FP and PA
temps were fine and I stopped checking them after a short time.

Contesting with the K3 filtering is a joy; but last March I took the K3 to
the Gambia and had some big pile-ups from C56ETF. It was my first dxpedition
experience and I imagined I would be using the narrowest filtering to tune
progressively through the split pile-up; what I actually found much
better/easier was to use a relatively wide filter setting and pick out the
signals from the 3D space between my ears with the AFX. Did wonder what the
throng thought of my erratic jumping around compared to the probably more
normal progression from high to low or vice versa.....

Region 1 Field Day is this weekend and K3s will be in action from GW4TTA/P.
There's a pic from last year's SSB field day featuring some Elecraft gear -  
 < www.radioclubs.net/dragonarc/articles.php?articles_id=341 > - and no it
isn't SO3R.....

73,

Stewart Rolfe, GW0ETF

(K3 #145)


David Gilbert wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> I operated SOSB20 in CQ WPX this past weekend and gave the K3 a pretty
> good workout.  I made 1300+ contacts but that pales in comparison to the
> zillions of times I repetitively hit the F1 key.  My wife and I have been
> building our own home the past few years and we still don't have the air
> conditioning functional, so the ambient temperature in the shack was right
> at 80 deg F much of the day.  I set the K3 to continuously monitor PA
> temp, and even with the relatively large duty cycle I was giving the rig I
> never saw it go above 47 deg C.
> 
> The other very impressive thing was the narrow filter.  I used a 250 Hz
> 8-pole filter with the DSP set to 250 Hz, and it was like a knife edge.  I
> could operate within a couple hundred Hz of most S9+20 stations and never
> hear them --- unmodified Yaesu rigs being the exception (there are still
> some HORRIBLE sounding clicks out there).  Whether those stations heard me
> was probably a function of whether they were using a K3 or not ;)  The
> downside was that I had to ride the RIT most of the time ... I had a LOT
> of people call me pretty far off frequency and the only way I could tell
> they were there was by the rhythm of their key clicks unless I swept back
> and forth with the RIT.
> 
> Which brings up a side observation ... there is so much disparity now
> between the performance of various rigs that it seems possible to generate
> some misconceptions regarding operating skill and courtesy.  I wonder how
> many times other stations thought I was deaf or couldn't copy their CW
> merely because they couldn't zero beat my signal within 150 Hz or so?  And
> I wonder how many people thought I was a LID for calling CQ too close to
> them on what was for me a clear frequency because they didn't have as
> tight a filtering as I did?  To minimize the latter, I usually opened up
> the bandpass a bit when looking for a clear frequency, but the folks with
> 500 Hz filters and no roofing filters would have still had trouble.
> 
> 
> 73,
> Dave   AB7E
> 
> 
> 

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