[Elecraft] K3 #1837 a success at FD

[Erik N Basilier]

If you worked W7MOT on either 15 or 40, you worked my K3. The operators 
using the K3 seemed very pleased with it. All who heard the diversity 
reception agreed that it is a valuable resource for copying in the face of 
QSB. For a second receive antenna we used a BuddiPole configured as 
vertical, tuned very roughtly to 15 without coil, and with a wire 
counterpoise. This provided sufficient receive signal on 40 as well as 15, 
with the subreceiver at full RF gain and the main receiver RF gain backed 
off.

Within the overall success of K3 operation a few glitches were observed.

With diversity reception on I tried to demonstrate the cw tuning aid. No 
indication of received signal frequency was displayed (nothing to show that 
the received pitch was either on frequency or off). This may have been 
operator error, and in the rush for contest points I had no time to research 
or experiment. Anyway, the expected display was seen, minus the black mark 
that normally shows the received signal pitch relative to the expected 
pitch.
I was running the latest official firmware release for the contest. I 
apologize for mentioning this without first investigating the conditions 
under which the problem may be repeatable, but, well, I am tired from 
operating late in the night...

Operating CW using N1MM with LP-PAN and LP-Bridge and WinKeyer, 3 times 
during the contest I saw the mode unexpectedly change from CW to LSB at the 
time of transmitting. Although this had no negative impact on the contesting 
operation (just puch the mode control to recover), next year we obviously 
need to take some steps to reduce stray RF around the radio and computer. I 
have never had any such problem with the same setup at home, where the 
antennas are farther away.

Our best CW operator voiced some slight disappointment that the setup did 
not produce the booming low-frequency notes of off-frequency CW signals that 
he favors. I have to agree that it is easier to distinguish between 
different stations when the pitch is low. Maybe I will ask Elecraft for the 
mod that I have seen mentioned that allows receive audio at lower 
frequencies. (Off the top of my head, I think it has been said on the list 
that the cutoff is 200 Hz.)

73,
Erik K7TV