[Elecraft] K3 Firmware 3.03 Beta AGC Settings

[W1UE]

I used my K3 with 3.03 Beta during the Russian DX Contest last weekend.  
During the contest, I had
the opportunity to play around with the AGC settings in the beta 
firmware 3.03, and what seemed
optimal to me is right in line with what Dave K6LL recommended.

First Choice:  AGC Off, RF gain between 10AM and 2PM, depending on 
incoming signal strength.
This provided the cleanest reception of all signals.  While strong 
signals did occasionally blast me out,
I was still able to hear very weak signals with no problems.  Using the 
RF gain control, I was also able
to thin out most pile-ups, then bring up the RF gain to work the weaker 
signals in the pile-up.  I spent
a lot of time last weekend operating on 14.007 and 7.008.

Second Choice: AGC Fast with the following AGC parameters set:
AGC DCY:  Soft
AGC Hld:    .30
AGC PLS:   Off
AGC SLP:    0
AGC THR:   8
AGC F     : 120
AGC S     : 20
The new firmware AGC settings were almost as good as AGC Off, but not 
quite, and these settings
did not reduce the need to turn the RF Gain down.  On the same 
frequencies above, turning the AGC
to Fast would raise the background noise level and IMD level just a tad; 
signals were not quite as clean
as with AGC off, but it was a definite improvement over firmware 2.82.  
For the casual op, these settings
would probably work well.

I also agree with Dave that the most important thing is to keep the RF 
gain control down.  That's a good
rule of thumb for any radio, not just the K3.    

Dennis W1UE