[Elecraft] Driveway Distortion Demolition Derby

[Guy Olinger, K2AV]

Two 100w mobiles in the same driveway and expecting linear response from the 
RX in one while transmitting on the other?  Talking about volts across the 
antenna jack (or any of the connecting cables) here.  Who's the EE?  S9 is 
50 uv.  1 volt = 20 log 1/ .000050  = 86 over S9.  Maybe ten volts on the 
antenna.  That's 106 over S9.

Hearing some kind of distortion on a 100 over S9 signal is some kind of 
desperately grave trouble in a K3 trouble worth attention?  Really want 
Wayne spend precious development time figuring that out?  Personally I vote 
for 10 Hz granularity on CW using width and shift.

Thought the customary form of communication from thirty feet was audio off 
the lips.  Need 100 watts on 60m to communicate thirty feet?  Audio 
distortion could be the driveway version of RF in the shack. 10 volts 
externally imposed RF wandering around on your cable of choice is a formula 
for wierdness no matter where the station.

Someone is really lucky they didn't smoke something.  And if the K3 did get 
toasted in this driveway radio demolition derby, that would be the K3's 
fault too, right?  Double fault, K3 was distorting the audio while the front 
end was being roasted.  Bad K3.  Bad K3.

Some of the radios bandied about earlier were specifically designed in World 
War II to survive conditions related to an enemy was trying to kill the 
operator.  I'd call that a design standard specifically requested and paid 
for.  Since one tank could be next to another, I'd call that reasonable.

Such radios ARE still made and paid for.  You really want to go pay for 
military grade radios, you can get them, at a price far exceeding the MSRP 
for a K3.  Use a kilowatt in your driveway. No problem.  Use 10 kw in your 
driveway like the CB powerfests. No problem.

Personally I'd like to keep the features I pay for confined to peacetime, 
and it does not occur to me as good practice to be transmitting high power 
in the same driveway with another radio on-band with a tuned antenna. 
Others may see it differently but I consider the situation in the first 
paragraph as being careless with a friend's property.

We have contest stations with such situations possible, but we use filters, 
stubs, remote receiving antennas, etc,  to make it possible to operate with 
nowhere near a volt on-band.  Sometimes use radios borrowed from friends, 
and guess who pays to repair a smoked front-end, and guess which embarrassed 
soul has to explain same to friend.

Whether the audio was distorted in a smoke-it episode is really a low grade 
consideration.

73,  Guy.