[Elecraft] K3 Replaced Your Pro III?

[Don Rasmussen]

I recall the afternoon I went to EGGHEAD software and they had an AST computer demo there. The instant I sat in front of that "screaming 286/12 mhz" computer, my prized $2000 IBM PS/2 (8086) became a broken heart. ;-)

This was "True Blue" - IBM after all. Figure out what $2000 was worth in 1986 and that was with two floppies, no hard disk. 

A lowly Ten Tec CORSAIR II (a very old transceiver with no memories and a -bandswitch-) replaced my 756Pro. 

I used 756Pro for 1.5 years, figured it was NIRVANA, blinky lights, etc. and this "old" TT radio was dropped in my lap for a song. I was bored, figured what's the harm? 

One A/B test on CW was all it took. Talk about a puzzled look on my face. At 500hz the TT was S3 quiet on 40m cw at night and when signals appeared they had SLOPE - meaning incredible signal to noise. Room filling backround silent audio was easily possible even on bad nights on 40.

Using the same antenna, the 756p started at three S units higher backround noise than TT and had this kind of a low frequency "rumble" and notable ticks, blurps and pops with heavy DSP filter skirt noise. Bad nights (static) on 40 and you have S8 of this stuff. 

The signal needed to be a coule S-units higher than the resting noise to have the AGC take out that rumble and there was no SLOPE to speak of, meaning an S6 signal sounds the same as S9. That is great for SSB, and good for headphones, but CW to speaker - not good at all. 

The K3 is so much more flexible and reliable than Corsair, yet in contrast to 756Pro, we kept Corsair.  

After you have had your hands and head in a good radio with some success, it's just a different animal than anything purchased on the phone with a credit card, and that has an unbroken factory seal. 


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[Elecraft] K3 Replaced Your Pro III?Hector Padron ad4c2008 at yahoo.com 
Sun Apr 25 07:36:07 EDT 2010 

Well Jim,you get it,I owned a ProIII for 3 years and it was replaced for my actual K3.
I was always thinking my ProIII was the jewel of hamradios but the day my friend AD4Z loaned me for a week his new K3 for comparison test against my ProIII my heart was broken.