[Elecraft] K3 : SSB modulation

[Laurent HAAS - F6FVY]

Hi

We are the proud owners of 6 K3/100 used at the FY5KE contest station. 
These radios has been delivered around mid-2008 and their serial numbers 
are in the 012xx range.

After using mostly these rigs for SSB contesting in FY5KE or in other 
places, we are still facing a lack of "dynamics", "punch", 
"penetration", "power", whatever you call it. In other words, when 
comparing this rig to our radios we previously used (TS-850), with the 
same microphone (Heil HC-4 element) and the same output RF power, the K3 
is clearly way behind in term of "average power" we can read on the Bird 
wattmeter wired on its RF output. Even if observing the wattmeter needle 
is not a very scientific measurement (we admit it), various comparative 
reports on the air do confirm our feeling.

We spent time on various available settings (mic gain, compressor level, 
etc), with no luck, excepted a very distorted and awful audio to roughly 
reach the same level, which is not acceptable.

After a little Googling, it appears that other contesters suffers the 
same issue (e.g. www.bavarian-contest-club.de/projects/K3_english.pdf 
pages 6 and 10).

Some questions :

- Do other contesters (or not) here have noted the same problem ?
- What settings did you modified (or not) to achieve a good result ?
- Is there any possible HW or SW upgrade we aren't aware of, that could 
help us ?

We must confess we are currently preparing our next contest season, and 
we are seriously considering reselling these radios and bring others 
Japanese models if we can't solve this problem, despite we really 
appreciate them in many other aspects (size, weight, etc.).

73

For the FY5KE/Win-Test team,

Larry - F6FVY