[Elecraft] Best Digital Program for the K3?

[Kok Chen]

On Feb 8, 2010, at 3:27 PM, Julian, G4ILO wrote:

> By 50 watts average PSK power do you mean PWR set to 50, or PWR set to 100
> or whatever gives an average 50W out?

50 W with PWR knob, and measured to be close to 50W on an external averaging wattmeter with an idling Varicode on BPSK31

This means that the peaks of the BPSK31 signal is probably hitting somewhere near 100W instantaneous power.  The same will be true with QPSK31 when idling, but QPSK31 puts out a little more average power than BPSK31 when actively sending text (the two extra phase angles in the QPSK31 constellation don't dip all the way to zero power when there is a phase transition).

Because of the envelope waveshaping, many novices are confused when they see power flickering as they type -- because power *is* indeed changing depending on the character that is being transmitted :-).  The Idle Varicode, where the envelope of every symbol (i.e., every bit in BPSK and every dibit in QPSK) goes through zero, and has the lowest average power for BPSK31.  

> The K3 seems just about idiot proof in digi modes. I often say the K3 is the

> ideal radio for operating digital modes.

Not completely bug free, yet.  The K3's CAT command "KY" command interface still has problems, so you can't do FSK directly through CAT, for example.

73
Chen, W7AY