[Elecraft] Attenuator and RF Gain Settings

[Jim Brown]

On Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:23:33 -0500, Brian Machesney wrote:

>For the first time, I turned on the K3's ATT and found that I was even
>better able to separate callers, particularly when trying to pick out
>relatively weaker EU signals from stronger NA signals responding to my CQ.

Those of us with lots of grey hair learned 50 years ago that the most 
important control on our receiver was the RF Gain. They didn't come with 
attenuators or preamps in those days, but we also learned to switch them to 
a shorter antenna when they got overloaded. 

With a modern radio, on bands below 20M, the ATTenuator should almost 
always be ON and the PREamp should almost always be OFF for the greatest 
ability to separate weak signals from strong ones. On 20M you can usually 
turn off the ATTenuator, but you may not need the preamp until you go to 
higher bands. 

Another hint -- to pull really weak ones out from between strong signals, 
turn down the RF gain to the point where you are just hearing the weak one. 
During the 160M contest this weekend, preamp was off, ATT was on, and my RF 
gains were at about 2'o'clock. 

73,
Jim K9YC