[Elecraft] Elecraft Digest, Vol 75, Issue 38

[Lu Romero]

Joe:

I had forgotten about that nuance regarding the PFL level! 
Yes, its in the manual!  I will set that when I get home and
maybe solve my problem via software.  Maybe.. What about
your statement regarding the Monitor and CW sidetone... Are
you saying that these signals are not available on the Fixed
Line Out spigot?  That would defeat the purpose of what Im
doing.  Im looking for a fixed output *WITH* both SSB
Monitor and CW Monitor inserted in the audio path.  In this
case, I could put the stereo out of the rig into my audio
DA's and send them to their destinations from there, and
never need to touch a level pot again (once I set the DA
level)

I did not know that the piggyback LPF board was not active
on the LINE OUT spigot and only on the Headphone Out and
Speaker Out spigot!  I have one on hand but have not
installed it yet, and I really dont use either of the above,
so I might need to put my Behringer Graphic EQ that is
gathering dust in the audio rack on the audio output post
processing and make the rig flat again, then use the
Behringer EQ to adjust the response.  Glad I still have a
patch bay handy :)  

Joe, I have all this stuff with lots of blinking lights from
my TS850 days sitting there not doing anything, I have to
put it to work, right?  Us Hams LOVE blinking lights!

I find the AF LIMIT feature very nice for low band work.  It
turns the QRM into pseudo white noise "splashes" but I can
still hear signals below it.  Worked well for me at NQ4I on
160m in this past WPX SSB (see our band scores for proof). 
The little compressor works like a pseudo AGC, clipping the
loud crashes and saving my ears in the process.

Reason I dont follow "good engineering practice" as you
describe is because Im old and stupid and sometimes I forget
and I grab the big volume pot on the rig in the heat of
battle instead of the little pot on the headset mixer, since
now Im much more attuned to the RF gain control than on the
Japanese rigs I owned before.

Its handy, its there, and its under the fingers, so I just
stupidly grab for it...  I will try to teach myself not to
(a fixed level output will certainly teach me, wont it?)

-lu-

Message: 12
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:41:12 -0400
From: "Joe Subich, W4TV" <lists at subich.com>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3: Recording from LIN OUT
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Message-ID: <4C474D58.5040605 at subich.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed



Lu,

 > It certainly would be nice to have a FIXED level out of
that
 > line out jack and be able to adjust levels on the headset
 > mixer to the individual outputs without having the rig
 > volume pot interfere.

The K3 has a fixed level (pre-fader level for audio pros)
output.  Use the "Line Out" set to "nor" and set the level
as appropriate for your external hardware.  I have not
checked recently with a calibrated audio voltmeter, but I
do recall easily seeing .775V RMS with a 50 uV signal and
AGC off - I even had to reduce the RF gain to keep from
distorting (exceeding 1V+ RMS - note the DAC output can
go to about 4.2V P-P and with transformer loss the actual
output should easily reach 2V P-P or .775mV RMS).

The only question is adding monitor and sidetone audio
to that "Line Out" audio ... and I don't see a digital
mixer capable of providing that capability unless it can
be coded into the overall DSP.

The real question though is, if you are going to all the
trouble to use a leveller, mixer, headset amplifier and
speaker chain, why would you even attempt to adjust the
audio on the transceiver?  Doing so is like giving an
intern, production assistant, or news videographer a
"greenie" and leaving them alone with the equipment <G>.

73,

    ... Joe, W4TV