[Elecraft] A few thoughts on the K3 as an AM SWBC receiver

[Alan D. Wilcox]

Bill,
Thanks for that website ... and wouldn't you know it ... of the dozens 
of languages, the one I wanted wasn't listed!

For those of us trying to listen to broadcast using the Internet, 
http://www.radio-locator.com/ provides similar help. Not nearly as much 
fun as the K3. Guess I'll need to put the KBPF3 and AM filter on my wish 
list!

Cheers, Alan

Alan D. Wilcox, W3DVX (K2-5373, K3-40)
570-321-1516
http://WilcoxEngineering.com
Williamsport, PA 17701 



Bill VanAlstyne W5WVO wrote:
> I originally ordered my K3 a couple years ago with the general-coverage 
> KBPF3 board, having the intention (When I Got a Round Tuit) to put up some 
> kind of SWBC band resonator-optimized wire antenna. Well, I finally got 
> around to it. And wow, what a SWBC DX receiver the K3 is! Here's a few 
> things I've been discovering the past few days:
>
> First, the world of SW broadcasting has changed immensely since my salad 
> days of SWLing in the 1960s. Used to be, when you heard a station you could 
> identify as Radio China, for example, you could be highly confident that you 
> were hearing a radio signal from China. Not so any more! Many countries now 
> lease out powerful, strategically located short-wave broadcast 
> transmitters/antennas to the highest bidder, with the program material sent 
> directly to the transmitter site by satellite from the country of origin. 
> Last night I was listening to Radio China International broadcasting in 
> English to North America -- but from Spain, not from China. And I listened 
> to Vatican Radio broadcasting to Africa in African-accented English -- but 
> from Madagascar, not from Rome. The World Radio TV Handbook (WRTH) makes all 
> this clear, after a fashion, but you have to look in three or four different 
> places in the book to sort it all out for any given broadcast. (There are 
> also many websites that are very useful in making sense of all this. See 
> below for an example.)
>
> The K3 offers a lot of options for listening to AM broadcasts. Synchronous 
> AM mode, which allows you to listen just to the upper or lower sideband 
> (selectable using the SHIFT knob), is a huge benefit over conventional 
> double-sideband envelope detection. But my favorite is still USB/LSB, 
> because I can tailor the LO-CUT and HI-CUT on either sideband to get just 
> the right selectivity for maximum intelligibility of the audio envelope. 
> This is highly dependent on the announcer's voice characteristics, as well 
> as on band conditions and interference sources.
>
> Setting VFO CRS to 5.0 kHz is also convenient, as the K3 remembers this 
> setting for the SWBC band-mode combinations. I tune the standard 5 kHz SWBC 
> "channels" with the RIT knob (VFO OFS=ON mode). If a station is 
> off-frequency, I can use the main VFO A knob to tune it in.
>
> An amazing website I discovered for the SWL is http://www.short-wave.info. 
> On this site, you can type in a frequency in kHz, click a button, and the 
> site will report all SWBC stations currently on the air on that fequency 
> (+/- 10 kHz), both in graphical map and tabular formats -- the map showing 
> the radio information (actual transmitter locations and frequencies), the 
> table showing the programming information (country of origin, language 
> currently being broadcast, and program start and end time intervals). The 
> database appears to be updated weekly. This is just WAY TOO COOL. :-)
>
> SWLing with the K3 is a whole different experience than with 
> earlier-generation receivers. With the right adjustments, you can hear and 
> actually understand a weak station 5 kHz up or down from a 40-over-9 monster 
> station. Adjacent-channel QRM is now a thing of the past. If you haven't 
> tried SWLing since you were a kid, you should get the KBPF3 board installed, 
> if you don't already have it, and check this out. Too much fun.
>
> Bill W5WVO
>
>
>