[Elecraft] APF in CQWW; and DXing in general w/K3

[John Harper]

The past weekend's CQWW was the first time I've had the opportunity to use my new K3 in those types of band conditions and I'd been looking forward to doing just that. I S&P'ed the whole 'test and used it to tweak and twiddle with the K3's various functions, notably the NB settings.

I didn't use APF that much due to the pace of the contest but there were two occassions where an On/Off comparison was the difference between me copying the stations or not copying. There were probably more than two but these stick out in my mind because they were both new band-countries on 80m (KH2, UA0), so I was motivated and thankful to be able to get them logged.

The real amazement to me wasn't the APF but the ability to tune to a pile-up at 500Hz, hearing an amalgam of callsigns, then dial the selectivity down and hear the target revealed in splendid isolation. Pile-ups were fun and I think of them as a cross between chess and fishing. I'm at a loss as to how to explain the ability to get thru a pile-up on 80m with 100W and a dipole but I'm beginning to believe it's due to the abilty to precisely zero-beat, as opposed to the more general way I was doing it before with the wider selectivity necessitated by my previous rig. Results in the contest seem to confirm that for me.

John AE5X
http://www.ae5x.com/blog