[Elecraft] Sub-rx or P3?

[Lu Romero]

Make my vote for the KRX3.

After living for years with a TS850 and literally wearing
the label off of the TF-SET button, having the second
receiver is wonderful.  Being able to listen to the DX on
his frequency in one ear and the pileup on the TX frequency
in the other, and being able to adjust the level of the two
individually or with the "balance" control is a valuable
tool for timing calls... Us little pistols with 500w and a
tribander at 40 feet rely on call timing.  If I had bigger
antennas, a taller tower and legal limit output, maybe the
P3 would be a wash with the KRX3, but here at "Whiskey Four
Little Tower", the second receiver wins hands down.  

The second advantage of the KRX3 is diversity receive.  I
often put my main receiver on my tribander and the second
receiver on a vertical.  Diversity helps manage quite a lot
of fade, especially those deep Asiatic Russia CW signals
that travel through the Auroral Circle, always a problem
here in Florida with a high angle of incidence antenna like
I have at 40 feet.  You can hear which polarization is
winning by listening to where the signal ends up in the
stereo image (tribander on the left, vertical on the right,
the winning polarization is the strongest in your head). 
Some may not like this effect (I do!).

The third is being able to search for multipliers in a
contest environment on the second receiver between calling
CQ on the main.  This helped me do a Sweeep in SS SSB for
the first time in 32 years of entering the contest (I dont
use the cluster for SS).  Its kind of like "SO 1.5 R"!  You
can actually listen on two different bands if you use the
AUX RF input on the KRX3 and have separate antennas.

In deference to those "visual" people, especially all my
Icom owning friends, I find working split stations with my
club's IC7700 (no second receiver, but with a pan display)
and Pro 2's (hard to use Dual Watch feature) primitive
compared with using my K3 with the KRX3 on the same antennas
at the club.  The IC7700 is like going back to the TS-850,
with me madly punching the XFC button.  At least Icom was
smart and didnt print the label on the button! Its much
easier on a 7800 with its second receiver, but then you can
buy two K3's and two P3's for the price of one of those (If
you have a sturdy enough table to put it on and have two
people to help you lift it out of the shipping crate as Icom
recommends in the manual!!!) .

There is no substitute, in my opinion, for actually HEARING
the pileup.

However, a P3 is on my Christmas List  :)

Lu Romero - W4LT
Tampa FL
K3 # 3192

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Message: 35
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2010 04:30:06 -0600
From: "John Harper" <john at ae5x.com>
Subject: [Elecraft] Sub-rx or P3?
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Message-ID:
<f4adc05ae667228e679ced50fa05fb1a.squirrel at http://www.ae5x.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1

Just curious about opinions of CW DXers/contesters here on
the list
regarding these two options - which is likely to make the
most impact on
effectiveness?

"Both" is not currently an option  ;-)

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