[Elecraft] K3: Low speaker output problem

[drewko]

Same here-- mostly 3 o'clock on the AF gain with the external speaker;
occasionally up to 11 o'clock. And it's a fairly noisy environment
here, especially in summertime with window A/C unit grinding away
nearby or windows open and dogs barking, jets flying over, cicadas
buzzing ,etc. 

My K3 is an older one at 2+ years. I have attached a speaker baffle
inside the case but still used the same volume levels without it. I am
a CW op but also listen to AM broadcast on SW or MW, same volume.

Three o'clock on the AF gain control would be extreme for me, but does
not blow my ears off. I DO think the taper on the the K3 AF gain
control is a little weird in that I would expect the 3 o'clock
position to be much louder than it actually is. But I never set it
there and haven't fooled around with the AGC or noise parameters to
see what difference they make.

73,
Drew
AF2Z



On Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:15:00 -0400, you wrote:

>My K3 does not act like you describe.  I can blow my ears off with the
>external speaker set to 3:00.  Regardless of the NR/NB settings and I've
>played with the settings for each. This with extremely weak sigs from mid
>east on 80 and with width settings down to 200 cps.  9:00 with cans and
>11:00 max with speaker, usually less.  Perhaps there's two groups of K3s out
>there having different characteristics.  Mine is #4495.  I have not changed
>the factory settings for AGC at all.  I have played with the NR/NB settings.
>I've found that although the NR does attenuate the background noise, it
>improves the SNR such that my speaker/headset controls remain pretty much
>the same as w/o NR or a tad higher.  The gain adjustment on the narrow
>filters is positive of course.
>
>Good luck es 73,
>
>Gary W2CS
>
>