[Elecraft] K3 in a CW pileup

[Dave Hachadorian]

If you are on the receiving end of a CW pileup, with several loud 
signals, it becomes difficult to separate them because the K3's 
AGC compresses them together.  You have to reach over and reduce 
the RF gain to get everybody back on the linear part of the gain 
curve.

You can very quickly reduce RF gain by hitting an F-Key on your 
logging program.  N1MM Logger is used as an example, but other 
loggers can send commands too.

The command RG100;  sets the K3's RF gain at 100.  It can be any 
number from 000 to 255.  In N1MM, this is implemented by the 
macro
{cat1hex 52 47 31 30 30 3b}

You can put that macro in F-Key F12, or wherever, and press the 
button if loud pileup shows up. That macro is for rig 1.  Rig 2 
would be the same, except use cat2hex.

After you work the loud guy, reach over and twiddle the RF gain 
control on the K3 a little bit to restore RF gain to its previous 
setting.  You have plenty of time to do this while the "thank 
you" message is playing.

If you don't like RG100, you can choose your own preferred value. 
Here is the relevant character/hex table:
R=52
G=47
;=3b
0=30
1=31
2=32
...
9=39

I tried this method in the 160 contest Saturday, and it seemed to 
work pretty well.

You can also use this method with AGC OFF, to keep loud signals 
out of the AF Limiter.

Dave Hachadorian, K6LL
Yuma, AZ






































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