[Elecraft] Fw: K3/K144XV/P3 Signal Strength Readings

[VR2BrettGraham]

G3UCK now at least has ex-VR2BG to talk to:

> Very interesting, Brett, and thank you for your comments and the 
> research you have done. I *was* beginning to feel a little isolated by 
> lack of comment from anyone hihi! Although I did receive one reply 
> offlist reporting experience similiar to mine.

The Brand-E community is rather USA-centric, in case you have not 
noticed ;^).  You bring up something that falls in the 
something-is-other-than-fantastic category & that is not conducive to 
cheerleading or provides an opportunity to express economic patriotism, 
hence you were ignored.  Hence your posts, my post & nothing else but 
somebody saying "Yeah, I noticed the same thing" to you directly.  Is a 
bit of a shame, because it gets in the way of sorting out a product that 
has things that need sorting out.

> I was not aware of the 1990 Torremolinos recommendation as such but a 
> recent thread here on the reflector 
> http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/elecraft/2011-January/143651.html 
> noted the ambiguity about 6m and Alan Bloom of Elecraft concluded that 
> it was generally accepted that it should be treated as in the -93dbm 
> category like 2m. However, you are correct to point out that it is a 
> Region 1 (ie EU) recommendation and I have not been able find out 
> whether or not there are similar or different recommendations for 
> Regions 2 and 3.
>
> Compared with my FT847 (another rig that straddles the -73/-93dbm 
> boundary) the S meter on the K144XV/K3 reads low on 2m and there have 
> been a number of postings on the reflector from at least two of the 
> IARU regions, if not all three, by people who feel that at present it 
> reads low compared with what they are used to on other rigs. This 
> suggests to me that other commercial rigs for 2m do use the -93dbm 
> standard - as the P3 now does. Unfortunately I do not have any test 
> gear that will produce a known 50 microvolts or 5 microvolts on 2m to 
> do some checking. I accept that this doesn't seem to accord with your 
> findings on your rig, Brett, if I properly understand them. As general 
> comment, though, the rig doesn't seem to show enough difference in db 
> between S1 and S9 on the bands you mention.

It was the FT-847 that I was describing - one product from one 
manufacturer with Brand-Y's rather peculiar approach to R&D is obviously 
not the best way to judge overall state-of-play of the industry, but it 
is a start & I believe a more thorough look at how products are set up & 
how they actually perform will find not many following this 
Recommendation (do the likes of the really good, long established & 
respected transverter manufacturers really add 20 dB gain to the output 
of their products in order to comply?).

S-meters are of course S-meters, we both I suspect are long enough in 
the tooth to understand their limitations, but a 20 dB delta is not 
insignificant & I really do wonder about this Recommendation that is so 
old, may not be followed & we cannot now see for ourselves why it is we 
were told things should be this way.

It merits looking at further, especially if as I suspect (though my 
experience is only from IARU R3 & what they get up to in their 
conferences), there was zero involvement of anyone other than national 
societies in drafting it.   To anyone with a relevant professional 
background, this point alone is a bit of a show-stopper.

73, ex-VR2BG/p.