[Elecraft] K3. RX too sensitive for me - S-meter/RFgain/absolute mode...

[Guy Olinger K2AV]

They're not likely to see this, rolling up to Dayton, but rolling the
s-meter up scale as you roll the RF gain back is making a digital
radio behave like an analog radio just to keep from all the complaints
that it's broke because it doesn't act analog.  The designer knows
full well that we tolerate changes very poorly, even changes that are
huge improvements. Remember that the analog S-meter was a voltage on a
bus that controlled gain all over the RX. When you manually reduced
the gain, that changed the resting voltage on that circuit and
"buried" any movement less than that voltage.  Hence the familiar
covering up of voltage changes for signals less than the increased
threshold.

If one has chosen "absolute" s-meter performance which is already
un-analog, it would be nice to see the input level regardless of the
RF gain setting, and perhaps just slow "plink" only the top segment
that would be "covered" with the analog convention.

73, Guy.

On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 11:40 PM, Ron D'Eau Claire <ron at cobi.biz> wrote:
> Sometimes we're just too picky about that "S-Meter". Many years ago (almost
> before my time) a number of receivers had no meter but instead calibrated
> the gain control in S-units (or the S-unit's ancestor, the "R-unit"). If you
> wanted to see how strong the signal was, set the gain for a comfortable
> volume and check the position of the knob. Of course 99% of us reported
> signal strength "by ear" and didn't need a "calibrated" knob, Hi!
>
> I'm not entirely sure today's rigs are an improvement, at least in the area
> of receiver gain control. They are, however, much more "automatic" and with
> that comes limitations. I'm a heavy user of the ATTEN, Preamp and RF gain
> control in any receiver.