[Elecraft] CQ WW SSB

[Johnny Siu]

Hello Elecrafter,

I was QRV to an outline island of Hong Kong (known an Lamma Island).  Therefore, I only brought K3+KPA500+Buddipole+25A switching power supply.

Scores were of course nothing promising because I was lazy and slept a lot.  The buddipole was installed on the roof of 3 storey village type house.  However, the metal canopy structure on the roof seriously influenced the buddipole set up so that SWR below 21Mhz was very high no matter how I adjusted the antenna.

KAT500 is still in Elecraft's lab.  Therefore, no tuner was used in this set up.  KPA500 could handle SWR below 2 and I worked full power of KPA500 on 28Mhz.  The KPA500 was cool and quiet.  The integration with K3 was silk smooth.

Below 28Mhz, I can only run bearfoot with K3 using the internal KAT3.  In 7Mhz, I trust the effective RF out at the end of Buddipole could be as low as 50W.  Anyway, I could still get some multipliers in Europe.

The selectivity of K3 was excellent but I really missed the DSP NR in my big Icoms.  I regret to say that NR in K3 is as bad as useless so that I simply turned off DSP NR during the entire contest.  Also, when I adjusted the IF bandwidth say from 2.4khz to 2.1khz, I noticed a very short 'black out' time when I could not hear the signal during the adjustment.  I would suspect the DSP IF filter in K3 needs some time to 'think' about the adjustment.  Once I settled down to 2.1Khz, it was all ok.

I used the Yamaha CM500 from my colleage VO1AU which was very good.  I cannot get a CM500 in VR2, could any of you advise where I can get a CM500 in USA?
 
The logging ware was N1MM.

During contest time, band spectrum P3 seems not quite necessary because there were stations every other Khz.  I heard quite a number of US stations even in 7Mhz but I could not work them due to poor antenna set up.

How was your CQ WW?  Any information / experience to share?

TNX & 73,


Johnny VR2XMC