[Elecraft] K3 Noise Reduction question

[Guy Olinger K2AV]

Hi Fred,

>From where I sit, if the NR display has a little "m" between NR and F,
those are methods best on voice (F5-1 through F8-4), while without the
little "m" (F1-1 through F4-4) are methods better with CW.  That is not an
absolute rule of course and many people have preferences which don't abide
by those categories.  People differ wildly on their sound perceptions and
preferences. Some people can't stand a hollow sound, like scraping a
chalkboard with fingernails.  Others need clear highs in speech or they
just cannot understand it.

It is not even a tiny bit surprising you find 1-1 "hollow" on SSB.  1-1 is
a method designed to dynamically peak up a frequency, DEFINITELY NOT a band
of frequencies like SSB. If you turn on 160m and listen to the static
crashes using 1-1, you can hear the method try to tune in on a center, and
this will move around just depending on the nature of the static crash. If
that hones in on a low frequency on voice, then I LOSE the all important
highs for sibilant sounds, this does not happen on 6-2 which is one of my
favorites.

Personally, I do NOT agree with the Noise Reduction section in the current
K3 manual on page 25, where they only recommend 1-1 through 4-1. There is
not even one NON-mixed setting that I like on SSB.

Nothing wrong, your K3 is not busted, YOU are not busted.  If you like it,
use it, if you don't like it, don't use it. Try them all on for size.

73, Guy.

On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 4:58 PM, Fred Jensen <k6dgw at foothill.net> wrote:

> I operate mainly CW and while the NB is very effective for me on CW,
> I've never seen much advantage to the NR at narrow CW bandwidths.  I had
> occasion to be on SSB this week attempting to work several SOTA summit
> activations, and tried the NR.  At the wider SSB BW, it made a great
> difference.
>
> With NR however, even at F1-1 [which I think means least aggressive],
> while the nasty line noise really fell, the SSB signal acquired a
> profound echo which made it very hard to understand.  I'm running FW4.39
> and whatever DSP came with it.  Is this reverberation [it's more like
> that than a distinct echo, like talking through a long pipe] normal?
> The further "up" the NR scale I went, the more pronounced it got, and
> beyond F1-4, the signal was indecipherable.
>
> Full Disclosure:  My hearing sucks and has since one night in 1965 on
> the other side of the planet, so me telling you what something sounds
> like can be somewhat of a joke.  I can't use my hearing aids under my
> headphones, so I run the AF gain high ["afterburner roar" or close], but
> the reverb effect definitely is controlled by the NR.
>
> 73,
>
> Fred K6DGW
> - Northern California Contest Club
> - CU in the 2012 Cal QSO Party 6-7 Oct 2012
> - www.cqp.org
>
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