[Elecraft] K3-PR10

[Dale Boresz]

Fred,

You must have an enviably quiet QTH (or a very poor antenna) if you find 
that the K3 can benefit from a preamp on 10m. I work a lot of weak 
signal CW on 10m with a simple Hex Beam up about 45 feet. Even with the 
Hex Beam's low gain, I can see the noise floor drop by about 9 dBm when 
I disconnect the antenna from the K3 with the antenna pointed to the 
quietest part of the sky in the early morning hours when the band is 
clearly not open. These measurements were taken using both the P3 and 
the K3's built-in AFV amd dBV measurement functionality.

Based upon the above measurements, the band noise is already one and a 
half S-Units above the receiver's noise floor, so it seems to me that in 
terms of improving the signal to noise ratio, a preamp would be of 
little value.

What am I missing here? (perhaps a quieter location  ;-)   )

73, Dale
WA8SRA



On 10/26/2012 4:51 AM, Fred Smith wrote:
> Tim
>
> I can address this a little comparing my FTDX-5000MP and my K3's the k3's
> receivers are not up to the level of the Yaesu 5000 on the high bands. But
> quite the other way around on the low bands in IMHO but 6/10m really needs a
> good preamp for sure.
>
> 73,
> Fred/N0AZZ