[Elecraft] What does the frequency readout mean?

[Pete Smith N4ZR]

Hi Rich - a very lucid reply, and you apparently understood what I was 
saying, despite my "RIT" mis-statement.

For some reason, I was operating under the mistaken impression that the 
sideband used for CW followed the sideband convention for SSB.  I went 
straight to the Cady book, unfortunately - had I referred to page 30 of 
the regular manual, I would have seen that normal for the K3 in CW is 
lower sideband on all bands.  I wonder if this is generally true of 
modern transceivers - seems to me as if my TS-930 and Mark 5 - both now 
gone - switched CW sidebands as I described above.

Again, many thanks.

73, Pete N4ZR
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On 2/19/2013 9:18 PM, Richard Ferch wrote:
> Hi Pete,
>
> In CW mode, the K3 reads the actual transmitted frequency. Since 
> normal CW uses lower sideband on the K3, this means that on 3507.2 in 
> normal CW mode, with the pitch set at 500 Hz the suppressed carrier 
> frequency is 3507.7 kHz (500 Hz above the signal frequency). If you 
> change the pitch setting to 300 Hz, the K3 adjusts its suppressed 
> carrier frequency to 3507.5 kHz so that the transmitted frequency 
> stays on 3507.2 kHz.
>
> If you were using CW-R on upper sideband, the suppressed carrier would 
> be at 3506.7 kHz with 500 Hz pitch, and on 3506.9 kHz with 300 Hz pitch.
>
> RIT has no effect on what the other station hears. However, if you use 
> both RIT and XIT together, it will have an effect - exactly the same 
> effect as if you rotated the tuning knob to produce the same tone in 
> the receiver and the same frequency display in the VFO A display.
>
> If you are using the K3's normal CW mode, you tune "zero beat" to a 
> station (i.e. so that what you hear is the same as your sidetone), and 
> then you tune your VFO lower in frequency, the receiver's carrier 
> frequency moves lower and gets closer to the signal you are receiving, 
> so the pitch you hear goes down. If you now transmit with that lower 
> VFO frequency, your signal will be lower in frequency than it would 
> have been on zero beat, and therefore lower in frequency than the 
> other station's signal. If the other station is also a K3 using lower 
> sideband for CW, he will hear your pitch go up, because your signal is 
> farther away from his suppressed carrier frequency. On the other hand, 
> if the other station is using upper sideband for CW he will hear your 
> pitch go lower.
>
> In general, if you are both using the same sideband, then when you 
> move your main VFO (or RIT-XIT together) to change the pitch you hear, 
> that will make the pitch the other station hears change in the 
> opposite sense. If you are using opposite sidebands, what you both 
> hear will change together. Since it is in general impossible to 
> predict which sideband the other station is using for CW, it is 
> likewise impossible to predict with certainty what he would hear if 
> you were to adjust your transmit frequency slightly.
>
> 73,
> Rich VE3KI
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