[Elecraft] P3 - spikes that never move

[Ian White]

To expand a previous posting: 

I can only speak for the cable that was supplied with my own P3, but that
was definitely the cause of spurious signals on the display. The signals
were not strong, but they made it impossible to watch for weak openings on
the 10m and 6m bands.

After cutting away the strain relief moldings at both ends of the cable, I
found that the coax shield was not correctly crimped onto the plug body.
This was undoubtedly the cause of the signal leakage. Continuity looked OK
on the ohm-meter, but signal levels at the IF input of the P3 are extremely
low so this was a case where simple DC continuity wasn't good enough. 

Ferrite beads at both ends of the cable did make some improvement (which was
a big clue about the cause) but ferrite beads would not have been the
correct way to fix the problem. The only correct way was to use a correctly
assembled cable.



73 from Ian GM3SEK