[Elecraft] Fw: OT P3 question

[Richard Fjeld]

Sam,

I agree with Dale,  WA8SRA, as he describes the skirts of a strong signal.  I let that be assumed in my answer below.

I don't remember if you stated whether you had calibrated your K3/P3 with a XG1,2,3, or something similar? That S9+60 makes me wonder.

When I was working, and had good equipment, I used to know the expected loss of a signal through the air at one mile.  I will need help for an accurate figure now, but I think it was roughly 100 dB of loss.  If that is in the ball park, here is what you would see;  If the people near you are transmitting at 400 watts of output, assuming unity gain and 100% efficiency in the antenna system, that is 56 dBm of power. (100 watts is 50 dB)  If it loses 100 dB in the air and if all things are equal in your antenna system, you would measure about -44 dBm, or S9+30.  (Not forgetting the accuracy of S-meters)

Perhaps I am way off in my recall.  If so, someone please correct this example.

Rich, n0ce


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Richard Fjeld 
To: Sam Morgan ; elecraft at mailman.qth.net 
Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 1:37 AM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] OT P3 question


The way to resolve this is to compare to other signals.  I see very nicely shaped signals with straight skirts within 3 KHz at times, and other signals that look like a pine tree.  

A nearby ham lives less than 2 miles from me and runs an amp. Sometimes his signal is clean, and sometimes he overdrives.  And when I see it wide, others with SDR pan adapters 150 miles away see it too.  So it isn't a close-distance thing. Now that he has an SDR pan-adapter, he is more conscious of signal width.  Years back, we operated under the threat of getting a pink ticket if we erred. 

Rich, n0ce