[Elecraft] [K3] RX Gain Calibration

[Travis Brown]

All,

 I put together a K3 kit about 6 weeks ago. Wow, that was an amazing
project.  Many thanks to Elecraft for making that option available.  The
problem I am having is that on 180/80/75/40 and sometimes 20, the noise
floor is about S7-9.  It is about the same on both my antennas (OCF dipole
and 43' vertical) with the OCF being a smidge quieter.  My first thought
was that I had some local noise and asked my dad to bring over is KX3 so I
could walk around the house to find the source of the noise.  I did find
that the power supply in the iMac is ridiculously noisy, but that wasn't
getting into my signal, especially since my antennas are almost 100' from
the house.  What I DID notice was that when I plugged my antennas into the
KX3, the noise floor was at S0 on 20/40 and around S1 or S2 on 75/80/180
with the pre-amp off.  That was MUCH better.  Of course, if I fiddle with
the RX gain knob, I can make the noise go away, but it does mess with the
S-Meter and it becomes increasingly useless.  So, my thought was that since
my dad had his KX3 factory built, they did a proper RX Gain calibration.
Since I didn't have a calibrated signal generator, I just used the factory
defaults which maybe aren't so great?  My question is this: would it make
sense to seek out a calibrated RF source and try and run a proper RX Gain
calibration?  Would it likely solve my problem?

Thanks,
Travis
K2NP