[Elecraft] 6 m reception comparing with KX3

[Skip Davis]

John and the group,

From my experience I own both a K3 and KX3. I have found that the K3 hears better on 6m FM using the same antenna switching between both rigs. I have only used both on 6m in FM mode only in the 53 MHz range for a local repeater. 
The repeater will be S9 and clear on the K3 and will only be an S3 and noisy to the point it is almost unintelligible. On transmit running at 8 watts both rigs I'm told are full quieting into the repeater.
At one point before a firmware update I could only tell on the KX3 that the repeater was accessed and the beep tone was clear but audio sounded garbled. Any signal over S5 was clear. 
I am using all the preamp settings for 6 as outlined in the manual and I have the latest DSP and firmware loaded. Now having said all this my KX3 serial number is under 1000 so I don't know if there was any changes to the  unit that my have addressed this or that mine is unique.
I did noticed that on the schematics for the bandpass filters there is a outline for a LNA in the 6 meter bandpass filter. So I am wondering if this is already thought of and the boards are setup to accommodate one in the future, I hope so.
Also as a side note when I hook up my FT817 to the same antenna the repeater is S9 and full quieting.

Skip Davis
NC9O