[Elecraft] KX3 Serious Errors in the Manual

[Fred Jensen]

I know Jim very well and he is technically correct of course.  That 
said, I can make the case that the goal of the manual is to communicate 
to a very large audience on the set-up and use of the radio.  For many 
of them [most?], the term "ground" can mean the chassis connection, the 
negative terminal of the power supply, a rod driven in the ground, a 
wire laying on or slightly elevated from the earth's surface in the 
vicinity of the antenna, or even the Pacific Ocean [if you happen to be 
afloat in it].  I think consistency in choice of terms is probably at 
least as important as the exact terms themselves.

The manual *does* need to be very clear on matters of safety.  NEC 
requires that all earth electrodes be bonded together with heavy wire 
and bonded to the service entrance earth electrode.  If the manual is 
going to talk about an earth electrode, it probably should mention items 
like this, perhaps in a footnote.

On a different but related subject, I host and power the neighborhood 
RAP for the wireless company on my tower in return for free I'net access 
at the backhaul speed [17-25 mbps or so].  They recently replaced their 
equipment and used an SMPS in the UPS to power the radios and their 
router.  The SMPS was putting out raucous, 7-8 KHz wide signals every 26 
KHz from below the AM BC band to about 60 meters.  Peaks were running 
about -40 dBm [S9+35] on 80 and 160.  It's gone now, thanks to the info 
in Jim's very detailed dissertation on RFI [http://k9yc.com/RFI-Ham.pdf].

We're all increasingly subject to RFI conditions with the explosion of 
RF noisemakers out there.  If you have such a problem, I strongly 
recommend reading Jim's paper before trying to mitigate the noises.  It 
will save you a bundle of money, effort, and time.  And, proper 
"grounding" can be a big factor. :-)

Now if I can just get CalTrans to fix their street light down at the 
interchange.
73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2014 Cal QSO Party 4-5 Oct 2014
- www.cqp.org

On 4/25/2014 2:14 PM, Wayne Burdick wrote:
> That may be. But we're thick-skinned around here, and we revel in a
> good technical skirmish now and then. Jim is a worthy combatant.