[Elecraft] P3 Beta code 'ghost' issue; Data A revisited

[Rick Bates, WA6NHC]

This evening as I was listening to a moderately weak station on 30 meters CW.  I noticed that the P3 display showed a wide (+-.75 KHz from center) pulse pattern centered on the frequency I was on.  I also noted that there was a strong (XE2, not that it matters) almost 3 KHz down.  The P3 pattern matched the CW pulses of that station down band.  I wasn't hearing anything but the weak station on the K3 (well done Elecraft).

So I wondered, could this anomaly be caused by the new noise blanker algorithm?  Yup.  I turned off the P3 NB function (set at 12) and the anomaly went away.

So if you're seeing something on the P3 that isn't there, turn off the NB function and watch again.

On the subject of the Data A red pattern width change; my normal set up for working RTTY/PSK (AFSK, Data A mode) split was:

Narrow and recenter the filter to hear only the station I want to work (sound card doesn't get hosed);
sync the two VFOs (double tap; copy everything over to B);
go split;
move the VFO B (now with the matching pattern of VFO A RX, in red) on top of the last station worked, fine tune by listening to the sub-RX if desired.

The former (pre-beta) pattern showed the same narrowed width as the main RX (shows the slot my audio tones would go out), which made it easy to spot the (TX) VFO B on or near the last station worked, simply line up their trace under the red swath.  This makes for a nice quick attack mode.

Having the wider red pattern (2.7 KHz) makes this much harder now since I can't 'see' where my tones are going to be.  If given a vote, I like the old way better if the P3 can't read the filter width and match the display to the actual.  At least I had a ballpark idea where my tones would go.

73,
Rick, WA6NHC

iPad = small keypad = typos = sorry ;-)