[Elecraft] The case for a Panadapter - opinions, please?

[Phil Hystad]

I agree with Jim on the use of waterfall for weak signals.  When I first got the P3 my main focus was on the top part of the display, the spectrum of signals and I ignored the water fall.  One day I discovered a signal in the waterfall that did not even show up on the top spectrum portion.  It was a new DXCC entity for me and he picked me up on my first call to him.  Now, it is the waterfall where I do my hunting most of the time looking for either QRP or just plain ordinary weak signals.

By the way, I only call CQ if there is nothing else I can find on the band -- I have gone for days without calling CQ.

73, phil, K7PEH


On Feb 28, 2014, at 10:19 AM, Jim Brown <jim at audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote:

> On 2/28/2014 10:08 AM, Jim Lowman wrote:
>> So, for those of you who have this option, could you describe how it has assisted you?
> 
> Monitoring and finding stations on "dead" bands (like 6M), finding holes in a DX pileup where you might have better success, identifying RFI noise sources. Finding clear spots in a contest to call CQ.
> 
>> In another message, someone mentioned that weak stations outside of the passband could be missed, which is a good point. 
> 
> That is NOT a problem with the P3 -- it gets its feed from the first IF and can be adjusted to look at any bandwidth from 2 kHz to 200 kHz. When you turn on averaging in the Fixed Tune mode set it for the highest number of averages, it's very easy to see weak signals in the waterfall.
> 
> 73, Jim K9YC
> 
> 
> 
> 
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