[Elecraft] Precautions or hints on use of Signalink USB with the K3 for PSK31 and JT65A digital modes

[Don Wilhelm]

Mike,

Your post was just fine.  You are correct, the K3 behaves differently 
than other rigs, so you must drive the audio and set the power differently.

The K3 power starts out lower and builds up to the requested level - 
that should happen in just a second or two.  I *believe* it takes a 
little longer with the more constant audio of digital modes than it does 
with SSB syllabic speech or intermittent CW.   IMHO, that is a whole lot 
better than having a power spike at the beginning as happens with some 
other rigs which depend on ALC to control the power output.  The 
K2/K3/KX3 power control system is a closed loop with the processor 
inside the loop, so it must sense the actual power output before any 
correction is applied.

If you want to circumvent that buildup, transmit briefly into a dummy 
load right after a band change or a change in the setting of the power 
control or a mode change.  As you have observed, it only happens on the 
first transmission.

73,
Don W3FPR

On 1/21/2014 12:25 PM, macforsale wrote:
> First attempt to respond to a thread on this reflector so not sure if I am headed in the correct direction.
>
> I had trouble with my K3 "power hunting". That is at the beginning of the JT65 or JT9 transmission the output power would be 10 watts and slowly move up several watts during the 48 second transmission. Now I could keep it at 10 watts, but had to turn down the audio from the front panel of the SIgnaLink USB.
>
> Turns out my setup like I had used with other transceivers (Flex3K, IC7000) which was to set the rigs power to 100% and adjust the audio level for 10 watts or whatever I wanted does not work with the K3.
>
> Set the audio input to 4 to 5 flickering bars on the ALC meter scale. Power can be set to zero or TEST mode as you don't need any power out. Once that was done the "power hunting" stopped and it would go to the power level set by the PWR knob. Interesting that if set to say 10 watts it will jump to 8-9 drift up to 10 on the first transmission on that band. After the 1st transmission it goes to 10 watts immediately. Seems like there is still some level of "power hunting". Not sure what to make of that yet.
>
> KE5MC, Mike
>