[Elecraft] New to Ham, 3, group, with a question RE: Reference Oscillator TCXO

[Don Wilhelm]

Michael,

The advantage of the TCXO3-1 is that it is more stable when subjected to 
changing temperature.  If your K3 is operated in a shack with stable 
temperature, the only advantage over the standard TCXO is that there 
will be less frequency change during the K3 warmup time.

You apparently are not a CW operator if you do not know how to "SPOT" a 
signal (or tune a musical instrument using 'beats').  Let me try to explain:
When you turn on the sidetone, you will hear a tone at the audio 
frequency that you set using "PITCH".
You will hear another audio frequency produced by the carrier of the 
signal you are tuned to - when using WWV, be certain you are hearing the 
carrier and not one of the other tones that they transmit.

Normally in operating, one would tune the VFO until the two tones match 
- this is "Spotting" or also known as tuning to "Zero-Beat"
The difference between normal operating and this procedure is that you 
tune the VFO to the frequency of the signal and then leave it there.  
You then adjust the menu REF CAL parameter to make the tones match.
When the two tones are close together, you will begin to hear a 
pulsating sound (something like wow-wow-wow).  When the pulsating slows 
the lowest rate you can achieve, you are at zero beat which is the 
desired condition.

If you cannot hear the pulsating between the tones, either the two tones 
are not close to each other,  the you can use a visual aid - an audio 
spectrum analyzer running on the computer with the K3 audio connected to 
the computer soundcard input.  That will give you a visual of the two 
tones.  Once you get the tones visually close to each other, listen for 
the beat note and slow it down to zero or as close to zero as you can 
obtain.

73,
Don W3FPR

On 4/13/2015 11:20 AM, Michael Gillen via Elecraft wrote:
> Hello all, new to Ham (about two months) and just built my K3 over the weekend. Wow that thing is complicated. I came from using a Kenwood TS-440ASAT for the past 6 weeks so a lot to learn.
> I'm a bit confused about the TCXO and especially how to perform the calibration of it and would the upgrade to either the KTCXO3-1  TCXO  1 PPM or K3EXREF be a better choice?
> My guess on what the TCXO does is provide a stable clock to the synthesizer. Is that correct? And the more accurate/stable the better (hence the upgrade paths)?
> So I have the "standard" TCXO right now. I get lost on the instructions after step two which is to tune to WWV 20MHz. I don't understand whats going on to "SPOT" the sidetone etc. If there's a video on how to do this that would help a lot.
> Thanks and 73!MichaelKK6RWK
>