[Elecraft] P3 Measurements with new K3SYNA Boards

[Alan Bloom]

On 07/27/2015 10:46 PM, Jim Brown wrote:
> On Mon,7/27/2015 10:28 PM, Phil Wheeler wrote:
>> Oh oh, Jim: We need a P3A :-) Good you took this on.
>
> Perhaps P3 firmware can be re-written to allow display of greater
> dynamic range to the extent that electronics headroom supports it?

The limit is the 32-bit arithmetic in the DSP firmware.  32 bits gives 
you 96 dB less some headroom to allow for the averaging function.  I 
tried floating-point arithmetic but it increased the computation time by 
more than an order of magnitude.

As you said, you can see the improved phase noise performance of the new 
synthesizer by simply cranking up the reference level and allowing the 
carrier to go off the top of the screen.  Perhaps someone will do that 
when upgrading to the new synthesizer and post before and after plots. 
(Didn't somebody already do that?)

Alan N1AL