[Elecraft] Incremental build /design suggestions?

[Jim Brown]

On Fri,7/31/2015 6:15 AM, ae4pb at carolinaheli.com wrote:
> My primary focus is DX and I'm trying to juggle priorities (cash) to build
> my station.
>
> I'm upgrading from a YAESU FT-897D which works ok but doesn't deal with
> noise/band noise well.
>
> The intended end result will be K3S, Panadapter, Amplifier, External Antenna
> Tuner. The K3S will have the sub receiver, cw filters, ssb filters, data
> mode filter.

I'm going offer a very different suggestion. For the cost of a 10W K3S, 
you can probably buy a fairly loaded used 100W K3 with 100W tuner and 
other accessories.  Another $220 gets you the new K3SYNA board, which is 
about 90% of the improvement offered by the new K3S. You'll also want 
the KXV3B module, which includes a very nice preamp that improves 
performance on 10M and 6M. Both are easy to add. Now that 10M is dead 
most of the time and 6M E-skip season is nearly over, you won't need 
that preamp for a while. :)

I'm speaking from experience -- I've done exactly those upgrades to my 
K3s, and have no plans to trade up to a K3S. You will find it a HUGE 
upgrade from your 897.

73, Jim K9YC