[Elecraft] P3 Amplitude vs. K3S S-Meter

[Fred Jensen]

Perfectly normal.  The K3(s) S-meter measures the total envelope power 
in whatever BW you have set.  The P3 is a Fourier Transform with a 
multitude of "bins" across the horizontal axis, and what you see is the 
power in each of those bins.  They sum to the same power as the K3 
shows, but the P3 doesn't show the sum, it's a panadapter and not 
designed to do so.

Feeding my K3 with my service monitor [one CW frequency], they match. 
They never do on real signals.

Incidentally, the P3 has a monochrome waterfall option.  I asked for it 
[no color vision], Alan did it for me, I'm not asking for anything else, 
I got what I wanted! :-)  A number of visiting ops to my station have 
commented that the monochrome WF made it much easier to see very weak 
signals.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the Cal QSO Party 1-2 Oct 2016
- www.cqp.org

On 10/19/2015 6:38 PM, David Ahrendts wrote:
> Noticeable difference between the K3S S-Meter level and the displayed
> S-level on the P3. An S-9 signal on the K3S is seen as much less,
> maybe an S-3 on the P3. So its not REF LVL, not SPAN. What?
>
> David A., KC0XT, LA