[Elecraft] IMD and CW

[K9MA]

On 12/23/2016 12:11, Alan Bloom wrote:
> For a CW signal, the nonlinearity of a typical power amplifier should 
> have the effect of shortening the rise and fall times.  That does 
> indeed widen the transmitted bandwidth.  But intuitively, it seems 
> like the distortion would have to be really bad to shorten the 
> rise/fall times by much.  You could always compensate for it by 
> adjusting the K3 for softer key shaping.
>
> Alan N1AL 
I think it's a little more complicated than that:  The K3 shapes the CW 
waveform very carefully, to minimize bandwidth.  (I think it's 
equivalent to passing the signal through a narrow bandpass filter.) 
Obviously, any distortion downstream is going to compromise that careful 
shaping.  However, based on my intuition and Vic's results, I suspect it 
would take a truly terrible amount of distortion to significantly 
increase the CW bandwidth.  Given that the K3 is so much cleaner than 
many other popular radios, I doubt we need to worry.

73,

Scott K9MA

-- 
Scott  K9MA

k9ma at sdellington.us