[Elecraft] K3/K3S noise blanker performance greatly enhanced (at my QTH) -- need testers

[Scott Ellington]

If I understand it correctly, reason for the wide crystal filter is that 
a narrow filter stretches the noise pulses, making blanking 
ineffective.  (The idea is to blank out the noise, without blanking out 
a lot of the signal.)  The wide filter passes the narrow noise pulses to 
the DSP, which can then blank them out like a hardware blanker.  The 
result is passed to DSP bandpass filter.

I don't have the 6 kHz filter, but I'd like to know how well it works.  
One of my (few) disappointments with the K3 is the noise blanker, which 
never seems very effective on line noise.  The conventional noise 
blanker in my old FT-1000 can often reduce the noise dramatically, but 
only when there are no strong signals nearby.   Alas, that means it 
never works during contests.

Long, long ago, someone (Collins?) proposed using a second receiver to 
control a noise blanker, with the second receiver tuned to a nearby 
clear spot wide enough for a filter much wider than that of the primary 
receiver, say 15 kHz.  That might be just outside the ham band, for 
example.   Then the main receiver would retain its excellent immunity to 
strong nearby signals.  Now, if the subreceiver in the K3/K3s could be 
made to do that, I'd buy the 15 kHz filter instantly.

73,

Scott K9MA

-- 
Scott Ellington  K9MA
Madison, Wisconsin, USA

k9ma at sdellington.us