[Elecraft] K3S "HI-RFI" warning a bit too sensitive?

[Dale Putnam]

I certainly hope they NEVER speak their credit card numbers.. their plans for the weekend, vacation, trips away from the house, bank accounts, security questions, or pretty much anything else. In today's world with so much concern about identity theft, credit card information... listening in, like they are providing, would provide enough information to very easily swipe an ID or two.. or three.. apply for credit cards, buy a car, or almost anything else. Wow... the possibilities are endless, and 99% are not good at all.

  Aside from the simple fact that it is a transmitter, and causes an issue.

Good luck getting them to shut it off...

IF it is a "security thing" for an elderly.. maybe the explanation of Life Line.. or some similar monitoring system would help... or the purchase of a pair of family service walky talkies, from the box stores, for less than 40 would work better.. that would certainly give the coverage, and only transmit when needed.


Have a great day,
--... ...-- Dale - WC7S in Wy



________________________________
From: Elecraft <elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net> on behalf of Chris L <forzaferrari at gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2016 5:30 AM
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Elecraft] K3S "HI-RFI" warning a bit too sensitive?

I believe the manual states that it takes a watt or two of power at the
antenna connector to set off the HI-RFI warning. Imagine my surprise when I
began seeing the warning on my brand new K3S just days after I'd assembled
it. Almost everyone else who has seen this error has been using a K3 in a
contest environment with multiple transmitters, so I was particularly
stumped as there are no other transmitters in my shack (everything is
boxed) and no active hams in my neighborhood. I did some testing and traced
it to a signal coming in on my 6 meter antenna, which when I disconnected
it caused the HI-RFI warning to go away. Using a VHF capable SDR in
wideband mode, I found a strong FM signal on 49.850 and traced it to...

A baby monitor. Yep, not one block from my house lives a couple with a
cheap 49MHz baby monitor blasting away on 49.850MHz all hours of the day
and night. A short "fox hunt" with a service monitor confirmed this. There
is 100KHz worth of splatter coming from this thing and my old Icom 706
shows it as S9 with the attenuator on (and S9 +60 without). I spoke with
someone at the house and confirmed that this was the problem by shutting
down the device for an hour. Unfortunately, the couple's mother-in-law
lives with them and insists on using the baby monitor all day and night.

I will continue to press for a diplomatic solution (possibly offering to
buy them a newer 800/900MHz unit), but should I fail at that, is this
something I should worry about as far as damaging my K3S? I find it hard to
believe that a baby monitor is pumping out more than 1 watt, so I'm
inclined to believe that the K3S is being a bit overprotective. This plus
the fact that my 6 meter antenna is a PAR Omniangle which is
omnidirectional and according to PAR has no appreciable gain. I'm tempted
to program the K3S to ignore the HI-RFI warning for the time being.
Thoughts?

Chris
KB9SDX
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