[Elecraft] K3S Noise Blanker

[Fred Jensen]

Every summer, Reno Nevada hosts an event called "Hot August Nights," in 
August but you probably figured that out.  I have no idea how many 
classic vehicles it attracts, the number is huge, and affectionados will 
make their hotel reservations for next year before they leave this year. 
They can be found cruising around the entire area.  They are truly 
beautiful if you like old, perfectly kept cars.  They also make ignition 
noise. The NB on my K3 does a classic job of removing it.  Sorry for the 
pun, but the impulse noise just goes away.

Today's vehicles don't make ignition noise, and it's rare that I find 
impulse noise on the radio.  I do find some power line hash, and a lot 
of SMPS noise drifting by.  The NB might lower that non-impulse noise an 
S-unit on the meter, it really doesn't make much difference in signal 
intelligibility.

This subject comes up regularly here. The NB on my Drake 2B was 
fantastic on impulse noise.  So was the S-Line, and the 51J4 I had for 
quite awhile. They didlittle to power line noise however, and SMPS 
hadn't been invented then.

Some noise is best eliminated at audio, I'm not surprised that your 
CLRspeaker works at times. Sometimes, just laying the headphones on the 
desk and turning up the AF gain will work wonders.  So far as I've been 
able to discern with K3 S/n 642, the NB works as well as any NB I've 
used in the past.

73,

Fred ("Skip") K6DGW
Sparks NV USA
Washoe County DM09dn

On 6/4/2017 4:22 PM, Marvin Wheeler wrote:
> I have a K3S that was new in January of this year. I am very impressed with
> the radio and its' receiver. Compared to previously owned Yaesu FT1000D,
> 75A4, KWM-2, S-Line, Drake twins, it has the best receiver by far of the
> whole bunch. I do have a problem/complain in that the Noise Blanker has
> absolutely no effect on noise as far as I can tell. The only way I can tell
> the noise blanker is working is that if I turn the setting to high is seems
> to squelch (poor description) the received signal. Noise reduction works as
> I would expect. The noise blanker certainly does not work as well as some
> other receivers or even the Clear Speaker by West Mountain.
>
> Anyone else have this problem?
>