[Elecraft] My K3's 10 meter band now functions

[donovanf at erols.com]

Hi Dave, 

I train all of my W3LPL operators to always check their receiver sensitivity 
before a contest and every time they change to a different band or a 
different radio. This is an essential skill and habit that should be ingrained 
into every successful contester and DXer. 



Simply pushing the K3 attenuator button is enough. If the noise level 
doesn't drop dramatically there's a problem! 


73 
Frank 
W3LPL 


----- Original Message -----

From: "David Olean" <k1whs at metrocast.net> 
To: "John Kountz" <john at t6ee.com>, elecraft at mailman.qth.net 
Sent: Wednesday, December 16, 2020 7:00:34 PM 
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] My K3's 10 meter band now functions 

That happened to me here on ten meters a few years ago. I had just built 
up a good ten meter station and W1UE came up to operate it. He had a K3 
at his house, so I never interfered with any of his operating 
techniques, but he was complaining about the poor propagation all day on 
Saturday. He left at sunset and I went back to the house to find a few e 
mails from friends saying that they had called and had a very hard time 
getting through and that my receiver was deaf. After I had dinner, I 
went back to the shack with test gear to test the receiver sensitivity. 
That is when I found he had the wrong antenna set with the RX push 
button. He spent the entire day making contacts with 40 dB of 
attenuation in the line. When W1UE showed up on Sunday he worked all 
the folks he missed the day before and we had a good laugh (at our 
expense). We still chuckle over that weekend! We don't make that 
mistake now. 

Dave K1WHS 

On 12/16/2020 1:08 PM, John Kountz wrote: 
> Thanks o all of those replying with serious considerations. In reviewing the responses, one of you hit the nail on the head: a dumb operator error occurred, the wrong antenna had been selected for the 10 meter band. I suppose most knew, antenna selection is couple to band a factor I had forgotten.) How this misalignment happened I'll have to attribute to a button push long forgotten. 
> Again, thanks top all and winning scores regardless of the contest,. 
> 73 
> John Kountz, WO1S 
> 
> J Kountz 
> 
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