[Elecraft] Noisy radios

[Conrad PA5Y]

This is not nonsense in my experience, but I am an exclusively VHF operator where bad transmitters are immediately obvious. This statement ''nobody considers them poor neighbors' is incorrect. I do! They are bloody awful!

Rob Sherwood's attempts at focusing attention on poor TX composite noise and poor IMD is admirable. I hope that he continues to raise awareness on this issue.

On 6m those using the FTDX-5000 with QRO are quite difficult to deal with. Less so now everybody is on 50.313 and most locals are on the same sequence!

One FTDX-5000 user is on 2m and 70cms EME, he uses the FTDX-5000 as a driver for his transverters. Same problem, the poor PN is extremely evident. Again, the use of the same TX sequence helps and fortunately he does not participate in VHF contests.

The other radio that is quite offensive is the IC-7300 when used with a PA. When the power is turned down the composite noise gets much worse, especially on 6m. Some people are using them to drive transverters, same problem. It is obvious because there is a major noise bump at +300kHz!

I have measurements done with an FSWP Noise analyser to back this up. There are thousands of IC7300s in use and this is one very disappointing aspect of their performance. The user is unaffected, other band users must suffer. The IC9700 is fine unless used with a big PA then these are not good neighbours. I can see the appeal of these radios but Icom need to do better!

The FTDX-101 series is MUCH better than Yaesu's previous offerings, although I only know of 2 of them locally. They are good in fact.

If you like I CAN substantiate the claims with measurements.

The K3S has excellent low PN but use it on SSB and the IMD is unacceptable, I am VERY disappointed with my K3S TX IMD on 6m. Good job nobody uses SSB on 6m these days 😉 This is an extremely unpopular opinion on this forum and I really hope that the K4 is better!

It is extremely difficult to convince the owner of a shiny new radio that his signal is bad, it MUST be the receiver. Even though receivers are getting better and better.

73

Conrad PA5Y

________________________________
From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net <elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net> on behalf of JR <jrichards at k8jhr.com>
Sent: 09 October 2020 07:43
To: Elecraft at mailman.qth.net <Elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K4 Pricing Posted

K9YC said ... You get what you pay for. Yaesu has been making very dirty radios -- clicks
and splatter have been the rule.

      __________________________________________________

There is too much parochialism in ham radio.

A couple of ops say this, failing to prove the claim, or substantiate it applies beyond a couple of isolated cases.  While Mr. Sherwood knows ONE guy with a noisy FT3000,  there are loads of them in service in my market, and nobody considers them poor neighbors.  If they are all that bad, we would know it.   Such unsubstantiated claims reminds me of a similar row on the TT reflector, where some guy in Germany claimed the TS-890 is a "noise machine" compared to the TT Eagle - and failed to document more than two or three alleged cases, and today recommends the TS-890 as a good rig to buy!  K9YC published a paper purporting to document and quantify transmitter noise figures - which belies the claim and ultimately validates what the ARRL Lab told me - namely neither rig is a problem.  And, yet, the claim persists.

So, great ... he we go again.  More unsubstantiated nonsense.  This sort of parochialism both off-topic and does a disservice.  K8JHR




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