[Elecraft] KX3 "deaf" - suggestions?

[Geert Jan de Groot]

When testing my KX3 next to my K3 in a transverter setup, I found that 
the KX3 seemed a bit "deaf".

On the K3 I need to operate the attenuator, but on the KX3 I needed to 
enable the preamp instead and even then, there is very little AGC with 
the signals on the band.

To verify, I did FM SINAD measurements and found that on 10m, the K# has 
-113dBm for 12dB SINAD (which is normal), but the KX3 needed -101dBm for 
12 dB SINAD, so indeed, it seems "deaf".

I removed the transverter option, filter option and the antenna tuner 
option but that did not improve things.

RF output is nominal.

I verified the attenuator as wel as the two pre-amplifiers (10dB and 
20dB) and they seem to do what they need to do.

I suspect an issue in the TX/RX circuitry and perhaps someone else has 
encountered this, or perhaps this is one of the "that is a known 
problem, change these components" from one of the Elecraft techs?

Has anyone seen this?

73,

Geert Jan PE1HZG