[Elecraft] Using the K3s with QRP at 5 watts

[Wayne Burdick]

Hi Peder,

I encourage you to try QRP, especially with the high bands as hot as they've been in a long time. And don't stop at 5 W! If a band is open you can make contacts with 1 W, or even 0.1 W. For example, if you hear a station at S9 and they're using 100 W, you'll be roughly 30 dB down at his end if you use 1 W. That's 30 dB/6 dB per S-unit = roughly 5 S-units, or S-4. Perfectly copiable if there's no serious QRM/QRN.

I believe the world record for worked-all-continents is 17 *microwatts* by a JA ham.

Once the K3S is calibrated at 5 W on all bands, setting any other power level will be accurate. If you set power to 4.0, you'll get very close to 4.0 W.

We do this at the factory, or you did it yourself if you built the kit.

You can always recalibrate at 5 and 50 W at any time by doing a TUNE into a lower with SWR < 2.0. But doing it more than once should not be necessary. You can avoid the question entirely by using 4.8 or 5.2 watts instead of 5.0 W, etc.

73,
Wayne
N6KR



> On Mar 2, 2022, at 7:45 PM, Peder Kittelson <peder.kittelson at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I have been thinking of playing around with QRP and wonder how to do 5
> watts on the K3s without needing to recalibrate the gain each time.  How do
> people do 4 watts QRP with a K3s??
> 
> -- 
> Peder Kittelson, W7RPK
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