[Elecraft] K2, distorted audio signal

[Jim Brown]

On 7/21/2025 9:33 AM, Michael Carter via Elecraft wrote:
> To me it sounds as though you're tuned to the sideband of a wide CW signal, which I've heard on occasion.  This results in the sound of modulated noise rather than a pure tone.

This is "phase noise," which is a distortion product of the synthesizers 
of both transmitters and receivers. There's a study of phase noise in 
transmitters on my website, which is an analysis of ARRL Labs data from 
about ten years ago. They sent me raw data in digital form, which I put 
into a spreadsheet and formatted it to display data for all of the 
tested radios on the same graph. Clicks, which are the result of IMD, 
and phase noise are plotted separately.

http://k9yc.com/TXNoise.pdf

73, Jim K9YC