[OKDXA] K3

[K8fu at aol.com]

FWIW I thought some might enjoy this critique from Don K8MFO who is the  
finest cw dxer and contest op I've  known...................................
 
 
RIBBIT...............................................RIBBIT...................
...................   BOHICA
 
 
Yesterday was a snowy day in Ohio, so I put this information  together.


You guys have asked me a number of questions  about the K3.   Rob Sherwood, 
Tom Rauch, and the ARRL Laboratory will  all provide lots of technical data.   
My interest is in how the radio  "feels" in my shack.

I am not in any hurry to make glowing  recommendations, but I will say the 
following:

I am in no position  to disagree with the many positive things I have seen 
written on the Elecraft  Reflector.

At this point I have no negative comments to make about  the radio.

First of all, I spend 99+% of my time on CW.    Everything has performed 
flawlessly, from digging out the weakest signals to  driving my amplifiers.   I 
have tested the receiver against the 2  strongest signals that I have ever heard 
on 160 -- W8AV, 5 miles away as the  crow flies, and W8LRL, "Mr. Number Uno". 
  On LRL in particular, I  moved up close to his frequency with my 2.7Khz 
filter and noted what his 599 +60  signal did to the receiver.   I then switched 
in the 400Hz filter, and  noted the difference.   Do not ever let anyone tell 
you that a well  designed roofing filter does not make a big difference.    I 
have  no lab equipment here, but I can pretty much snuggle in within a half 
Khz on  either side of Wally.    RE: W8AV.   Goose is local,  and has a contest 
station.   When he returns from PJ2T in about a  week, he and I will do a lot 
more tests.   If I were sitting on top of  my tower, he may very well be "line 
of sight".    Our experiments  sound like a good excuse to sample either some 
of his great homebrew beer, or my  homemade wine!

The K3 does have the best RTTY "encoder", I have  ever seen, converting CW in 
RTTY.  Of course this is the only radio that I  have ever seen that does that!

Of all of the internal antenna  tuners I have seen, the K3 has the best.   I 
am able to tune all sorts  of complex loads, even my Mosley PRO-57A on 160 
meters.   Likewise  with my other antennas.    The fact that I can force power 
into  these grossly mismatched antennas does not mean I am going to work a lot 
of DX,  but nonetheless, I can use them in an emergency.

My initial  impression was that the internal speaker was really lousy.   That 
is  of no consequence to me, as I use headphones 99% of the time.  Upon 
further  testing, the speaker is not as bad as I thought.    I have the CW  PITCH 
set to 300Hz, the lowest possible setting, and the speaker is not great  for 
listening to low tone CW.  However, it is probably no worse than a lot  of other 
external speakers on SSB.    If I get into AM  ragchewing, I could use a set 
of external speakers, all fed through an old  Marantz amplifier, or whatever!

I have only made one SSB QSO, and  that was with local friend N8BM.   At the 
moment I am listening to  VP6DX on SSB.    To me, who rarely operates SSB, the 
radio sounds  very good, better than my beloved TS-930.   N8BM also told me 
that the  transmitted SSB sounds good.   I had the chance to hear it myself,  
with him on the K3, and me listening to it.   The audio sounds nice  and clean. 
  Some people have said it does not have the "DX Contest  punch".    I don't 
think I would want to sound like a lot of the  contest stations.   Maybe if I 
tied a leather thong around my crotch,  I could sound like some of those 
stations.   At any rate, it sounds  like Wayne and Lyle are going to provide for 
additional punch with a software  update.

The RTTY decode works fine for me.   With the  400Hz roofing filter and 
additional DSP selectivity, I have no problem picking  people out of a crowd.   I 
need 7 countries to have them all on RTTY,  and I doubt whether I am going to 
have to put my Rigblaster Plus in line, along  with dedicating a computer, 
keyboard, etc to that mode.   Of course  RTTY contesting requires those other 
accessories.

I need to become  more attentive to watching the display on the radio.    
While  typing this, VP6DX started to work USA on 17 SSB, and I decided to  call.  
 Of course I was not SPLIT, but that was corrected  quickly!    This would be 
the case with any new  radio.

Not much more to report for now.   There are  features on the radio that I 
have not tried, and perhaps never will.    

I did work VP6DX on 17 SSB, so now I have 2 SSB QSOs under my  belt!   My 
microphone is some sort of cheap Kenwood job that probably  came with a 2 meter 
rig or something.

I  have now listened to  the VP6DX group using SSB on 2 bands.   They sound 
very clean and  crisp -- if I sound as good as that I will be satisfied.  No 
need to buy  those leather thongs! 

On the reflector, I have seen comments about  the need for a pre-amp on 6 
meters.   I am not sure what these guys  are planning to do on 6 -- perhaps run 
EME?   However, in my case I  have no problem in copying the beacons that I 
always could copy on my other  radios.   So, I would say that this is a total non 
issue.  It  will be interesting to see how things are when the band opens.   
Out  of the last 20 or so new countries I have worked on 6, only one of them 
moved  the S meter on either my IC-706MKIIG or  TS-570SG.

73

Don  K8MFO





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