I too am watching the "Mush" discussion and possible fixes, if any, with great interest.
I think there is a lot of merit to Eric's assertion of skimmer spots causing everybody to call on the same exact zero beat frequency on CW. This just adds to the problem. So recently I have been toying with setting the XIT to move my TX at least 75 Hz high when using Skimmer. I cant say if it helps or not, but it gives me a warm feeling (in my pants?) when I bust piles on first call with my little station. I run the AGC on my rig rather loose and open, with lots of "dynamic range". This causes weak signals to stay weak, but does little to manage the weak vs loud dilemma. Its impossible to manually manage this, especially in a busy contest, so to save my hearing, and since I have a bunch of this kind of stuff laying around, I have a Alesys NanoComp (a small dual channel analog compressor/limiter) in the line output that feeds my headset amp/SO2R mixer (in the process of being replaced by a microHAM u2R box). I can adjust attack, decay, hold, knee and ratio independently of, and in addition to, the internal K3 AGC system with knobs I can reach immediately. With it, I can make all the signals sound the same level or reduce the compression and open up the dynamic range as conditions change. While not a perfect solution, It works for me, YMMV. It sure would be nice not to have to have this stuff in the audio path, though. The cheap little analog compressor can get breathy and thumpy at times. Using DSP within the rig, you could adjust for that with some look ahead processing. As a previous owner of a 15 year old Kenwood TS850S loaded with expensive InRad quartz, I can unequivocally state that while I miss the audio punch the '850's transmitter provided, I dont miss the crunchy receiver. For its age, the '850 was phenomenal, but in heavy QRM, especially on SSB, it pales in comparison to the K3's unflappable receiver that never gets crackly, never gets crunchy and never does the AGC Dance of Death like I experienced on a Icom 7700 during this past SS SSB, which really surprised me for what that rig costs (and weighs!). So while we're all bitching at Eric and Wayne, from this operator's vantagepoint, it would also be nice to have an AGC/leveler in the mic circuit in addition to, and ahead of, the DSP "RF" Limiter. One of the other criticisms I hear from phone ops of the rig is its lack of "drive" which to my ear is simply very nice, wide dynamic range in the mic circuit. This is commendable for audio quality, but not so much for modulation density. I can fix this with yet another outboard box (in this case, a Radio Design Labs GCA-2 AGC amplifier), that increases modulation density before the built in "clipper" but it would be nice if it was also "built in" to remove yet another outboard box. BTW, big Kudos again to Lyle for making the TX GATE absolutely perfect! Its totally smooth and totally transparent in masking extraneous noise in my noisy shack environment. So see, its not all negatives :) Lu - W4LT # 3192 ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
