Gene (and all),
Yes, the AGC settings do help a lot. The K3/K3S has enough gain that
often the AGC is activated on the atmospheric noise in the band.
However, I think your chosen AGC settings are a bit extreme for general
use, but if your ears tell you it is good for you, then keep those
settings and the rest of this post is for any others interested.
I would encourage first turning the preamp off to minimize the band
noise - of course the need for a preamp or not will be band dependent.
I see little use for the preamp on 160, 80, 60, 40 and 30 meters, and
with the K3, the preamp on 20 meters is "iffy". You may want to use the
attenuator on 160 and 80 meters, and maybe even 60 meters. Use your
ears, and the band noise will vary from location to location. Since
those settings are per band, once you determine the proper preamp and
attenuator settings for each band, they will be set the same way when
returning to that band.
So the preamp and attenuator settings are the first order of business.
After that, attack the AGC Threshold and Slope using the information at
my website www.w3fpr.com "noisy K3" article as a guide.
Finally, use the RX EQ settings to roll off the higher frequencies -
again, trust your ears - what is helpful for one may not work for anyone
else. The K3/K3S has a lot of things that can be customized to the
individual user. It is usable 'right out of the box', but can (and
should be) customized for your individual preferences.
I agree completely with several other comments that the best speakers
and headphones are those which give a flat response. Flat response
"Hi-Fi" speakers and headphones work quite well. Use the controls in
the K3/K3S (mainly RX EQ) to tailor the sound. If you use speakers that
have peaks and adjust the RX EQ to those peaky speakers, when you use
headphones, the RX EQ will be wrong for them. By using flat response
speakers and headphones, you should enjoy the same response from the
speakers and the headphones.
73,
Don W3FPR
On 3/22/2016 6:32 PM, Gene Gabry wrote:
This has been an interesting thread to which I have experimented a bit more
and found the AGC setting recommendations from a couple of posters to be
very valuable, and Eric's suggestions on BW settings to be a nice compliment
to play with. Although, my ears still like a little HF, I like the sound of
a BW from 100hz to 2.7khz for SSB and usually the 500hz filter set to 300hz
with DSP. I now have AGC THR set to max and AGC SLP set to 0. I also set RX
EQ to flat and use hi/lo cut when needed. Really cuts down on the high
frequency hash I get from this qth. I leave the AGC settings the same for
SSB and CW and play with BW and cut between the two modes, depending on
conditions.
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