I had some fun today. Hooked the K2 and the Drake 2B up to the same antenna and fed the headphone output of each into a mixer. I could then tune them both to the same signal and switch back and forth quickly to hear them in the same headphones. Interesting results. Good: The K2's selectivity is far better than the old Drake rig. With the K2 at 1 KHz bandwidth and the audio filter off, the bandwidth was about the same as the Drake set to .5 KHz plus the 2BQ nearly maxed. In other words, the Drake at it's narrowest is about as wide as my K2 at it's widest. Narrowing the K2 to 600 Hz plus the audio filter widened the performance gap that much more. Good: The K2's AGC is much smoother and more effective than the Drake's The 2B gives a little *pop* on the leading edge of many strong signals and the AGC is aggessive enough that effective S/N ratio is rather low. The rig actually sounds better if I ride the RF gain and turn it down to where the AGC doesn't have much left to do. The K2's AGC just worked smoother and better. S/N ratio remained high and leading edges were clean and clear. Good: The K2's frequency stability was better than the 2B (Duh!). I noticed the 2B was drifting a bit even though it was good & warm. I'd tune the two rigs so the received signal was the same pitch in each and 5 minutes later there'd be a noticeable difference (maybe 10 hz) as the 2B drifted away. Bad: The tone of the 2B is noticeably smoother and purer than the K2. The K2, while it has a good S/N ratio, has a bit of a hollow tone and a bit of a raspy or bearly edgey CW tone. The 2B is very pure sine wave. Very mellow, very nice to listen to. - Keith KD1E - - K2 5411 - - Drake 2B "as old as I am" - _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
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