Opinions are like noses. Everyone has one. So here is mine. I have been
licensed since 1965, and have been a contester, both phone and cw, almost from
the begining. My first contest was the 1966 Novice Roundup.
Matt has some good points here. However, you may not wish to baptise a new
rig or contest logging program in a major contest. Sweepstakes is probably
one of the biggest of the year. Perhaps a state qso party, sprint or the North
America QSO Party might be a good place to start. You might also wish to try
starting out at the high end of the appropriate band, and work your way down as
you become more comfortable.
Band conditions for this just completed sweepstakes were some of the
strangest that I have ever seen. Especially on 80 and 40 meters. Contacts
between 50 and 200 miles were often difficult because of long skip. I am
surprised that more people didn't try 160 meters. It is a legal band. Just my
zwei pfennings worth.
73,
Steve Brandt N7VS ex: WN6QYP and WB6VVS
Portland, Oregon
This may or may not answer the question, and is certainly only one ham's
opinion.
I operated both Sweepstakes - CW and Phone. Did this on purpose, to
compare the K3's operation in both regimes. Contests like this can be
intense, and Q's are difficult in the best of conditions because of
band crowding. BCI on 40m doesn't help much either.
Picking a contest to get one's feet wet with a new rig isn't a
half-bad way to go. You are faced with all the normal problems,
greatly intensified and magnified in a way that's hard to describe -
but it's sort of like a time-compression effect. It's the best way to
get yourself acclimated to a new transceiver and make the most of its
best features, because you have to make adjustments quickly and have
it come out right the first time.
I found the K3 easy to use in both CW and Phone contests. After a few
miscues, I was quickly dialing in the DSP filter, notches (needed a
lot in CW), etc. The AFX set to Delay 3 or 4 helped a lot, both on CW
and SSB. Now ease of use is one thing, but what did I accomplish?
CW: Operated 2.5 hours - 48 Q's.
SSB: Operated 4 hours - 109 Q's.
Of the two, I enjoyed the CW contest more. My CW skills need
sharpening, that's for sure. But I can tell you that the K3 makes it
easy to bring them up to par.
I have the plain-Jane K3/10 with only the 2.7 KHz roofing filter. The
antenna is a 195 foot long wire, end-fed with an MFJ tuner. It's only
up about 30 feet. No amplifier except what's in the exciter.
Yeah - we're near the bottom of the sunspot cycle, but so what? If 12
Watts on a Wet Noodle antenna works, the bottom is not as bad as I
remember from 1976 or so. I can say now with certainty that he K3
makes even the bottom of the cycle a joy to operate in - and in any
mode you care to choose.
73,
matt - WA6EGJ
K3 #24
On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 15:44:11 -0500, you wrote:
>I understand that Elecraft transceivers to date have really been a CW ops
>dream, which leads me to the following question re the K3: Will phone (SSB)
>operators find this rig as wonderful with regard to voice as CW operators do
>with CW?
>
>Thanks
_______________________________________________
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
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm
Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
