Some reported hiccups with the radios should be put into perspective:
1. We ran 8 radios x 24 hours x 16+ days of operating: over 3,000 hours
on the air in total... plus additional hours for some units on board ship.
2. Some glitches were unique a specific radio, or at most two radios.
As an example, late in the operation one radio seemed to show a T/R
relay problem where the receiver signals were down temporarily (or
longer) after a transmission. Another radio didn't want to power off --
it would immediately come back to life after shutdown.
The "high noise level" was another singleton issue. One radio, only
on 30m, and only while in FSK mode, and only when operating split, would
have its receiver go into oscillation at the end of a FSK transmission.
If any one of those three conditions did not exist, the radio worked
fine. Obviously we moved that radio away from the position with the 30m
4-square antenna control. We didn't see that particular quirk on any
other radio.
3. We were operating in a demanding field environment: hot temperatures
in the tents during the day, salty and dusty breezes almost non-stop,
and perhaps some voltage burbles when the generators ran out of fuel
unexpectedly.
On the later point, we did have sealed batteries floated across the
supply lines, which allowed us to continue operating (without the 1.5 kW
amplifiers) when generator re-fueling or oil changes were made. Those
certainly helped smooth out any power supply variations.
4. Some items were equipment interaction issues. For example, our CW
keying (external to the K3) sometimes hung. We learned this was due to
RFI entering the laptop USB port via the external mouse cable, and
irritating the USB device driver for the microKeyer and/or the microKeyer.
Almost all of the operators ran the K3 with AGC off (all modes).
-- Eric
on 08 Mar 10 Mon 09:50 Mario Lorenz said the following:
Hi,
besides the "official" report as quoted on the web,
on the BCC mailing list, reports from members of the VP6DX
expedition were slightly less stellar.
While confirming superior receiver sensitivity, problems reported
were with pileup CW reception & AGC, in T/R switching,
and internal noise of S9+20 that went away after powercycling
the K3 ???
Since I've just ordered my K3, I'd like to hear whether this has
been confirmed, and hopefully fixed...
Mario
_______________________________________________
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
