Don: I had the same reaction upon first using my new K3 last year. The K3 is significantly more sensitive than my previous rig (IC-756 non-Pro), and as my noise environment is fairly high (inner suburb with ~110 dBm background noise), at first it seemed as if the K3 is fairly noisy. Also, while the S meter of most rigs are calibrated fairly well at S9, their meters are not linear (in dB units) at lower S unit readings (the K3 meter is very linear at 6 dB per S unit)-- with the result that the K3 meter readings are higher by a few S units.
I find that I often use the attenuator and/or the RF gain to decrease the band noise in the K3 -- I rarely used these in my other rigs. Also, try playing with the AGC settings, particularly the THR and SLP settings, which can be customized to suit your operating conditions. Also, turning off the AGC and riding the RF gain can really help pull out very weak signals. Steve N9SZ Don Rasmussen wrote: "My new K3 #2308 shows two to three S-units high as compared to my other HF radios, \ and lots of hiss in the speaker audio at low AF levels." ______________________________________________________________ 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
