Just put sn:2950 together this weekend and would agree 100% with your comments Gary. Also I would add that a picture showing the sub assembly in expanded (blow-out)form would be nice. I am pretty sharp most of the time but I sat looking at both shells wondering what the hell I was supposed to do with them because I only ever saw one in the pictures.
Having assembled a KX1 with options in the past I was worried that I would get the K3 3/4 assembled just to have to tear 1/2 of it back down to install something that could have been done earlier. Kudos to Elecraft for option breakouts in the manual preventing this from happening. More clarity on the J92 setup on the sub assembly would be nice. I hooked the aux RF port up and taped the tmp connector as instructed. Then it was never referenced again. Then you get to the sub rec assembly and it has j92 connecting to J63 on the KAT3. Left me wondering what the hell to do. In the end both got disconnected and taped up as I am not setup with two antennas at the moment and will just use the main for input for the time being. A Matrix up-front in the K3 assembly instructions showing the 3 options might not be a bad thing. What a bad ass little radio. Coming from an Orion II this is a real treat. Off to drink more Kool-Aid as they say. Cheers Doug K0ZU -----Original Message----- From: elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net [mailto:elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Gary Hinson Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 4:54 AM To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net Subject: [Elecraft] K3 #2887 - first impressions Hi all. K3 #2887 lives! Config: K3/100, ATU, subRX, 250Hz + 400Hz filters (main and subRX), KXV3, DVR. The kit build was relatively painless, certainly easier than the K2. Package open to 1st QSO took me 1 fairly intense but enjoyable day (Wednesday just gone). While they are still fresh in my mind, these were the most significant problems I experienced with the build: 1. If I had realized I would need them, I would have bought the antistatic wrist-strap and desk pad between ordering the kit and it arriving in the post, instead of having to go shopping after opening the box! Perhaps a little reminder about which tools customers will need could be included in the "Thanks for ordering your K3" email? [Maybe it was and I missed it in the excitement!]. Alternatively, could these be another option to buy from Elecraft? 2. It wasn't immediately obvious that most boards/options come with their own hardware in little envelopes, and several bits took a little while to find (e.g. the bits for the standoffs near the display, fig 37 in the kit assembly manual). I eventually got the hang of it but having a bunch of spare bits left over and constantly changing from bag to bag got me a bit confused at times. 3. It's not entirely clear what the display light blocker strips are meant to achieve, hence exactly where they should be fitted - should they stick to the main board, the edge of the display panel, or the strip of flexy foil sticking out of the LCD panel? The manual, even with a photo, didn't help. The finished K3 looks fine now so I guess I made the right choices by luck. 4. My LCD panel had some smudge marks. I very carefully and gently cleaned it as best I could with a cleaning cloth used for spectacles, and the few marks that remained are invisible now under the Perspex face ... But I wonder if perhaps it ought to have been shipped with a pull-off plastic film protector? 5. Fitting the chassis stiffener towards the end is tricky because the topmost screws are horizontally aligned with other boards or the rear panel edge. Maybe I should have found a slimmer Phillips #1 screwdriver? Maybe some other method of fixing it would help. 5. The step-by-step instructions kind of lost the plot towards the end in respect of fitting the 100W PA and subRX. Up til then, the "install option X now or move ahead to page Y" thing worked just fine. [I was getting tired by then: it was probably me losing the plot not the instructions!]. 6. The subRX is a tight squeeze, making it awkward to ensure the connectors are fully aligned and cables are out of the way. No easy solution there. 7. Every option, I think, came with an installation manual plus its own page/s of errata. It's annoying to have to go through and fix the manuals before starting. The odd correction/clarification I could understand but why so many? Could the base manuals be updated and printed more often?? 8. The Anderson Powerpole connectors refuse to snap fully home into the body of the connector, so the power lead sometimes slips out. I probably over-did the solder. I think I'm going to have to cut them off and buy some more, if I can even find them in ZL ... The manual was definitely up to expectations and extremely helpful, especially all those annotated photos that must have taken someone many hours to produce. BTW my "full inventory" consisted of checking that the requisite main parts and options were present - I didn't bother trying to count all of those little screws and washers (lesson learnt from the K2! Kudos to the little army of Elecrafty packers and checkers - fantastic!). There's a few minor niggles, queries or suggestions for the actual rig so far, some no doubt due to my obvious inexperience with it after just a few days behind the wheel: 1. At first the SubRX worked on every band *except* 40m ... until I re-checked it this evening and mysteriously it is now working fine on all bands. Don't know what happened there. It didn't seem to be anything as obvious as ATT on, wrong antenna selected, crazy filtering etc. There was audio hiss but no signals, not even very weak sigs as far as I could tell. I re-did the subRX synth calibration business this afternoon so maybe that fixed it (after a power cycle too)? 2. At first the S-meter was randomly flickering up to mid to full-scale, a bit like if there is static on the coax. This anomaly disappeared within an hour or two of running the rig and has not reappeared since. Maybe it *was* static?! 3. On semi-QSK, I've noticed occasional glitches with CW keying when I release the PTT foot-switch. The sidetone seems to indicate shortened characters sometimes when I release the switch while still sending, but I don't yet know if it affects the RF going out (it could just be a temporary mute of the sidetone). Although it's nice to be able to define the built-in CW memories from the PC using the K3 Utility program, I'm currently using my trusty old MM3 Morse Machine for keying, mostly because it has an external memory trigger unit on a flying lead sitting on the desk near my non-paddle hand (which would be a handy option for the K3 too!). The MM3 always sends complete characters so I know *that's* not the cause of this problem. 4. Is there a simple way to step through the memories, manually i.e. not using the scan and without doing the whole M>V + select-next-memory + M>V thing? I'd like to be able to select the memory bank, then tune up and down through the bank one memory at a time, perhaps using the clarifier knob (not the VFO as it's useful to be able to tune away from a memory), to listen to the memorized channels as I step through them. 5. The memory label function is handy but has too few characters for the callsigns for many of the 10m beacons I watch. How about making it scroll to the left, just like the power-up banner function, if I input more than 5 characters? 6. I miss the dedicated "Quick Memory" function from my TS850 already. I'd really like to program PF1 and PF2 or two other buttons for this function i.e. press one button to store the current freq etc. in a dedicated Quick Memo Last-In-First-Out bank, press another button to recall the info to the VFO (optionally using the clarifier knob to select previously-stored values). [This is an easy way to store and later recall interesting but temporary frequencies when tuning around the bands, without all the button-pressing needed to store them in a main memory]. 7. On the TS850, I've got used to using LSB for CW reception but the K3 uses USB. Short of changing my ways, I know I can hold the ALT-mode button to change to CW REV, and this setting is remembered on each band, but I'd prefer to be able to select LSB as my default, particularly as the K3 now automatically reverts to USB for CW when I click an interesting spot in Logger32. 8. The auto-spot function works OK but tends to search a bit widely, and is not consistent on the stop frequency, sometimes tuning some way off (even on seemingly reasonable strength 20+WPM sigs). It would be handy to have an instant "undo-auto-spot" function a bit like the "undo-RIT-cancel" thing to reset the VFO to the pre-auto-spot frequency if it fails to spot accurately. 9. The maximum tuning rate on CW is not fast enough for my liking e.g. scooting between the CW end and beacon sub-band on 10m. I know I can use the memories to go directly to a stored channel but it suits me to QSY quickly through the band on the VFO. I'm confused by the FINE and RATE controls. I'm not keen to change modes to change QSY rates. I'd prefer just to be able to set the clarifier-QSY function to step in, say, 5 or 10kHz or 12.5kHz steps, ideally with the first step being to the nearest "round value" (e.g. if I'm on 28003, the first step would be 3kHz to 28005 then 5kHz to 28010 etc.). [This is another idea borrowed from the TS850. I know I know, I'll get over it! I've had 15 years of it!]. Alternatively, how about an optional VFO accelerator go-faster function to speed up the QSY rate if I 'spin' the main knob? 10. I discovered by trial-and-error that sending from the internal CW memories can be cancelled by clicking the REC button in the middle. Not entirely obvious (why not screen-print CNCL or CANCEL under or around the REC button?). 11. I haven't figured out what the type I and II filtering is all about yet, nor how to manually tune the notch filter, but I'm confident it's all in the manual somewhere ... 12. There's a noticeable delay between putting in the headphones and muting the speakers. Those minor issues aside, the stereocode CW and NR functions are good, the subRX is extremely helpful (I've already bagged S04R on 2 more bands much more easily than otherwise thanks to being able to listen in the pileup and to the S0 at the same time) and the no-ring filtering down to a few Hz is great. Overall the K3 RX sounds fantastic and I'm definitely looking forward to the next big contest! 73 Gary ZL2iFB www.g4ifb.com ______________________________________________________________ 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 ______________________________________________________________ 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
