Disclaimer: I admit that I'm a crochety old-timer, 55 years on the air on this coming Friday, and have had many receivers/transcievers on the desk. I operate a lot of contests, mostly CW. I spent 45 years recording sound, and think I have a pretty good ear. I agree that the K3 has many fine features, including an outstanding ability to eliminate QRM from stations outside my passband, and I've come to love the diversity feature, particularly on 160.
Now, about the noise: >I have tried all the adjustments mentioned, but with no real improvement... Me, too. I've had #1823 for just over a year, and I still don't like the sound of the receiver. That's the reason the K3 sat in a box for months while my trusty FT-1000mkV sat on the operating desk (until the MkV went on strike in the middle of the SS CW :-( I have an antenna distribution system that grounds my antennas when they are not in use. I installed the new K3 on the desk last year, but when I turned off the antennas, the noise (hiss) from the (separate) speaker was hardly reduced, whereas with the MkV, it went almost completely silent (same speaker). Same thing with a headset. Hmmmm..... I don't pay much attention to the S-meter on the K3 - it doesn't seem to mean much to me, whereas I could use the S-meter on the MkV to judge relative signal strengths of stations I heard, and keep an eye on the local noises generated by the neighbours and the power company. I could put a piece of tape over the meter (a'la Click & Clack) and not miss it much. I have also been struggling with the AGC. I've looked at the suggested settings posted by other owners, and tried to understand them, but to almost no avail. Then I read "...the K3 "RF Gain" control ONLY controls the IF gain - it does not reduce the gain of the receiver front end... The preamp and attenuator DO change the front end gain." AHA! Maybe that's it! I'm used to leaving the RF gain wide open on the MkV, leaving the audio gain pretty much alone, and maybe switching between SLOW and FAST occasionally. I don't seem to have any trouble hearing the weak ones under the strong ones. Now I have to fiddle with the RF gain (a small knob hidden amongst the others) while running a pileup. Not enough hands (or enough brains). I think I'll try the new 'DSP Rev.C' board and see if it helps the audio. Hopefully, if I can then conquer the 'AGC settings' monster, I'll be more comfortable with the radio. I'd use the audio equalizer if there was a convenient way to turn it on/off (maybe via PF-1). BTW, I don't expect the K3 to sound like a 'studio recording' - I do know the difference. And I'd like more gain from the speaker amp. I have CONFIG: AF GAIN set to 'low', and the AF gain control set to about 10:00 o'clock for comfortable headset volume. When I pull the headset out, I have to increase the gain to 3:00 o'clock or greater. If I set CONFIG to 'high', there's way too much gain for the headset. My speakers are reasonably efficient - Auritone 5Cs, but I have tried many others. Tnx for letting me vent. Am I getting too old? Should I take up knitting? I'd be interested in hearing from other CW contesters. VE7XF ______________________________________________________________ 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
