Friends, Today I received a spiral bound copy of Fred Cady's (KE7X) "The Elecraft K3 Design, Configuration and Operation". This is a 280 A4 page book describing much of what anyone might like to know about the K3, P3 and their accessories. Written by a retired Montana State University professor of EE in a thorough manner using many diagrams, photos, block diagrams and schematics to illustrate his points it should prove a useful aid to many of us. To me it is an easier read than the K3 manual but then Fred had the manual before starting his book. There are exercises and question in the book to help in learning, the unmistakable signs of a good text book writer. You do not need to be macho about this, many of us have some learning to do as regards our K3, I am a MSEE and retired EE lecturer and have much to learn about my two K3s. Indeed, Fred started writing this book in an effort to teach himself how to use our beautiful little radio.
I have long been bothered in not having the more valuable operating tips that appear on this forum easily accessible and while Fred's book does not answer my problem, it sure seems helpful in this regard. The book is thorough, even covering the configuration of the K3 when initially purchased and would be useful for anyone prior to ordering their K3! You would then have it to configure your K3 and when the K3 arrived there would be a great set of tutorials on how to best make use of the radio. The index is usually a difficulty for most writers but KE7X has done well for us in this regard. The book is independent in outlook and critical of the K3 in some regards, the AGC and its handling of multiple signals in the pass band being an example. This problem has recently been addressed on the forum but it is interesting to see a professor critically questioning. I do not find this issue covered adequately in the K3 manual though this is probably too much to expect. Fred does not want anyone to order his book just yet as he is doing a final edit, my copy was ordered before this warning appeared on his web site. You might want to check the following website out if you are interested, http://www.ke7x.com/home/guide-to-the-k3 . I wanted the spiral bound version as it is uses double sided quality printing and is always available for a quick lookup. The cost is $35 and delivered to EI land it cost me €31.50. If you want to print your own copy then a PDF version is available for $15 and obviously there is no shipping. I do not know Professor Cady (Fred KE7X to all hams) and am not sure if he is in my log. The book seems useful and I wanted to let all of you to know my first impressions. This is going to provide some fun in the next few days. One final point, you do not need to be an engineer to get a great deal of enjoyment and capability from a K3. Use default values and you have a powerful tool. But like a fine instrument you can learn to better understand the radio and how to make full use of the K3. This is a thinking man's radio and Fred's text looks like it will help in learning to squeeze everything out of the K3. After all was it Wayne the other day who admitted that one of his employees helped him out of a problem using the very firmware he designed. 73 Doug EI2CN ______________________________________________________________ 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