[Elecraft] My K3's Very Quiet

I am listening on 17 meters SSB right now and Europe is coming through mostly S-7 to S-9 on the TH-11. I can tune to an open spot in the band or just above the top edge of the band and my S-meter has one bar. This is with the pre-amp off. The band width is 2.1 khz. Even at 2.7 khz I stay at

Re: [Elecraft] My K3's Very Quiet

Regarding the preamp: MDS measurements show a better (S+N)/N with the preamp on, approx 4 db improvement in MDS on my K3 on 40m. A similar improvement is obtained by setting the ATU to BYPASS. The macro to toggle Preamp+Bypass is SWH19;SWT24; for anyone who wants to try it. It may be useful for

Re: [Elecraft] My K3's Very Quiet

Hmm, interesting, 4 dB MDS improvement and the gain of the preamp is 15-20 dB i think. Spontaneously this is a lousy preamp or I had too much too drink during Saturday dinner. Correction to W0SD: The FT-1000D DO have a preamp, about20 dB gain. Check the schematic and you will see. When you turn

Re: [Elecraft] My K3's Very Quiet

I believe the test results but the reality to me is in the real world it does not make any difference on HF below 10 meters. I don't use the ATU, all resonate antenna's here. If using the amplifier no ATU into the amplifier so that is not an issue here. The 4 db mentioned with the pre-amp I

Re: [Elecraft] My K3's Very Quiet

Ed, No offence but what you say below puts everything on the tilt since you say you have been using a FT-1000D, ifn´t you had it in IPO all the time you have been using the preamp. There is no two ways about it. I do agree that the reel world performance compared to lab performance is two

Re: [Elecraft] My K3's Very Quiet

Thanks for the correction. I was happy with the FT-1000D other than on 10M I often had the AF cranked wide open. It was worse with head phones than with the speaker. I could of used more gain there. Other than that I was satisfied with the gain. For me the K3 has been a huge step forward

Re: [Elecraft] My K3's Very Quiet

Ed, Now I do agree on ALL counts, well almost. Sounds fishy you had to have AF gain wide open to be able to RX on 10m. Well since this is the K3 list we better concentrate on the K3, after all K3 is more state of the art then the stone age FT-1000D. / Jim SM2EKM -- W0SD