With my poor antennas and equally poor propagation (with only a couple of exceptions, they were ESP) working the TX9 from here in the Southeast was NOT easy for me! Like some others, I also spent pretty much the entire period of their operation chasing them on about 5 hours of sleep per night. The result: 3 contacts - 2 cw (17 meters - one QRO, one QRP) and 1 ssb (10 meters). TX9 is DXCC # 344 for me so in my little world it had to be "bell to bell."
I have 4 stations set up (lots of equipment - lots of covenant restrictions and therefore rotton antennas!) each with linear amps. K2; Icom 756 Pro II; Yaesu 1000MP Mark V; and Collins S-line. All three qso's were made using the K2! With their signals ESP most of the time, the only rig that gave me any sort of readable copy was the K2 - yes, I could tell they were in there on the others but I could actually copy them on the K2 ! In order they were: K2, 75S-3, and the Pro II and MK V were about the same. I know that the 40 year old Collins 75S-3 being second may seem out of place to many but with the 200 hz Collins xtal filter (augmented with the Timewave DSP 5-9+) it is quite amazing even in today's world (see Sherwood's various musings on rcvrs). The Pro II had one advantage over the K2 and the others - the notch filter on it simply is the best! On ssb the notch filter eliminated the cw on top of them on 40 in the "manual" position - the others could not touch it! I've never been impressed with the dsp notch in my K2 even with lots of fiddling with the parameters. I have to rate it as only "fair" - 'course, I believe that the Pro II does the dsp notch at the IF and that makes an amazing difference! There are lots of things about each of the other rigs that I really like - but - if I had to keep just one it would have to be the K2. What an amazing little box! 73 es gud dx --don n4hh K2/100 #2028, etc, etc. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.778 / Virus Database: 525 - Release Date: 10/15/04 _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
