G3UCK now at least has ex-VR2BG to talk to: > Very interesting, Brett, and thank you for your comments and the > research you have done. I *was* beginning to feel a little isolated by > lack of comment from anyone hihi! Although I did receive one reply > offlist reporting experience similiar to mine.
The Brand-E community is rather USA-centric, in case you have not noticed ;^). You bring up something that falls in the something-is-other-than-fantastic category & that is not conducive to cheerleading or provides an opportunity to express economic patriotism, hence you were ignored. Hence your posts, my post & nothing else but somebody saying "Yeah, I noticed the same thing" to you directly. Is a bit of a shame, because it gets in the way of sorting out a product that has things that need sorting out. > I was not aware of the 1990 Torremolinos recommendation as such but a > recent thread here on the reflector > http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/elecraft/2011-January/143651.html > noted the ambiguity about 6m and Alan Bloom of Elecraft concluded that > it was generally accepted that it should be treated as in the -93dbm > category like 2m. However, you are correct to point out that it is a > Region 1 (ie EU) recommendation and I have not been able find out > whether or not there are similar or different recommendations for > Regions 2 and 3. > > Compared with my FT847 (another rig that straddles the -73/-93dbm > boundary) the S meter on the K144XV/K3 reads low on 2m and there have > been a number of postings on the reflector from at least two of the > IARU regions, if not all three, by people who feel that at present it > reads low compared with what they are used to on other rigs. This > suggests to me that other commercial rigs for 2m do use the -93dbm > standard - as the P3 now does. Unfortunately I do not have any test > gear that will produce a known 50 microvolts or 5 microvolts on 2m to > do some checking. I accept that this doesn't seem to accord with your > findings on your rig, Brett, if I properly understand them. As general > comment, though, the rig doesn't seem to show enough difference in db > between S1 and S9 on the bands you mention. It was the FT-847 that I was describing - one product from one manufacturer with Brand-Y's rather peculiar approach to R&D is obviously not the best way to judge overall state-of-play of the industry, but it is a start & I believe a more thorough look at how products are set up & how they actually perform will find not many following this Recommendation (do the likes of the really good, long established & respected transverter manufacturers really add 20 dB gain to the output of their products in order to comply?). S-meters are of course S-meters, we both I suspect are long enough in the tooth to understand their limitations, but a 20 dB delta is not insignificant & I really do wonder about this Recommendation that is so old, may not be followed & we cannot now see for ourselves why it is we were told things should be this way. It merits looking at further, especially if as I suspect (though my experience is only from IARU R3 & what they get up to in their conferences), there was zero involvement of anyone other than national societies in drafting it. To anyone with a relevant professional background, this point alone is a bit of a show-stopper. 73, ex-VR2BG/p. ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
