Hi Don, I agree 100%! The S-Meter isn't as big of a concern to me as the fact that the noise floor seems to be so much more prevalent on the K3 than the KX3. I do understand that the more sensitive receiver will dip deeper into the noise floor and you will hear more of it. If I always have to turn down the RF gain though, and the S-Meter shows something even when their is no antenna attached, I think it is worth it to calibrate things. It's not like me to read manual, but so far, I have a pretty good track record of reading everything Elecraft sends me from cover to cover :)
73, Travis K2NP On Mar 19, 2013, at 8:12 PM, Don Wilhelm <[email protected]> wrote: > Travis, > > The real measure of any receiver in the ability to hear weak signals is not > in the S-meter deflection. Within limits both the K3 and KX3 S-meters can be > calibrated to read most anything you want to see. > The measurement of actual sensitivity is in the MDS measurement. That > indicates how weak a signal can be heard at 3 dB above the receiver noise > floor. > When you get your XG3, I encourage you to follow the instructions in the XG3 > manual for determining the MDS of a receiver. With the XG3, that is a number > inferred by the response at -107 dBm rather than a measurement using a well > shielded signal generator and switching in attenuation, but the approximation > should be within 1 dB of the actual MDS if you do the procedure (and math) as > instructed. > > 73, > Don W3FPR ______________________________________________________________ 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
