On 2/28/2014 10:08 AM, Jim Lowman wrote:
When I see options like the Panadapter, or bandscopes from other manufacturers, I get the metaphor of fishing in a stocked pond.
Many years ago [more than I want to admit], I had a WW2 surplus panadapter. Little round scope, one trace, and signals looked like a "hump" [similar to the IC-756 series bandscope]. It was a semi-interesting hi-tech thing ... for the day. I bought my P3 as a toy, just something to fool around with.
So, for those of you who have this option, could you describe how it has assisted you?
It's what I look at now. It has features I don't use much, or at all, and a list of how I use it will be redundant to those you'll get from a countable infinity of responses you'll get. One use which I think is unique to me was being able to discover that WWV on 2.5 and 20 MHz uses low level modulation and linear amplification while on 5, 10, and 15 MHz, they plate modulate a Class C final stage. :-))
In another message, someone mentioned that weak stations outside of the passband could be missed, which is a good point.
Actually, it's no point at all. The P3 uses the 8 MHz first IF directly from the mixer and before the roofing filters. The only filter in the path is the input bandpass filter which is way wider than anything the P3 can display. If you set the K3 to 14.100 MHz and the P3 SPAN to 200, you are looking at the range 14.000-14.200.
Right after I got mine, I realized that I couldn't see weaker signals against the waterfall background due to a very poor choice of Mom and Dad ... I have no color vision. A couple of weeks later, Alan added the option of a monochrome waterfall solving my problem. Even if you have normal color vision you might try the monochrome out, several visitors have commented that it works better for them too.
Note, I just mentioned it once on the list looking for ideas to make it work better. Alan [Elecraft] just did it but then you probably know that's how they work. :-)
73, Fred K6DGW - Northern California Contest Club - CU in the 2014 Cal QSO Party 4-5 Oct 2014 - www.cqp.org ______________________________________________________________ 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
