Hi Mike, great question and I look forward to other answers. The one about page 9 of the operating manual was a good reminder for me. My answer is more from experience - for digital modes in general, I've stayed under 50 watts and had good results (and hearing the K3 cooling fans stepping up an extra notch always reminds me to behave myself). A few of our brothers use too much power and splatter their signal across the spectrum. Good operating practice calls for using minimum power necessary anyway, and it's always fun to see a QSO where someone reports using 20 watts (i.e. for PSK). The whole point of digital is the ability to transmit long distance with low power and 100% readability. On occasion a QRP station works me and I take the hint - dial power down to 5 watts and we're doing just fine. My best story - working JT65, from New Hampshire with a New Zealand station - we were doing fine, kept dialing back the power, until we finally lost each other at 100 milliwatts. Almost perfect copy at 500 milliwatts, and by the way I had a poor vertical antenna. It reminded me as a kid having a toy CB walkie-talkie that operated at 100 mW... never worked NZ with that thing.
BTW - it would be great to have more of us out there experimenting with the digital modes; I am still fascinated with all of the digital options (I'm using fldigi software). The K3 operates great with fldigi. I also find the K3UK webpage a great meeting place (there is a dedicated subpage for digital modes). -- Bruce / KE1CY Hernando, FL ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
