The P3 is excellent for HF but its "point and click" facility is far too slow to catch fleeting openings on 6m.
To keep watch on the 6m beacons, CW and SSB requires a frequency span of at least 200kHz - and wherever a station may appear, you need to jump onto that frequency *immediately*. For a 6m DXer, that is the practical test case. A mouse can point-and-click accurately at the opposite side of the screen within 2-3 seconds, almost independent of the size of the jump. If a station is calling CQ and you're using a mouse, you can probably arrive in time to catch the callsign - so if it's a new one, you can be the first to answer. But the P3 requires a button-press before you can even begin to twiddle the small knob, and then it takes at least an order of magn... oh never mind, the station's gone. The P3 fails that practical test by a wide margin. Having suffered that scenario too many times, when I purchased a second K3 for use mostly at VHF I decided not to buy either a P3 or a KRX3. There are far better possibilities using conventional SDRs with computer displays that have the *true* point-and-click facility. After some experimentation the 2m station now uses an SDR at the transverter IF, 28MHz, which is where the front-end gain and SNR are the highest (the SNR at the K3 IF port is not as good, which is very noticeable with weak signals). The SDR-IQ, Funcube Dongle Pro+ and SDRplay all gave comparably good waterfall displays but the SDRplay has the major advantage that the frequency span can be expanded beyond the more usual limit of 192kHz. For example, European VHF/UHF contests require 250kHz for full coverage - and those extra kHz are important, because stations do spread out to the extreme edges of the range. Integration with logging software is obviously vital. At present I am using Eterlogic's VSPE port emulator to provide a additional USB links to the HDSDR program and to N1MM+. HDSDR offers the valuable option of the Winrad waterfall palette which is specifically optimized for finding weak signals, and it automatically recognises the K3's transverter offset and allows single-click QSY of either VFO A or VFO B. If HDSDR is linked to VFO B, the K3's VFO B knob can then be used to tune the SDR. All the other functions of the K3 remain unaffected, so the SDR is effectively behaving as a second receiver. A simple switch allows the audio output from HDSDR to be fed into the RH earphone, effectively replacing the KRX3 for SO2V operation. Meanwhile N1MM+ automatically keeps track of all events, and can provide voice and CW keying in the normal way. This setup is still in the experimental stage, not yet ready for a full cookbook description, but it is showing geat promise. None of this is new, but it was new to me (special thanks to GM4JJJ for pointing me in the right direction and making it click). Above all, it does seem to meet the *practical* requirements for VHF/UHF DXing and contesting. 73 from Ian GM3SEK >-----Original Message----- >From: Elecraft [mailto:elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of >knowk...@verizon.net >Sent: 27 July 2016 16:05 >To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net >Subject: [Elecraft] comparing P3, LP-Pan, SDRPlay, others? > > >Greetings, > >I have yet to be convinced I need a panadapter for HF but its use for weak >signal 6m use is what has my attention. That said, I have seen the P3 and an >LP-Pan demonstrated but nothing else. I realize I am probably trying to >compare apples to oranges but how do these stack up against each other? >Can anything besides the P3 be used to point and click for QSY? I think the >P3 lends itself to my rudimentary comfort level with computers but I do >have good tech support in my wife. That said, fire away.... > >Tnx, >Jim, W5QM > >______________________________________________________________ >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 >Message delivered to gm3...@ifwtech.co.uk ______________________________________________________________ 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 Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
