Hi, Barry, It's not the signals that determine whether you need a preamp, it's the noise level. A receiver should have enough gain to put its internal noise floor below the external, atmospheric noise floor, so that it doesn't become the limiting factor in hearing weak signals close to the noise. That's what makes a preamp necessary. Certainly, if your noise floor is lower than here in urban North America, there may be cases where a preamp does us no good, but is necessary for you. I think I once posted a case study here a while ago... but I would have to go searching for it. The numbers I used were definitely US-biased. Life for a ham here has become a really discouraging exercise in trying to copy signals below your neighbors' app-enabled pet massagers and internet-controlled wine coolers, all fed by those infernal switch-mode power supplies. My two neighbors' homes are really just enormous square wave-producing things. This is also why everybody you hear is running 1,000 watts or more. It's power inflation. The military spends millions on radar jamming equipment... when all they'd have to do is do whatever my neighbor Johnny is doing. He must have a phased array radar, arc-welding, barrage jamming plant next door. If you ever bring your rig over here on vacation, be sure to pack a 60 dB attenuator with it. R, Al W6LX
From: Barry Simpson <vk2bj...@gmail.com> To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2018 2:25 PM Subject: [Elecraft] K3 Preamp 2 I often see posts from US stations questioning the need for any preamp below 20m and just now challenging the need for preamp 2 on 10m. That may be all well and good in the land of the huge antennas and the thousands of big signals from the US and Europe but let me tell you that down here, when you are scratching around for weak signals on 10m and 12m, preamp 2 makes a world of difference. Barry Simpson VK2BJ. Sent from my iPad ______________________________________________________________ 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 alor...@sbcglobal.net ______________________________________________________________ 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