I happen to own the K3S that is #5 or Rob's list. I also got tired of waiting
on the K4 and having a burning desire for a new radio I have a month-old TS-890,
which is now my primary radio. The K3S is set up in a receive-only state,
sharing the RX antenna out of the '890.
A few mornings ago I was tuning 160 near sunrise and copied a fishing buoy 60 Hz
above one of the commonly used frequencies (forget which one). My friend, and
local ham, N7DD began calling CQ 60 Hz below the buoy. Larry runs an Icom 7851,
which is very clean and a BIG amplifier. He is at least S9+40 db. On the
TS-890, cranked down to 80 Hz BW, I could still copy the buoy which was S6 or
so. On the K3S I heard N7DD calling CQ.
Without QRM the rigs are comparable at hearing signals in the noise but the
Kenwood sounds better.
Wes N7WS
On 1/19/2021 12:38 PM, Louandzip via Elecraft wrote:
I own a radio that's currently #1 on Sherwood's list. My 20 year old K2 is
essentially equal at digging weak CW out of the noise (always dominated by band
noise and not the noise floor of the rig) in virtually all situations I've run
into. The K2 has no KSSB so I don't compare it on SSB. If I was up against a
lot of really strong close-by sigs, presumably the new rig would win, but I
haven't yet run into a situation with the two rigs side by side where big
nearby sigs have actually caused a discernible difference.
Comparing SSB with other rigs, the new rig can beat the others on readability
of weak sigs in noise, but I don't think it's due to the fundamental
performance numbers in these cases but rather the DSP algorithm which makes the
difference, and I don't believe this is quantified in the testing done by
Sherwood or ARRL, except perhaps in subjective comments in the text of a QST
review. .
On Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 12:13:20 PM MST, George Thornton
<[email protected]> wrote:
I have followed the Sherwood Receiver test data over the years and I know Elecraft has always been in or near the top spot.
I also would be reluctant to upgrade to a K4 if my K3 is the same or pretty
close to the same in the key performance characteristics.
I wonder whether we are nearing the theoretical limit of what can be gained in
receiver performance.
The difference among the top eight to ten on the Sherwood list is not likely to
be practically significant.
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