Ed Rodriguez wrote:
Hi Gang, any news on what elecraft will do to better the K3 on 6
meters to better its performance? I know it rocks on HF according to
specs. , but my main reason to purchase a K3 would be for vhf/uhf
work.. and casual hf work on 28.885 with the extra reciver to
coordinate 6 meter contacts. and I guess lots of 6 meter operators,
may concur.
Hi Ed,
You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard anybody who actually HAS
a K3 and who has actually USED it on 6M complain about ANYTHING. Since 99% of
the K3's magic happens at the IF frequencies, and this circuitry is the same
for all covered bands, the only thing that could possibly be different about
6M is the receiver's sensitivity / noise floor. 6M is a noisy band compared to
other VHF/UHF bands, and you would have to live smack in the middle of nowhere
to have so little manmade noise on this band (not to mention solar noise) that
you could actually hear your radio's front-end noise floor. In my location, it
isn't even close. If I turn the gain up on my receiver far enough to hear the
receiver's noise with the antenna disconnected, and then connect the antenna,
I practically blow out my eardrums. And in any event, if you were so lucky as
to be in such a noiseless QTH, you would simply add a really good low-noise,
minimal-gain external preamp into the receive antenna path, as described by
Wayne. And then you could quickly switch back and forth between these two
configurations as necessary.
The only thing that might be perceived as "better" would be to "build in" the
dedicated 6M preamp. But I know a lot of VHF/UHF guys would rather pick or
build their own preamp to suit their own unique receive circumstances anyway.
I'm going to be very interested in reports of new owners' experiences on 6M if
there is any strong sporadic-E during the January contest -- and if not, then
next June/July, which is a more realistic worst-case test of close-in dynamic
range anyway. And as far as weak-signal scatter and EME modes are concerned,
we could get reports of that at any time.
Bill / W5WVO
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