First off, this is a LONG email, so be warned :) I picked up K3 #476 in Aptos the weekend before the contest, then hopped on a plane to do the ARRL DX SSB contest from KH6LC. I thought others might be interested in first impressions from a contester that had not used a K3 before last week. There is also one quality that became apparent with the K3 that I've never seen in another radio before and I wonder if others have noticed it...more on that in a bit.
I arrived in KH6 Wednesday evening, and had a nice dinner with Lloyd, KH6LC, in Hilo. On Thursday, it was my job to get the station all prepped for the contest. I put up a 2 element yagi for 80M, got the K3 put into the operating position, connected it up with the amp and computers, and started making QSOs on 20M and trying to get the audio and speech processor optimized. After a few emails with k3support, and on-air reports and tweaking, I had the audio pretty well optimized, and many ensuing QSOs commented on the quality of the audio. For what it's worth, I used a Heil Proset with HC-4 element, and had mic gain at about 25-30, Compression at 10-12, and used the TX EQ to drop the two lowest bands a few dB, and up'd the center band by a few dB. This seemed to be the best setting for punch, understandability, and comfort on the ears according to on-air reports. I also had a few local hams check off to the side of my signal and they said the signal was clean and narrow, so that's good. Things that immediately stand out with the K3: - Layout of controls is awesome. For a contester, all the things I need to get to are quickly and easily accessible. Hats off to the ergonomic engineering that Elecraft did! - The K3 receiver really is as good as everyone says it is. I didn't use the preamp in the contest, and found that I really like that mode (no preamp) Weak signals "floated" in front of me, and just waited for me to pull them out. I'll talk more about this in a bit. - I watched temperature of the PA in the K3 as well as the other FP temp and it stayed pretty solid, never got really that warm. - It's light! I packed the K3, my clothes and all my needs for a week in 1 carryon bag. - It handles very strong, nearby signals with ease. Big S9+ signals within a few KC's is no problem, it's like they're not even there. Unfortunately, about half way through the weekend the amplifier that I was using developed a problem and I decided to punt and move to the other operating position - but in the heat of the contest I didn't feel I could afford the time to move the K3 into position, so I only got 24 hours of the contest in with the K3. None the less, I did find that in this time, I was able to "mind meld" with the K3 and found a very interesting quality that I eluded to above, that I've not seen or heard before in other radios. I had AFX set to delay 5, and with the Heil proset for headphones, after a while I found that the spatial representation of signals started to become 3 dimensional. It was as if signals were spatially separated in an area around my head rather than just "in my ears". The soundstage (as it's referred to in audiophile circles) was big and weak signals seem to almost "float" out in space and take on an almost tangible quality to them. I know what some of you must be thinking right now, "Oh man, I want what this guy is smoking!" but really, it does become pronounced after using the radio for a while. I read about the increased spatial characteristic of AFX, but what I'm talking about only becomes apparent after a good number of hours in the chair, and I'm not convinced one would notice it if you sat down, operated for 2 hours, took a break, sat down, etc. but with 10-12 hours of constant operating, it started to become quite pronounced. First, I wonder if others have noticed this, and second, I wonder if this was something that Elecraft engineering thought of, or if it's just a by-product of design that is a nice bonus. Either way, I've never heard anything like this on other rigs (Orion, FT1000's, etc.). It's very cool and actually seems to enhance the ability to pull weak signals out. On the other hand, the Binaural mode seems like (at least in my setup) to have noise in one ear, and signals in the other. It's separated and pronounced, and I didn't really care for it, I much prefer Delay 5 in AFX mode. I had a bit of a hard time getting used to VFO A/B when operating split on 40M. It wasn't as intuitive to me as other VFO setups, but after a while I got used to it and it wasn't an issue. So I'm very pleased with the first outing with the K3. It delivered on what I was hoping. I just wish propagation would have been better, this was one of the worst contests I've ever done in terms of propagation, but I guess the good thing is that everyone is faced with the same playing field. My score was significantly below my goal numbers, but when conditions are poor, all bets are off, and I think a lot of casual contesters probably either threw in the towel early, or didn't get on at all, reducing the pileups and the number of potential QSOs significantly. I ended up with 4362 QSOs by 247 mults for a final score of 3.2M. Not too bad, but again, much lower than I had hoped. Since I did a single-op all-band effort, sleep was a commodity and I didn't get much, and I'm still catching up :) On the plus side, the KH6LC station is amazing and really stomps, and a big thanks go to Lloyd for allowing me the use of his killer station. I hope this is useful to some, I'd love to talk to others that have experienced the spatial characteristic of the AFX mode, or hear Elecraft's input on how that was done. 73, Jeff N6GQ, op @ KH6LC _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
