Jerry and All,
The K3 does indeed rock! I had much the same results as you
working the Clipperton group. I ended up (assuming they are
now packing up to leave) with 17 band slots. I missed 160
ssb, 10 CW (much to my dismay), and 40 SSB. 40 SSB was a
real brick wall for some reason, but it may be due to the
tech problem I had which I described in an earlier post. I
got all 20 of the band slots with the VP6DX group (they
didn't do anything on 6 meters). All of this was done just
with the K3 barefoot (100 watts) and an R8 vertical. The
ability to work both groups on RTTY "sans" computer was the
really neat trick.
I also agree the Ducie Island group was easier to work, but
I think there are several good reasons for that (including
the fact they were using K3's!). I'm not trying to be
overly critical of the Clipperton group, but I think just
about all the ops on Ducie were outstanding. They were
really knocking off the QSO's at a rapid rate with great
efficiency. Often the Clipperton ops seemed to be
struggling a bit to nail down a contact--more so at least
than the Clipperton ops. I also suspect the antennas on
Ducie were better. I heard them better, and they seemed to
hear me better. I was using the same antenna (the R8) on
both. But in fairness to the Clipperton folks, they
apparently had their hands full due to weather. Antennas
blew over and were damaged by lightning storms which
frequent and drove them off the air (plus making copy
difficult), etc. I didn't hear much complaining about the
weather on Ducie. I also think the fact that they were
closer to both of us may have been to our detriment on 10
and 12 meters. I heard them working midwest and east coast
stations when I couldn't even hear them in Arizona.
The one big thing I have concluded from chasing both of
these groups is that I probably need to add the 2nd
receiver. I thought I might be able to "live" without it,
but that's the one feature where my Orion II beats my K3
right now. Trying to chase the split frequency for DX is so
much easier with a second receiver, instead of constantly
pushing the reverse button. The VP6 ops especially were
running some very big splits, and they were roaming over a
fairly wide range of listening frequencies. You really need
to zero in within reason to where they are actually
listening. So I guess I'll be stuffing another $1k or so
into the K3 some day soon.
Anyway, it's been fun! The K3 made it even more so.
Dave W7AQK
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerry T. Dowell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 9:22 AM
Subject: [Elecraft] K3 Mojo
I am happy to report that the K3 is not lacking in the
traditional mojo. My
first QSO with the K3 was TX5C, followed by working them
all bands 160M
through 15M CW and SSB, excepting 160M SSB and 40M SSB.
This was barefoot
with one antenna, a dipole at 15 ft. For 160, I had to
load just the center
conductor of the coax, disconnecting the shield. The mojo
approaches that of
the K2/100, with which I worked VP6DX CW and SSB 160M-15M
excepting 160 SSB.
It took much less time with the K2, but that may have been
due to different
operating procedures between the two DXpeditions.
My first RTTY QSO with the K3, by the way, was with VK9NS
on 17M. For that I
used MTTY with the AFSK A mode. It is interesting to note
that the K3 itself
seemed to do a better job decoding than MTTY. Perhaps the
difference would
disappear with optimum setup.
It's a keeper!
Jerry AI6L
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