Ciao, from CY0X, Sable Island..... Well, let's see now, is the K3 sensitive enuff for serious weak sig work on six. Based on our first week here on Sable, doing mostly weak signal work, I could not be more pleased. We were fortunate to have been given one of the prototype preamps to use ahead of the radio on six, and I can tell you that it has been an excellent addition. We have been monitoring many of the EU TV offsets, world-wide beacons and of course listening for many of the signals from across the pond.
Consider this: we are running approx 800 watts into a 12dbd ant at 70' ASL, surrounded by salt water; we have zero man-made noise towards EU, AF and Asia, so we are hearing very well. Many of the stations we are working in EU do not have as much power or antenna; hence many of them hear us better than we hear them. Yet, we have logged nearly 2500 contacts thus far in 60 dxcc. My conclusion is that we are not suffering from a hearing loss. Since it is so easy to switch out the outboard preamp, we have frequently done this on some of the weak sigs just to see if we could still hear them. In many cases we could hear them Q5 with just the internal preamp. Ian, GM3SEK, et al, have pointed out that the stock radio NF is somewhere in the 8-10db range, which is not stellar as six meter radio specs go. Nonetheless, you'd be surprised at how many weak sigs we can still hear with only the internal preamp engaged. I also have the XV50, and will keep it, but that is because I tend to keep my radio gadgets a long time. FWIW: we love the K3 and how it performs on six. Hopefully, we have already worked a number of you. If you haven't yet made contact, please check our website at www.cy0x.com and then stop by 50108 and give us a call. 73, Dick K5AND/CY0X _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] 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
