I had a great time with my K3 during the ARRL DX contest. I do S&P and I was trolling around with my filter width at 50Hz. Absolutely outstanding. The auto spot is equally outstanding.
At 50Hz width it was quite clear that many stations call off frequency. Using RIT, I could see that it was typical for them to be 70Hz or more away from the DX station but I could not hear them in my 50Hz passband. The real problem was when one of them was S9 or greater. They completely swamped weaker DX stations. Sound within the passband just blanked out. No band noise and no DX station. And there was no recovery between dits and dahs. It was actually easier to copy the DX station when people were calling directly on top of him. You could at least hear him between the dits. (Obviously if I was calling CQ instead of S&P I would have a wider passband and I would have just worked the stronger off frequency station). For my style of operating this was a disappointment. I tried AGC-F and AGC-S but I forgot to try AGC off. I also varied the AGC THR and AGC SLP. I tried NR off and on. (I was not using NB). I tried PRE and ATT off and on. I tried riding the RF gain. I tried shifting the passband but shift doesn't work well when the width is only 50Hz. Nothing helped. I also tried opening up the passband. That didn't help either but I don't remember the results. This was not a one time thing. It happened at least 20 different times on different bands. I guess this is perfectly normal. I was just wondering what operational trick is available to compensate. 73, Mike K2MK ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
