I operated SOSB20 in CQ WPX this past weekend and gave the K3 a pretty good workout. I made 1300+ contacts but that pales in comparison to the zillions of times I repetitively hit the F1 key. My wife and I have been building our own home the past few years and we still don't have the air conditioning functional, so the ambient temperature in the shack was right at 80 deg F much of the day. I set the K3 to continuously monitor PA temp, and even with the relatively large duty cycle I was giving the rig I never saw it go above 47 deg C.
The other very impressive thing was the narrow filter. I used a 250 Hz 8-pole filter with the DSP set to 250 Hz, and it was like a knife edge. I could operate within a couple hundred Hz of most S9+20 stations and never hear them --- unmodified Yaesu rigs being the exception (there are still some HORRIBLE sounding clicks out there). Whether those stations heard me was probably a function of whether they were using a K3 or not ;) The downside was that I had to ride the RIT most of the time ... I had a LOT of people call me pretty far off frequency and the only way I could tell they were there was by the rhythm of their key clicks unless I swept back and forth with the RIT. Which brings up a side observation ... there is so much disparity now between the performance of various rigs that it seems possible to generate some misconceptions regarding operating skill and courtesy. I wonder how many times other stations thought I was deaf or couldn't copy their CW merely because they couldn't zero beat my signal within 150 Hz or so? And I wonder how many people thought I was a LID for calling CQ too close to them on what was for me a clear frequency because they didn't have as tight a filtering as I did? To minimize the latter, I usually opened up the bandpass a bit when looking for a clear frequency, but the folks with 500 Hz filters and no roofing filters would have still had trouble. I did have the AF knob for the main receiver crack on me 20 minutes before the contest started, though, and the knob just spun on the shaft. Luckily one of the set screws still had enough grip to do the job after snugging it up a bit and it held up through the contest. I've had my K3 since January and had been very careful tightening the screws initially. 73, Dave AB7E ------Original Mail------ From: "Julius Fazekas n2wn" <phriend...@yahoo.com> To: <elecraft@mailman.qth.net> Sent: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 10:23:01 -0700 PDT Subject: [Elecraft] CQ Contest Lotsa K2 and K3 in WPX CW... One comment gave me a good chuckle, considering it's been a topic here in the past: "By the way, I love my K3, even though the AF knob is a piece of crap!" (I've not had any problems with my knobs, only my noggin') Many brand new K3 users, some of the "big guns" in contesting are now sporting the rigs. This Fall could be VERY interesting on the contesting front. Watch for a K2 or K3 in the WVQP, we'll be signing N8Q mobile from a few of the tougher counties. ...and then there's Field Day ;o) 72, 73 and GL! Julius ----- Julius Fazekas N2WN Tennessee Contest Group http://www.k4ro.net/tcg/index.html Tennessee QSO Party http://www.tnqp.org/ Elecraft K2/100 #4455 Elecraft K3/100 #366 Elecraft K3 #1875 -- View this message in context: http://n2.nabble.com/CQ-Contest-tp3013326p3013326.html Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ______________________________________________________________ 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 ______________________________________________________________ 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
