I'm finally coming to terms with K3 3260, born July '09. It's at last fully integrated into the station, and the diversity receive capability just blows what's left of my mind. This thing is like a race car: it rolls off the trailer pretty damn fast, but once you start fine-tuning it it just gets better and better. To further belabor the race car analogy, my trusty old FT-1000D is like a NASCAR stocker, big and heavy but a bulletproof performer. The K3 is like an Indycar or a Formula I car, maybe somewhat more delicate and fussy, but able to perform at a considerably higher level once it's set up and the driver learns to get the most from it.
Now that I (mostly) know how to operate the K3, I suppose I'm qualified to start picking nits about how certain things work. The thing that bothers me the most is the Monitor function, especially for CW. For any serious DX or contest work I always use headphones, but I sometimes like to just grab the paddle and work somebody using the station speaker. I normally keep the Monitor level set at about 20-25, since that's what I find most comfortable when I'm using headphones. When I'm using the speaker, I can hardly hear the sidetone or the spot tone. If I go ahead and crank up the Monitor level to where I can hear it in the speakers, the next time I use headphones I'll forget to readjust the level and the sidetone will practically rip my head off. Unfortunately, the Monitor level is independent from the AF level so just turning down the volume, which I always do when using phones, doesn't keep me from getting blasted. What I would like to see would be a firmware change that allows the Monitor level to be adjusted to a percentage of the main receive level, or perhaps set to a specific offset value in dB, such that the relative levels between the main audio and the monitor signal always track as the AF control is varied. I take the audio from the K3 rear panel SPKRS jack to route into my station audio switching for either the headphones or the speaker, so I would rather see it done this way than by making a Monitor level change when the hardware detects that the phones have been plugged in. I've looked through the reflector archives and can't seem to find any posts that address my concern. That doesn't mean there aren't any; I just didn't see them. Does this suggestion "sound" like a useful firmware tweak to anyone else here? 73... Randy, W8FN ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
