A couple days ago I complained about the K3's performance in a CW pileup, with AGC mushing signals together, and the AF limiter restricting overall dynamic range with AGC turned off.
Last night in the CW Sprint I took a different approach and it worked wonderfully: LINE OUT from two K3's went to LINE IN of the logging computer's on-board stereo sound "card." Sound card line and mixer playback levels were set to maximum. Sensitive headphones were connected to the sound card output through a left/right/both switch. On the K3: config lin out = phones AGC off RF gain/attenuator as low as possible AF gain turned way down (between first two dots). This setup really worked great! With K3 audio gain turned down so low, the only signal to hit the AF limiter was K6NA on 80, and a quick micro-adjustment of the AF gain knob got him under control. I was surprised at how quiet the el cheapo sound card was with its gain turned all the way up. With the K3 audio gain turned all the way down, there was just a trace of occasional digital whine from the sound card, way in the background. With K3 af gain back between the first two dots, no sound card noises could be heard. The pileups were much more manageable this way. I operate so1r in the Sprint, so when I show up on a new band, I am "fresh meat," and the pileups are frequently loud and deep. Stations in the pileup could be easily separated by both loudness and pitch. I will be using this setup on CW from now on, and will probably leave the wires hooked up this way for the other modes as well. I already had both K3 line outs connected to the sound card anyway for RTTY, and I use a different soundcard for ssb transmitting. All of this really shouldn't be necessary, but it works, so I'm going with it. Dave Hachadorian, K6LL Yuma, AZ . ______________________________________________________________ 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
