Two 2xK3 contacts in PSK31

Conditoins remain excellent on the 10m band. I made several contacts and even had Stateside DX stations reply to my CQs. Two of my contacts were with Elecraft K3 users - don't often hear K3s on digital though they are the perfect rig for it.

When I'm not actively working stations I like to look at the PSK Reporter reception reports map.  It's more interesting than WSPR as the reports are of actual PSK31 signals. It's a pity there isn't a beacon mode because you have got to transmit or call CQ to see reports of your own signal. At least it is motivation to actually go on the air rather than just lurk!

K3 gets a hearing aid

There was a slight lift on 6m this afternoon, enabling me to try out my latest acquisition: an Elecraft PR6-10 preamp for the K3. A few days ago I noticed that the KX3 had a more sensitive receiver than the K3 on 6m. I couldn't allow my K3 to be outshone by its baby brother so the preamp was ordered. I felt that the K3 could do with a boost on some of the lower bands as well so I opted for the new PR6-10 dual band preamp which despite the name covers the range from 6m to 12m. It was obtained and delivered to me very speedily by Elecraft's UK agents Waters and Stanton. This was one Elecraft item that actually worked out cheaper to buy from the UK!

The preamp was very easy to install. It is designed to fit on the back of the K3 using the BNC connectors for RX IN and RX OUT provided by the KXV3A board. The preamp's connectors are exactly the same distance apart as the ones on the K3 so you just need a pair of BNC couplers which Elecraft thoughtfully provided. I saw from the manual that the preamp was installed like this but I was afraid I would not have enough distance between the back of the K3 and the wall so I had ordered a couple of BNC patch leads as a precaution. In the end they weren't needed.

Elecraft also provided a made-up cable to link the preamp to the K3's switched 12V output and its ACC socket so you can select the bands the preamp is enabled for. On other bands a pair of pass-through connectors are enabled. This was the main factor for choosing the ready-made Elecraft preamp instead of a cheaper home-brew one as it meant I didn't lose the use of the RX IN and RX OUT sockets that are utilized by the MFJ noise cancelling unit which is essential here on the 20m band.

Installing the preamp involved dismantling the entire station.

Although fitting the preamp to the K3 was easy, getting access to the back of the transceiver was not, and entailed the dismantling of almost the entire G4ILO station. Taking it apart may have been one thing, but putting it all together again is another. Labels fell off disconnected cables, other cables disappeared down the back of the table and had to be fished out again. If that wasn't enough, the meter illumination lamp in the MFJ magnetic loop control box chose this moment to fail, resulting in a lot of time wasted after I had reconnected it trying to find out what I had done with its power supply.

Despite these hassles, installing the PR6-10 was worth the trouble, producing a clearly audible improvement in signal to noise ratio even on 12m. I can now hear stations that can't hear me!

K3 vs KX3 on 6m

There was a good opening on 6m this morning which lasted until early afternoon. I'd just been reading some list traffic on how good the KX3 receiver is so I thought I would plug it in to the antenna and see what I could do. After all, Six is the magic band, who needs 100 watts?

Listening on the two receivers was like night and day. On the KX3 the band sounded much more lively. Stations that were only peaking an S7 on the K3 were S9 plus.

On the KX3 with just 10 watts, just because a station was loud it didn't mean I could work them. I got some 59 reports but with several stations they didn't hear me even if I had no competition. The loudest stations had a lot of callers and they just didn't hear me over the crowd. You wouldn't think 9dB would make all that much difference but it does!

I've seen comments about the K3 being deaf on 6m, or even 10m, but I had never really bothered about it until now. If I can hear them on the K3 I can usually work them even though I generally limit the power to 80 watts.

But I ended up a bit dissatisfied with the K3's receive performance on one of my favourite bands. The simple solution - fit a preamp between RX IN and RX OUT - isn't an option for me as I need those ports to plumb in the MFJ noise cancelling device. It's a pity no-one has come up with a mod to boost the K3's fairly useless internal preamp on 50MHz.

A nice audio report

I just finished a contact with a very loud Austrian station, OE3DIA on 10 metres, who took time out while working a string of stations to give me a complimentary audio report, quite unsolicited. It's good when that happens! The comment was "Very nice audio cutting through the QRM" I was using the K3 at 80 watts and the mike was one of those Heil mikes with the dual insert, set to "narrow". The K3 transmit audio equalisation is factory standard, in other words flat.

As it happens I had just been doing some audio comparisons between the KX3 and the FT-817. There has been a thread going on the KX3 Yahoo group started by a disenchanted American ham who claims that the FT-817 has punchier audio than the KX3. It's rubbish, to put it politely. The KX3 has a built-in speech compressor, while my 817 has an RF processor made by Joachim, DF4ZS (more details on my FT-817 page) built into the microphone. Without it there is just no comparison.

I recorded some audio clips so you can hear for yourself:

• FT-817 with standard microphone, no compression
• FT-817 with standard microphone and DF4ZS compressor
• KX3 with MH3 microphone, mic gain and compression both set to 30

There is a bit of distortion on those clips which was not noticeable when listening on the radio. I think I might have a problem with my sound card.

I'm not sure if the difference are that noticeable in those clips, but when you look at the needle of the power meter the KX3 certainly has the more punchy signal.

Both the FT-817 and the KX3 were running off 13.8V and set to 5 watts output. I couldn't compare them on battery power as I don't have the charger board for the KX3 and the external battery pack (10xAA NiMH cells) I intended to use appears to be past it and the KX3 kept cutting out on voice peaks.

Spring is here!

Testing a new build of WSJTX for K1JT I hopped on to 10m and was surprised to see a strong signal. It soon revealed itself to be SM6NZV who gave me a +8dB report on my 5 watts.

This reminded me that it is May 1 today, the start of Spring and usually also the start of the Sporadic-E season. I tuned around on 6m and heard a couple of weak stations on my dipole, also a couple of stronger GMs working stations I could not hear.

I thought about installing the SDR-4+ as a panadapter for the K3 which had been one of the things I had intended to use it for. But something was amiss and I didn't have control of the receiver's frequency. I think the settings had got hosed, probably when I was playing around with using a USB DVB dongle as an SDR. I have no idea how to get it working again and I started getting stressed about it so I decided to abandon the idea.

SDRs are not for me, or at least not those that use a PC for a user interface. Windows is just too fragile, though if Linux is any better it's only because there are fewer things to install on it in the first place!

Instead I will set up scanning on the K3 to scan a section of the 6m band. I always forget how to do this so I had to dig out the manual. Load the start frequency into VFO A and the end frequency in VFOB, make sure the mode and frequency are what you want and store it in a memory. I used memory 6 for 6m scanning.

To start a scan you just recall memory 6 (M>V, 6) and press and hold SCAN. I'll probably forget that sequence of button presses as well so I looked up the CAT commands in the K3 Programmers Reference (SWT23;SWT29;SWH41;) and stored it in a KComm shortcut. I'll probably make one for 2m as well though the chances of hearing any 2m Es up here are slim indeed. Last year I don't think here was a single opening that extended this far north on 2m.

20 November 2012

Today my main rig has spent even more time on other things than WSPR. Besides trying to work some PSK31 DX I have also been testing a beta release of K3 firmware. This new version has an improved CW decoder that is a bit less finicky about settings. It works very well but is still beaten by the Windows program MRP40 which I regard as the gold standard for CW decoders. As Wayne N6KR says, the MRP40 algorithm is probably ten times more sophisticated and the K3 MCU doesn't have enough code space for it.

I've been interested in Morse decoders since the first home computers and can remember keying in a program listing in BASIC from a QST article in the late 70s. Later I wrote a decoder in Hisoft Pascal which ran on my ZX Spectrum. It actually decoded strong, perfectly sent Morse but it was not reliable enough to be useful. More recently I tried implementing a Morse decoder in KComm but it was a total failure.

I didn't have a lot of success with PSK31 DXing on 10m either. I only made two contacts but I heard what would have been two new South American countries: HC7AE in Ecuador and CE4BRO in Chile. I didn't need to look up HC in a book as I remember from my teenage SWLing days hearing HCJB Quito, the Voice of the Andes!

I think band conditions were better today but they supported more propagation from Europe so there were higher QRM levels (and lower operating standards ;) ) I moved up the band to try and get away from all the IMD products but hardly anyone was listening up there so it was a bit futile.

Someone who did hear my CQ calls was Vito IZ7DMT. He was a whopping signal but was signing IZ7DMT/QRP. He told me he was running 5 watts from an FT-817 and was rather indignant that I wouldn't use the illegal /QRP suffix during handovers. Nice QSL though!

Here is the result of today's WSPRing:

10m WSPR spots @ G4ILO 20 November 2012

CQ WW SSB 2012

I'm not a serious contester - how could I be with attic antennas? - but when I'm in the right mood I do find contests fun. And the CQ Magazine contests are, in my opinion, the best of all. Even though I'll never submit a log that appears more than a few lines up from the bottom of its category, I still get a buzz from that feeling of taking part in a big event. For those making a serious effort it is a big event, and I know that they do appreciate the points they get from working little popgun stations like mine. The big contests are important events in the ham radio calendar, and those who don't wish to participate can always use the WARC bands or a different mode for those few days a year that a big event is on.

Last year I didn't even feel like switching on the radio for the contest, so this year's effort marked a bit of a personal milestone. As I am only taking part for fun (though why else would anyone participate?) I thought at first that I would use the KX3 and make a QRP entry. But I soon changed my mind the afternoon before the contest when I tried to call some of the contestants who were checking out their stations and not one of them even acknowledged my calls. I decided that this contest is not the place for QRP, so I used my K3 with its 100W PA instead. Despite this there were still a few stations who didn't seem to hear me call. I guess they were not using Elecraft receivers!

I take my hat off to those who do submit QRP entries, particularly those who in the spirit of QRP use simple wire antennas. Roger G3XBM deserves a special mention as from the look of it he did as well with 5W from his FT-817 and halo antenna as I did with 100W and a dipole.

I set myself a target of 100 contacts and thought I would start off on 10m and see how it goes. In the event I made 128 contacts and there was so much activity on Ten that there was no need to try any other band. I amassed (if that's the right word) 203 contact points and 53 multipliers for a submitted score of 10759. Time spent was the main limiting factor: I spent a few hours on Saturday and slightly less on the Sunday, and didn't operate during the evenings at all. I could have submitted a check log but by sending in a normal log I will have the added interest of seeing how far from the bottom of the category I have come!

During the contest I took time out now and again to make tweaks to my logging program KComm. I actually found a bug that has still got me scratching my head. If you enter the contest exchange (CQ Zone in this case) as a single digit (such as "5") the value is not written to the log file. I worked around it by remembering to use two digits (e.g. "05"). Hopefully I can fix this before the CQ WW CW contest.

There is not much worth noting in my log. South America and Australia are notable for their complete absence, though I did hear a couple of Brazilian stations. Gotaways were Vietnam and Thailand. They would have been all-time new countries for me, but I just couldn't crack the pileups. New countries I did get were Ceuta & Melilla, Greenland, Tajikistan and Kosovo, which set me scurrying off to get a new wf1b.dat that included this new entity.

China I have worked before, but I missed a second Chinese station in a different zone because I just could not make out his call. I think some operators don't realize that if they spoke a bit more slowly and used a bit less compression (okay, a lot less compression) they would make just as many contacts and would have their call entered correctly in a lot more logs. One station told me "we have worked before" as a result of a logging error by me because the first time I mis-heard his call.

All in all it was a fun weekend. Now back to WSPR!

K3 VFO problem - help!

I'm on 6m with my Elecraft K3 and I've noticed that VFO B is following VFO A. Whatever frequency I dial using VFO A and the main tuning knob, VFO B changes with it. On other bands the VFOs are not linked like this but turning the VFO B knob does nothing.

Obviously I accidentally pressed something I shouldn't have, so I don't know what to do to undo the action. Does anyone know what I should do to get VFO B working normally again? Switching off and switching on again didn't solve the problem.

UPDATE: VFO B was not changing because LOCK was on. Having turned LOCK off I can change VFO B independently using the knob. VFO B and VFO A now show different frequencies, but if I turn the VFO A knob, VFO B now changes by the same amount! I don't seem to have SPLIT on, in fact when I press SPLIT the message SPL N/A is shown.

Speaker failure

Yesterday the Medion computer speakers that I used with my Elecraft K3, failed. I was WSPRing on 10m and had the speakers switched off at the time but I saw some unusual interference on the waterfall and switched them on to listen. Nothing happened. No audio, nor did the blue power LED light up.

I checked the obvious things such as the cables and that the power supply was delivering 14V DC. It was. I took the speaker containing the audio amp over to the workbench and tried it on the bench power supply. Although the speaker was behaving as if no power was being applied, 20mA was being consumed when the switch was on. I have no idea where it was going.

Without a schematic there isn't much I can do but I doubt that the speakers are repairable anyway. There are no active components on the circuit board apart from one integrated module attached to a small aluminium heatsink. This has presumably let its smoke out. There are a number of capacitors on the board and the cable connections are extremely well filtered against RFI. I have never seen such attention paid to preventing RFI. I guess that this is because Medion is a German company and Germany seems to be the only country that takes compliance with EMC standards seriously. The speakers were almost completely immune even when I ran 100W. Having a tone control they produced very rich-sounding audio from the K3, unlike its internal speaker which is shrill to listen to and has very little bass response.

I've now replaced the Medions with a pair of passive speakers that I originally got for this task but with those the audio sounds boxy no matter how I fiddle with the K3's RX EQ settings. The only benefit of them is that I'm using one less wall wart!

These Genius speakers look like they might be a good replacement but ordering a pair would be a lottery as I have no way of knowing if they are RF-proof enough. One pair of Logitech speakers I bought were a dead loss. They were handed to the local Oxfam shop within an hour of the postman delivering them as they were so sensitive to RF they were beyond hope.

OAFS failure

One of the things I had intended to do this year was install the external frequency reference module in my Elecraft K3 in order to get the best possible frequency accuracy for digital modes. To this end I had ordered an Off-Air Frequency Standard (OAFS) kit from Spectrum Communications so as to avoid wearing out my rubidium frequency standard. I had completed populating the OAFS board a couple of weeks before I ended up in hospital. So I thought I would try to see if it worked, as that would simply involve connecting up a speaker, ferrite rod antenna and power supply.

It began to look as if the predictions of the couple of people who commented or emailed when I first posted about the OAFS were going to be right. I could hear BBC Radio 4 long wave in the loudspeaker but it was very weak, presumably (as I had been advised) due to North Cumbria being a poor location to receive the transmission. When I checked the frequency of the phase locked loop it remained steadfastly on 216.4kHz regardless of the setting of the trimpot.

The instructions supplied with the kit suggested that it might be necessary to change a resistor value if the loop will not lock on to 198kHz so I wrote to Tony Nailer at Spectrum to see if he had a suggestion. Unfortunately his reply was that if the loop will not change frequency with the pot there must be a solder bridge or other assembly error. I checked my soldering as best I could and re-did any joints that looked suspect but the way my eyes are now any sort of cross checking between the schematic and the circuit board to look for errors is impossible.

I haven't really figured out what is wrong with my eyes but it is as if they no longer have the ability to vary focus. I can only see clearly what is at the exact focal point of whatever spectacles I am wearing. When something is out of focus my head swims and I have to close my eyes for a few minutes to steady it again. So any sort of constructional work now is well-nigh impossible.

Tony offered to get the OAFS working for me for a fee if I sent it to him, but at this point I think it would be a waste of money. I can't see myself installing the frequency reference boards in my K3 now even if I still had the same interest in doing so. So I think the OAFS is destined for the G4ILO junkbox.

Round the back way

Back in the early QRP days of Elecraft, there were some K2 owners who were such CW diehards they were uncomfortable with having a radio that possessed a microphone socket. One or two of them described to the Elecraft email reflector how they had blanked off the offending socket. Despite the evidence in the picture on the right, I have not joined this fraternity. I have simply started using the rear microphone and PTT connector on my K3. I have thought for some time that the front panel connector is an accident waiting to happen, and I finally decided to make the move before it did. (And before anyone comments about the dust in the photo let me just say that one of the few benefits of deteriorating eyesight as you get older is that you don't notice it!)

Front panel microphone sockets are pretty much the norm in ham radios. However in most radios they are secured directly to the metal front panel or, in the case of radios with a plastic fascia to the metal chassis behind it, using a locking nut which tightens the chassis against the ring cast into the socket so that it is rock solid. You could tug at the microphone cable all you want or bash the connector with a hammer and you would be unlikely to cause any damage to the radio itself.

In the K3, the microphone connector comes soldered to the front panel board. There is no possibility of securing it to the metal front panel. The ring that would normally sit on the outside of the mounting hole actually slips through the hole in the front panel so all the rigidity is provided by the PCB. The front panel hole limits movement up and down or side to side to a certain extent. But it does not provide any protection from movements fore and aft. I wonder about the effects of constant small side to side movements on the soldered joints connecting the pins to the board. And I feel sure that if I accidentally leant on the microphone plug, supporting my weight as I tried to make some connection round the back, I could damage the front panel PCB by snapping the microphone socket right off.

As the outer body of the microphone connector is not physically attached to the radio itself it is not electrically grounded. Whilst installing the K144XV transverter board I noticed that grounding is provided by a piece of bare wire that loops round the threaded part of the connector and is soldered to the front panel board. This may have been a modification that I did myself when I assembed my K3 three years ago. What this wire loop does not do is prevent the outer metal part of the microphone connector from turning relative to the insulated centre bearing the 8 pins that are soldered to the PCB.

Because of the perceived risk of damaging the front panel board by accidentally putting my weight on the microphone plug I have been in the habit of disconnecting the microphone whenever I need to lean over the K3 to grope round the back. So the microphone connector has been on and off rather a lot. Recently I observed a tendency for nothing to happen when I pressed the PTT on my desk mic after reconnection. It then became apparent that the outer metal part of the plug has become slightly loose and can be twisted several degrees relative to the centre. I'm pretty sure this is due to the plug body not being secured to the chassis of the radio so there is nothing to take the strain of tightening and untightening the microphone plug. Hence my decision to give up using the front panel socket and move round to the back before the problem got any worse.

My shack is very cramped so I had shortened the cable on my Heil desk mic to eliminate unnecessary length when plugged in to the front of the K3. Consequently it would not reach round to the back. Rather than rewire the microphone I decided to make an extension cable using a line 8-pin socket, retaining the option of using the front connector if I want. I purchased the line connector quite inexpensively from an eBay seller (where else?)

These connectors are much easier to work with than the mini-DIN connectors I have recently been using rather a lot. The pin numbers are clearly visible, but it's a good job I checked: in the connector I had the pins had been installed in the metal socket offset by one pin position so pin 1 was labelled pin 7 etc! This could easily have been confusing and so my brain cells got a bit more exercise than expected making sure I got the connections right.

I changed the microphone configuration in the menu to use the rear mic socket and so my microphone is now plugged in round the back. It would be interesting to know whether any other K3 users have had problems with this front panel socket. Once, I would have posted about it on the Elecraft email reflector, but that would only result in several replies from kool-aid drinkers saying that it hasn't happened to them so it must be my fault.

K144XV comments

The K144XV eventually turned up late on Thursday afternoon. After the board modifications had been performed, installing the transverter module was easy following Elecraft's exemplary instructions. I had to remove the KIO3 module in order to remove the KXV3 transverter module and replace it with the KXV3A, which has a couple of additional connectors for the internal transverter, then replace the KIO3. I also had to replace the side panel of the K3 with one that has some extra holes for securing the transverter. The stiffener that runs across the top of the case is also replaced by one with a cutout where it passes over the K144XV.

Due to the lateness of the hour I was a bit tired and also focussed on getting the job finished so the shack could be restored to normality so I never even thought about taking some pictures. The module comes as a complete screened box not a bare board as shown in some of the pictures on the Elecraft website. It is quite a little beauty and the way it all fits into the K3 is a work of art.

Although described as a 10W module the instruction manual states that you should get at least 9W with 1.0mW input to the transverter. I actually got about 11W so the power output comfortably exceeded spec. At my noisy location I can't make any meaningful observation about sensitivity - any half decent 2m radio will be sensitive enough. But I did notice that S meter readings are extremely low. I see no movement at all on a clear frequency despite the noisy location and a repeater that lights all the signal strength bars of my TM-D710 registered just S4 on the K3. I never take any notice of S meters anyway so I'm not unduly bothered. The amplifier "brick" I will use with this has its own built-in preamp which will boost S meter readings if I want.

The 2m amplifier I have was designed to be driven by an FT-817 so it only requires an input of 5W. I found that I needed to reduce the drive to the transverter to a mere 0.15mW to achieve this level of output. I don't know how accurate the low level output power settings of the K3 are but the relationship between 28MHz drive in and power out is definitely not linear. However the signal on SSB sounded pretty clean when monitored on the FT-817.

The calibration of the transverter local oscillator is done using software, not by trying to tweak a trimmer capacitor by a fraction of a hair's breadth, which is a blessing. There are two local oscillators in the transverter to provide coverage of the full US 2m band (144 - 148MHz) using the same 28MHz - 30MHz range (interestingly the top 2MHz is not disabled in European rigs.) The transverter module is calibrated at the factory and you have to enter the calibration values into the K3 using the configuration menu. I checked the result using my FC-1 frequency counter and also my FT-817 and it appeared to be accurate to within 100Hz which is about as good as I can get. Later I listened on the GB3VHF beacon frequency and waited for the beacon to come out of the noise. I believe this beacon's frequency is GPS locked. The frequency appeared to be out by 120Hz so I was able to adjust the calibration value and get it spot on.

The signal to noise ratio on a weak FM signal is definitely better on the K3 than with my other 2m rigs but I don't see the K144XV as being the solution for people whose primary interest 2m FM. One reason is that a 2m mobile rig is cheaper and allows you to monitor and work 2m FM at the same time as using your K3 for something else. Another is that the K3 doesn't really handle channelized operation very well. The memory system has improved considerably since the early days but using the VFO to scan through memories rather than a click stop rotary control doesn't work for me, especially due to the laggy response of the K3 to the turning of the knob.

But I think the K144XV is an excellent option if you want to work 2m DX. The receiver sounds quiet and clean and having all the QRM fighting and weak signal detecting tools of the K3 available on 144MHz is a real bonus. Now I just have to wait for some 2m SSB activity to try it out!

K3 mod fun

Today I have been waiting for Parcel Farce to deliver a K144XV internal 2m transverter board for my K3. I hate doing modifications to the K3. First there is the hassle of disconnecting all the cables that are plugged in the back. I have to disconnect practically everything in the shack in order to remove the shelf above the K3 so I can see what I am doing.

I also dislike making modifications to the K3 itself. It makes me nervous thinking of the cost and expense if I mess something up and it doesn't work. I'm starting to think that if I want to stick with the K3 it would be better to sell this 3 year old one and get a new current model. Because there have been so many modifications now since my serial number 222 was produced. I haven't done many of the mods because I don't think they make a worthwhile difference or because they involve obtaining an exchange board from Elecraft and the cost of doing this including shipping, VAT and tax collection fee is more than it is worth. But the internal 2m module seemed in the end to be the best solution for providing a capability for 144MHz SSB, even though it involved exchanging my KXV3 transverter interface board for a KXV3A.

In order to install the K144XV it is necessary on older K3s like mine to mount a socket on the main board to provide power. This involves removing the bottom panel of the rig. I thought that while I was doing that I would do another mod to increase the IF output which would be necessary should I ever want to use a P3 panadapter with the rig. The mod involves changing one resistor, oddly specified at 13K. An enquiry on the Elecraft reflector about whether the value was that critical resulted in the kind offer from Ian GM3SEK to send me a couple of SMT resistors so I could do the mod. Without Ian's help I would have had to leave the mod until I got a P3 and Elecraft sent the replacement part because SMT resistors aren't something you can buy from Maplin in quantities of one or two off.

I had shied away from doing mods involving SMT parts before but I found that it wasn't too hard. However I did need to use a high magnification lens in my head-mounted visor. I was initially alarmed to see that the resistor I had to change wasn't one of the fairly big SMT resistors that are normally used in kits using these type of parts, it was a really tiny one. I used two soldering irons, one at each side, and then flicked the resistor off. After cleaning the pads with a bit of solder wick I then took one of the replacements using a trimming tool with a bit of Blu-Tack on the end and held it in place while I took a blob of solder on the end of my smallest bit and tacked one side of the resistor into place. Then I did the same to the other side. Job done.

Although the high magnification makes it possible to see the tiny parts, it can't do anything about shaky hands. My hands seemed fairly steady this morning but it is a different picture through a high magnification lens and you don't need to move far to shift the component out of its precise spot, which of course I did. I decided this is no job to be fussy about. The resistor was slightly skew-whiff, but it was attached to the board and my ohm meter said everything was OK. Perhaps I could get a job working for MFJ. :)

The package from Elecraft still hadn't arrived so I decided to pull up the instructions for installing the K144XV from Elecraft's website to see what was involved. As I mentioned, I needed to install a terminal to provide 12V to the transverter module. This is a bit of a kludge as the K144XV wasn't even a planned option at the time my K3 was made so there isn't a proper place for this terminal. You have to solder it in using a "via" that wasn't actually designed for this use. Unfortunately that via had been used by one of the leads of a wire-ended capacitor used in another mod to improve the low frequency audio response.

The instructions mention this possibility and suggest an alternative via. However that via was obscured by the components used to perform yet another mod, this time the hardware AGC modification. Lacking the confidence to remove and replace SMT parts I had used wire ended components to do this mod. There was no alternative but to remove the mod and do the SMT version. Elecraft had provided both types of components and fortunately I hadn't lost the SMT ones. However they had not provided any spares and I was conscious that one false move sending a resistor pinging off to oblivion would result in a K3 I would be unable to use until I could find a replacement. That didn't help the shaking hands one bit!

Fortunately it all went well, with the results shown in the picture. (The resistors I had to replace are the ones marked 333.) So that's done. But still no transverter. Where the hell are you, Parcel Farce?

Changes to 2m gear

I have had a bit of a change round in the shack recently. Since getting the Kenwood TM-D710 which is used for 2m FM which is the vast majority of my VHF activity, the Icom IC-910H has really been under-utilized. 70cm is a dead band here and there isn't too much 2m SSB activity. Besides, I never really liked the Icom. So I decided to swap it for an old Spectrum Communications transverter that I have and sell it in the new year.

The Kenwood has been moved into the "second rig" operating position. And the desk mic I used with the Icom is now attached to the Kenwood. I had some CAT5 UTP network cables which are terminated in the same type of plug Kenwood uses for a mic connector, so I cut one in half and made up a cable for the desk mic. Despite being unshielded (UTP stands for Unshielded Twisted Pair) there doesn't seem to be any RFI even at 50W. And the reports I have had so far suggest that it sounds good.

The Spectrum transverter runs about 20W output. This is less than I would like for SSB. My plan was to set the transverter drive so the peak output was 5W and use it to drive a 50W linear amp that I have. But when I set the power to 5W, as soon as I put the cover on the case it dropped to 1.5W. So I thought that perhaps the whole thing needs realignment.

Unfortunately it did not go well. The transverter, which I bought umpteenth-hand in a private sale some time ago, had obviously suffered the depredations of the ham-fisted twiddler. Two of the ferrite tuning cores in the Toko coils were cracked and could neither be adjusted nor removed so they could be replaced. Despite this, the transverter receives pretty well.

However, while trying to realign the transmit side to solve the problem of changing power output when the case cover goes on, I noticed that there was often power out when the key was up. There was clearly some instability present. Although I could adjust the trimmers so there was no unwanted output, I could not eliminate the changing output as the case cover is put on. I do not have the test equipment (a spectrum analyzer) to be sure that the output is clean and I started to have doubts about the whole thing.

I did not want to risk wiping out the neighbour's TV reception whenever I use 2m SSB. So I decided to scrap the transverter and order an XV144 internal transverter module for my K3. It is on its way, and hopefully will arrive in the UK before the increase in VAT takes effect.

Taking part

On Saturday I blew the dust (literally!) off my K3's microphone. After I had finished sneezing, I started making some contacts in the CQ WorldWide SSB DX Contest.

This was not intended to be a serious competitive effort. My intention was to spend all of the time I could spare that weekend making contest contacts and see how many stations I could work. I spent about an hour on Saturday morning before going with Olga to the garden centre, and a couple of hours in the afternoon. On Sunday I was up earlier than normal because the clocks went back overnight, so I operated for about three hours in the morning before lunch. I had intended to do some operating in the afternoon as well but the three hours in the morning had left me feeling a bit tired and stiff so I went for a walk after lunch and then fell asleep on my return home. Getting old is my excuse!

I made a total of 154 contacts in 43 different countries and 4 continents during my six hours or so of operating. The detailed breakdown, for those interested, is shown in the screen grab of the contest statistics dialog from KComm (the Extra field shows the number of CQ zones.) This would give me a claimed score of 17,487 points if my calculations are correct, which by comparison with last year's results would place me well down the second half of the All Band Single Operator Low Power Unassisted results table.

This was the first time I had made such an effort for an SSB contest. Until now I hated turning on the radio during big SSB contests because the bands sounded like bedlam. But I had never tried with the K3 before. Instead of a mush of intermod, splatter and AGC pumping I could hear everything clearly. Sometimes I could hear two or three stations on the same frequency simultaneously, one in the foreground and a couple in the background. And the superb DSP filtering made it easy to shut out close-by stations so I could copy a weaker one. I often had the passband down to 1.8kHz and copy was still crystal clear.

Initially I started off just working the loud ones because I didn't want to waste the serious contesters' time by making them struggle to hear my call. But I found there was no hard and fast rule relating how strong a station was with whether they heard me. One Finnish station, 10dB over 9 with me, just kept on calling as if I wasn't there. But many weaker ones came right back to my first call.

Frustratingly, a significant number of stations came back to me as "Golf 4 Lima India Oscar" - exactly the same error that was made when I ordered my QRSS beacon kit a couple of weeks ago. What is it about my call? This doesn't happen on CW (though I used to get replied to as G3ILO very often as the holder of that call is a well known QRP CW operator.)

Conditions didn't appear to be very good this weekend. I'd hoped to hear some interesting DX on 10m but I heard hardly anyone at all on the band. As always, 20m was the liveliest band, but I made almost as many contacts on 15m, probably because the QRM was less making it easier to make contacts.

I didn't work any DX and I only worked one all time new DXCC entity - Svalbard, JW5E. I did hear a VK on 15m on Sunday morning but he had a big pileup going and after trying for about five minutes I decided not to waste any more time and move on.

Despite my unspectacular results I thoroughly enjoyed my few hours in the CQ WW DX SSB contest. No doubt QRZ.com and other online forums will be full of grumbles about contests taking over the band for the entire weekend, the only time working people can get on the air etc etc. But if you can't beat them, why not join them?

My feeling is that contesting is one of the many different activities you can pursue and to get the most from the hobby you should try as many of those different activities as you can. As this post has hopefully shown, having indoor antennas is no obstacle to working a decent number of stations and earning a respectable score for the time spent. It's not the winning, it's the taking part that counts. I certainly felt like a real participant in this radiosport event and I look forward to seeing my call in the results table next year.

Cross Country Wireless SDR update

Cross Country Wireless has just announced an updated version 2 of its low cost SDR Receiver. The new version has an RF preamplifier using a power MOSFET after the RF bandpass filter which is claimed to improve sensitivity - which was a criticism of the earlier version - and reduce local oscillator output at the antenna port.

The designer Chris, G4HYG, claims that the receiver will now display a CW carrier at a level of -135 dBm on the waterfall of SDR-Radio using a 48 kHz sound card. The level of the local oscillator at the antenna port is now specified as -65 dBm, though a more typical measurement is -70 dBm. This should make it an ideal choice as a panadapter for radios such as the Elecraft K3. In fact, Chris recently stated that most orders for the receiver have been for use as panadapters, in conjunction with a sound card and suitable software such as PowerSDR-IF.

The cost of the standard SDR is £49.95. For panadapter use you will need a custom crystal for your radio's IF which increases the price to £59.95. The SDR has two (switched) local oscillators so the other one could be specified to cover 40m or 30m for use as a conventional receiver. It's also available as a built and tested board for assembly into your own case (at a significant saving.) If you built a USB sound device into the same box then it would be rather neat.

K3 Killer imminent?

Kenwood Corporation recently announced the October launch of the long-awaited TS-590 HF/6m transceiver. Described in some quarters as a "K3 killer", the new transceiver uses the novel (for modern Japanese radios) approach of a single conversion receiver with a low (11.374MHz) IF on the amateur bands to give what is claimed to be exceptional dynamic range.

The news release bears careful reading, as what it doesn't say is as interesting as what it does. The receiver will have a 6KHz roofing filter directly after the mixer, followed by a 500Hz or 2.7KHz filter (both included as standard) after the post-amplifier. But a footnote states that "For 1.8/3.5/7/14/21MHz amateur bands, when receiving in CW/FSK/SSB modes down conversion is selected automatically if the final passband is 2.7kHz or less" which suggests that a conventional (for the Japanese) up conversion will be used for the short wave bands, AM or FM modes, the WARC bands, 10 and 6m.

I think the current obsession with receiver performance figures is absurd. I am far from being a member of the Elecraft fan club, but even assuming the TS-590 does turn out to outperform the K3 on the main amateur bands, I think anyone considering swapping their K3 for the Kenwood on that basis would be foolish.

As far as I know, the Kenwood will not have an option for a second receiver, nor one for a panadapter. It will not have the transverter and external preamp interfacing (which I use to insert the MFJ noise canceller) nor an independent receive antenna input. I doubt that it will have fully isolated audio inputs for data nor a soft ALC in digital modes that allows you to vary the power output in PSK31 without fiddling with computer mixer settings to avoid IMD problems. I'm sure it won't have an internal 144MHz option either.

Whenever I look at the features of the K3 that I am currently using, I realize that there is nothing else on the market at a price I am willing to pay, nor which would fit on my operating desk, that could do what my K3 is doing.

The price of the TS-590 will be 228,900 Yen, or about £2,000 by the time you have added on VAT (never mind the usual exorbitant UK dealer mark-up.) If it goes on sale here at £2,499 I will not be surprised. Compared to currently available HF radios and Kenwood's previous HF models including the TS-570 to which this new rig bears a considerable similarity, the TS-590 looks overpriced for what in the end is nothing more than a compact HF/6m radio.

A K3 killer? I don't think so!

It's all down to your ears

There was a lot of excitement on the Elecraft email reflector over the fact that the majority of participants in the World Radio Team Championship 2010 (WRTC 2010) were using Elecraft K3s. There was even more glee when it was discovered that Scott Robbins W4PA, former Ten-Tec product manager, and Tim Duffy K3LR of Team Icom had taken K3s. This was like the President of Coca Cola serving Pepsi at his anniversary party!

There have not been many comments now the results are out, which show that the top two teams, from Russia and Estonia respectively, were using FT-1000MPs. The USA team of N6MJ and KL9A in third place used K3s, as did K5ZD and W2SC who came fifth, but the fourth placed S50A and S57AW again used FT-1000MPs as did the Lithuanian entry in seventh place.

So let's get this straight: the winning stations and several others in the top ten used a now obsolete radio that was introduced in 1996 which has frequently been criticized as inferior to the K3? I suspect the fact that many international competitors took K3s may have more to do with the fact that the Elecraft radio is small enough and light enough to be taken on an aircraft as hand baggage. And I suspect that the reason for the success of the stations using FT-1000MPs is that there is more to winning a contest than having a receiver with the best performance numbers.

Anyone want to swap an Elecraft K3 for an FT-1000MP? (Only joking.)

Back to front

Last night for the first time in a very long time I operated RTTY. I made ten contacts in the BARTG RTTY 75 contest. The reason was that Elecraft had released a beta version of firmware for the K3 that enhances the built-in DSP modems to support the 75baud RTTY mode that was being used in the contest. Now that the K3 also supports a way to get decoded text into a computer program I thought it would be fun to give it a try.

For those unfamiliar with the K3, the transceiver boasts a built-in Morse decoder plus DSP based modems (encoders and decoders) for PSK31, standard 45.5baud RTTY and now 75baud RTTY. As the K3 doesn't allow direct input from a keyboard, the usual way to use this facility is to send text using a Morse paddle and read received text on a scrolling 7-character window of the K3 display. However, using a program like KComm it is possible to send and receive text using software commands over the CAT interface as well. Since, like most things that require good motor skills, I'm hopeless with a paddle (or key) at anything much above 12wpm, that's what I did.

I installed the new firmware and it decoded 75baud RTTY signals perfectly, so I waited for the contest to begin. After it did, I soon found that although people were hearing me they weren't decoding me. I got lots of QRZ?, ??????? and SRI NO PRINT. I started to get frustrated and began thinking that RTTY is an obsolete mode that has no place in the 21st century because I know I could have made contact with these stations easily using PSK31 and a fraction of the power.

I decided to switch to soundcard mode and use Fldigi to try to make some contest contacts, and then found that people were replying to me on the first call! So clearly there was something wrong with the RTTY being generated by my K3.

This morning I tried receiving some of my transmitted RTTY using the FT-817 and Fldigi on my NC-10 netbook. When the RTTY was generated by Fldigi it was received perfectly. However when it was generated by the K3 I received gibberish unless I switched the K3 to REV DATA mode (i.e. reverse sideband.) Since I was receiving the RTTY perfectly OK using the normal sideband I presume that the K3's transmitted RTTY was reversed. I have reported it to Wayne and await comments.

Unfortunately I did have some problems with KComm as well. After a while, it started aborting the transmission of any macro after the first few diddles. Like many programs, it has grown to the point where it is hard to understand what is going on any more and my interest in programming has fallen off a cliff in the last few months. I don't know if I will ever get around to fixing the problems and releasing the final version. I do like using it, and KComm is the only program that really supports the K2 and K3 properly because it doesn't treat them like a Kenwood TS2000 (whose command set it nominally shares) but was written to take account of the way these radios actually work.

KREF3 let-down

I often use WSPR, the very narrow band, low power, automatically reported beacon mode, which operates in a 200Hz wide band and reports the frequencies of received stations to 1Hz accuracy. I also sometimes use other digital modes where I want to be able to set my transceiver to a specific frequency with confidence. So one Elecraft K3 add-on that I had been eagerly awaiting was the KREF3 board that was supposed to allow you to lock the K3 reference oscillator to an external frequency standard. In fact, readers of this blog may recall that only a couple of weeks ago I posted an item about rubidium frequency standards being sold on eBay.

A few days ago Trevor G0KTN, who is actually the person responsible for turning me on to WSPR in the first place, posted a question to the Elecraft reflector asking for a comment from Elecraft as to when the KREF3 might be available. When no answer was received he asked again, and eventually received this reply from Eric WA6HHQ: The KREF3 is not in current planned development. I thought we had removed the references to it in all of our docs. Is it still showing up somewhere?

It is still showing up in the copies of the manuals I have. There is still a labelled, blanked-off hole for it on the back of my radio. More importantly, it showed up in the specification and brochure that Elecraft produced at the time I ordered the radio.

In the past I have been flamed quite harshly by members of the Elecraft fan club for suggesting that Elecraft had broken promises or even acted dishonestly by failing to provide advertised features. But is it being honest, when deciding not to provide a feature that was initially advertised and promised, to quietly delete all references to it and hope no-one notices? Perhaps Elecraft figured that since most hams are in their 60s or later we all have Alzheimer's and will have forgotten the KREF3 was ever offered.