K3 or ftdx3000

[AD9DX]

K3 and K4 in the future.  Had my K3 for 1-1/2 years now and still loving it.  Sold my Icoms 756 Pro III and 7600 for the K3, P3 and KPA-500.

Any new rumors on when and what the K4 will be?

[KE2TR]

Hi Mike, between the K3 and the Yaesu it boils down to what radio your gonna like to operate, no matter how good the lab tests on the K3 IMO its a drag to et around there funky front panel controls. I went from a FT1KMP to the 590 which was a good radio but missed allot of what the MP did like having true RF clipping which drove the amp better and its audio on TX was alway much better. Yes the 590 had a slighly better RX but I got dragged into the lab test numbers on that rig but there is more than great number's that makes up a good all around rig. The numbers on the FT3K are very good, some better and some a little lower but I reall dont think your gonna see this even on a very busy band. As far as the TX noise on transmit, I know what the numbers in the arrl lab were but the ham down the street 1/4 mile away has told me that he only nows I am on the band when he gets closer than 5Khz away. Both the MP and the 590 he could hear me out 10-15khz away so go figure, maybe Yaesu changed some things in the firmware but this baby is cone of the cleanest TX sections I have had at my qth. I find the RX and TX both to have some of the best audio of many of the rigs I have tryed or used at other ham's shacks, even the FTDX5K or IC7800 that I have used, the RX audio is that good. The roofing filter's work and so does the DSP, even the digital NR work faster than the one on the 590 that was slow compared to to Icoms NR dsp. On CW the tone is excellent, I am not a cw buff but this radio sounds soo good that I find myself getting back into cw again, my code speed sucks but its getting better and no ringging even when the dsp is set to 50Hz, I can only say that with the 300Hz filter installed it would be the cats nuts. The display is great and the band scope works as well, yea its not the size of Icom's but work well fore plus the FFT audio scope is aa nice bonus. All the controls are well laid out and all work well, the only con is that the notch takes a while nto tune, I wish they had a faster manual notch position but I can tell ya its deep, 70+db will notch amost anything. The AGC system is also one of the best I have seen, you can adjust it so that static crashes dont overide the front end. Having a seperte RX out that's after the bandpass filter,ATT,Pre amps is a cool way to go, maybe they will come out with a sub RX which will slave with the 3K, who know's and 9Mhz IF out is a real plus. Yaesu hit a homerun IMO with this rig, its present price point is right on the money, I trust you will enjoy the new rig.
Jim

[AD9DX]

I would be suspect of any rig that had the narrowest roofing filter at 3kHz. And if it is anything like its older brother the FT-2000, the 3kHz is more like 7kHz wide at -6db.

People claim this is a lab test and has no real world impact either is not being honest with themselves or never operates in even remotely crowded bands.

The narrow spaced dynamic range for the FTDX is 82db while on the K3 it is 101db. These are indeed lab numbers in a controlled environment, but during the CQWW 160m CW contest, I know which reciever I want to try and get that ATNO with. 

As far as ergonomics,the K3 is the clear looser. Even as much of a zealot for Elecraft products as I am, it's obvious. However there are great ways to computer control most anything you would want to do. Not great with computers? It's ok. The reflector group is truly amazing. As is the technical support team at Elecraft.

Honestly if you can afford a K3, make sure you carefully pick the options that are meaningful to you. You can spend a lot of money on things you will never use.

Look my email address up on QRZ, if you have any questions on the K3.  I would be glad to help.

[ZENKI]

Without a high performance transmitter your receiver performance hardly matters. The IMD performance of most ham rigs are so bad you can never possibly realize the full receiver potential. Everybody only talks about receiver numbers.

The most important issue today is the quality of transmitters. Its safe to say that all current ham transceivers have transmitters that are dismal in performance. Unless someone does something about this sad state of affairs
you only kidding yourself about the importance of receiver numbers.

Look at the TS990S 8000 dollar radio and the radio has like -24db 3rd order IMD on the higher bands. Thats poor, and with a radio operating nextdoor to your frequency you will never realize the excellent dynamic range of radios like the K3 and others. The K3 could have been the best all round radio if its transmitter IMD performance was better.   Talking about transmitter performance seems not to be a cool subject and matter and it seems bragging about
receiver numbers is a better PR and marketing exercise for manufacturers. Hams really need to wake up to this point and should asking the manufacturers why their transmitters are so filthy.  $8000 dollar radio with poor IMD  transmitters and uncalibrated S-meters what a joke.

So blah blah blah about this rig versus that rig. It does not matter while most hams spew out garbage from the  expensive receivers/cheap transmitter radios. The smart guys are the ones who are buying the Icom 718 and such radios, because they missing nothing in the real world of dirty signals. NASA's million dollar optical telescopes and radio astronomy systems cant look or hear through the garbage such light and other RF pollution. Having a million dollar super receiver will not help the average ham because of the pollution  from hams transmitters. Maybe some day hams will wake up and get it, at the moment  they not thinking all that well ranting and raving about receiver numbers and this radio versus that radio. Its an exercise in futility because of the laws of physics.

I would be suspect of any rig that had the narrowest roofing filter at 3kHz. And if it is anything like its older brother the FT-2000, the 3kHz is more like 7kHz wide at -6db.

People claim this is a lab test and has no real world impact either is not being honest with themselves or never operates in even remotely crowded bands.

The narrow spaced dynamic range for the FTDX is 82db while on the K3 it is 101db. These are indeed lab numbers in a controlled environment, but during the CQWW 160m CW contest, I know which reciever I want to try and get that ATNO with. 

As far as ergonomics,the K3 is the clear looser. Even as much of a zealot for Elecraft products as I am, it's obvious. However there are great ways to computer control most anything you would want to do. Not great with computers? It's ok. The reflector group is truly amazing. As is the technical support team at Elecraft.

Honestly if you can afford a K3, make sure you carefully pick the options that are meaningful to you. You can spend a lot of money on things you will never use.

Look my email address up on QRZ, if you have any questions on the K3.  I would be glad to help.

[AD9DX]

Without a high performance transmitter your receiver performance hardly matters. The IMD performance of most ham rigs are so bad you can never possibly realize the full receiver potential. Everybody only talks about receiver numbers.

The most important issue today is the quality of transmitters. Its safe to say that all current ham transceivers have transmitters that are dismal in performance. Unless someone does something about this sad state of affairs
you only kidding yourself about the importance of receiver numbers.

Look at the TS990S 8000 dollar radio and the radio has like -24db 3rd order IMD on the higher bands. Thats poor, and with a radio operating nextdoor to your frequency you will never realize the excellent dynamic range of radios like the K3 and others. The K3 could have been the best all round radio if its transmitter IMD performance was better.   Talking about transmitter performance seems not to be a cool subject and matter and it seems bragging about
receiver numbers is a better PR and marketing exercise for manufacturers. Hams really need to wake up to this point and should asking the manufacturers why their transmitters are so filthy.  $8000 dollar radio with poor IMD  transmitters and uncalibrated S-meters what a joke.

So blah blah blah about this rig versus that rig. It does not matter while most hams spew out garbage from the  expensive receivers/cheap transmitter radios. The smart guys are the ones who are buying the Icom 718 and such radios, because they missing nothing in the real world of dirty signals. NASA's million dollar optical telescopes and radio astronomy systems cant look or hear through the garbage such light and other RF pollution. Having a million dollar super receiver will not help the average ham because of the pollution  from hams transmitters. Maybe some day hams will wake up and get it, at the moment  they not thinking all that well ranting and raving about receiver numbers and this radio versus that radio. Its an exercise in futility because of the laws of physics.

I would be suspect of any rig that had the narrowest roofing filter at 3kHz. And if it is anything like its older brother the FT-2000, the 3kHz is more like 7kHz wide at -6db.

People claim this is a lab test and has no real world impact either is not being honest with themselves or never operates in even remotely crowded bands.

The narrow spaced dynamic range for the FTDX is 82db while on the K3 it is 101db. These are indeed lab numbers in a controlled environment, but during the CQWW 160m CW contest, I know which reciever I want to try and get that ATNO with. 

As far as ergonomics,the K3 is the clear looser. Even as much of a zealot for Elecraft products as I am, it's obvious. However there are great ways to computer control most anything you would want to do. Not great with computers? It's ok. The reflector group is truly amazing. As is the technical support team at Elecraft.

Honestly if you can afford a K3, make sure you carefully pick the options that are meaningful to you. You can spend a lot of money on things you will never use.

Look my email address up on QRZ, if you have any questions on the K3.  I would be glad to help.

So essentially your thoughts are, all radio transmitters suck, so by a radio with a crapy receiver? 

[W1JKA]

I've got an idea,how about a good seperate receiver and a nice seperate homebrew xtmr.?Maybe someone could design a special switch so you could use both on the same antenna,I heard a few hams use to operate with this type of set up a few years back.

[K9RJ]

"Yes, ergonomics (look and fell) are important to many as well. K3 does look pretty plain. I  personally have no had a chance to play with a 3000 yet so jury is still out with me."

I added the 73 CNC knobs. Now my K3 looks cool and I can spin up and down the bands in no time! Performance is outstanding with the P3.
Harris. K9RJ

[AD9DX]

"Yes, ergonomics (look and fell) are important to many as well. K3 does look pretty plain. I  personally have no had a chance to play with a 3000 yet so jury is still out with me."

I added the 73 CNC knobs. Now my K3 looks cool and I can spin up and down the bands in no time! Performance is outstanding with the P3.
Harris. K9RJ

I really want to get a set of those. They look sweet.