What's interesting is that all the complaints about the K3's "terrible SSB performance" have merely been fluff, without much if any data to back them up. Upon what have people been basing these opinions?
The K3 has perfectly respectable SSB TX figures according to the published reviews. In another thread on this site one of the two unidentified posters in this thread made claims as to the K3's low SSB performance, citing figures that were far below the actual lab tests. When confronted with his lies, the poster chose to slink away rather than being honorable and correcting his error. This same poster has been here in this thread, making bizarre claims that can't actually be supported by data, and appealing to emotion.
Look at the figures and make up your mind. The actual figures, not those being pushed on this board by unidentified reputation managers.
I was hoping not to revist this but I realize you are trying to make one last point in order to sway any future newbies that you actually had a point, so they go out and get a K3.
The “terrible SSB performance of the K3” does not need to be based on numbers it’s based on my EARS and many other peoples ears! What’s so hard to understand about that? People listen to a K3 receiving SSB and they know it sucks based on what they are hearing. And yes I have adjusted the hell out of everything that I could find in the Labyrinthine of settings and it still was really poor sounding very Harsh SSB.
As for the SSB TX Audio, as I stated before its “Unremarkable” it has no punch or anything great about it. (and once again Yes I adjusted the Radio)
Lastly, you constantly talk about the figures but I think you really have no clue what the Figures mean in the real world and neither do I.
Since this is the Station Building section of the Forum I figure there are a lot of new Hams hanging around here so it seems appropriate to give an example they will appreciate.
Almost every new Ham Operator at some point or the other hears a really loud station and hears “I am running 1500 watts” and then the new Ham gets the Notion in his heads and thinks “Wow wouldn’t it be fantastic to have a 6000 Watt Amp”. This idea sounds so good even after you hear that 6Kw is just 6db better than a 1.5Kw Amp.
The dream of what the 6KW amp can do suddenly comes to a sudden death when some Ham informs you that 6db = 1 S-Unit and all it truly means is that with 6Kw you will get a 1 S-Unit increase in signal. So wow my signal goes from 57 to 58 over in Japan!!! That doesn’t sound like much and suddenly all interest dies because you just know how impractical the whole thing would be, assuming it was even legal to do.
The use of dB’s can be very misleading, especially when used in the negative quantity. First of all it’s very hard to accurately measure the numbers and the even harder to know what a few dB’s of change actually mean in the real world especially when you factor in noise floor and a whole bunch of other factors.
Look at these examples.
The Sherwood Numbers Aka The Gospel according to Elecraft.
http://www.sherweng.com/table.htmlNow compare them to Numbers from QST
http://www.remeeus.eu/hamradio/pa1hr/productreview.htmBoth charts are sorted by the 2Khz Dynamic Range but notice the huge differences.
I personally don’t give any of these charts much credence because I don’t have a clue as to how accurate the equipment is that took the measurements and when it was last Calibrated and who did the calibration. So both these numbers can be off wildly.
They are certainly wildly off from each other.
Secondly Bob who publishes the Sherwood numbers is only interested in one specific thing and that’s how well a Radio operates in super big tightly packed CW Pileups. Everything else for him is secondary hence why he sorts the list with the 2Khz spacing. In fact IMO he should be sorting it by Overall filter numbers (Filter Ultimate Column)
That’s much more relevant for judging how a radio will perform.
I have run some informal tests while trying to break through large CW pileups and IMO more important than anything else is the Speed that you can send at. Yep it sounds strange but I have proven it on a number of occasions.
If you think about it from the view point of a operator on a rare Dxpedition the question is do you answer the guy who is saying “K…..D…..8…..M……J……R” at 18 WPM or the guy who is sending it at 35 WPM (Half the time). I don’t have this ability but I can use my Icom RS-BA1 software which sends perfect CW. In tests I have run during huge DXpedition pileups the operators almost never reply when I send at slower than 20 WPM and they almost always respond when I go up to 30WPM.
It makes sense, the CW Dxpedition operators are some of the best on the planet they are very comfortable talking at 35-40+ WPM and they hate it when some one is taking forever to bang out something at 20WPM. So while you are putting out your call at 20 they are hearing a guy in the background zipping in at 35 WPM and before you even finish they have already started replying to him.
Anyway my point of this long winded post is that after you look at all the numbers for the K3 and if you believe them, the fact is that all it’s saying is that the K3 is really good at rejecting adjacent CW signals in large pileups and IMO that’s like saying this model car has a really Good AC system. If you want to buy a car based on that or say it’s the best based on that then go ahead.
IMO when picking a radio you need to first think of what you want to do with it and then look at the features the Radio has to offer that help you accomplish that goal. If your need is simply to be waiting around for that really rare one to appear on CW and you are very proficient at CW then the K3 is your radio. If not look for something that does not compromise all the other aspects just to do one thing well.
