Sherwood Engineering Receiver Test Data

[NR9R]

A few comments have mentioned the tone or quality of the receiver (revering to the K3) as an important factor.  I never did try the K3 but after trying the latest transceivers from just about every brand I found that the tone/fidelity/ quality character of the receiver to be a greater factor than dynamic range alone.  This is subjective and more difficult to quantify but very important.  I am able to tolerate some IMD products every once in a while on a receiver that is a joy to listen to, but a receiver with painful audio characteristics will ruin the fun no matter how impenetrable the filters are.  With that said, the reality is that the average station will never experience the signal power density levels that would overload typical mid-priced transceivers.  If you have a single yagi for the high bands and use wire antennas for the low bands then you probably wont notice much improvement in transceivers with narrow 1st IF filters and can have the best of both worlds: great audio fidelity from wide 1st IF filters without many IMD issues.   

[NI0Z]

Might as well get some use out of the videos I made.

With very limited experience I rate the KX3 as having the best Audi of the transceivers I have owned.  I have had more time with this radio this week and the audio both in and out is quite nice.  Amazingly I have had nice QSOs with even 10watts SSB. 

There are other issues though with this radio they are working on that we have not talked about.  VFO drift is significant enough to cause issues running PSK.  I hadn't realize that the KX3 is advertised as only 1ppm, you can see it in PSK.  They are working on it and some people already have the VFO temperature controlled patch in hand.  Final performance is supposedly going to be .1-.2 ppm.

It's interesting to see just how many things Elecraft is able to change in the firmware to resolve issues like this.  There are going to be improvements in opposite side band suppression as well.

If you buy one of these your buying and unfinished radio in essence. 

Ayways, it did occur to me that when you sell a transceiver to hams today, you better have your specs and stuff together because hams are going to test the living tar out of it! . Given that it's amazing that many radios still get the ratings they do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv9oNxdqyH4&sns=em

Unfortunately the cell phone mic is the limiting factor here and the source of any distortion you here with the exception of my audio being played back which was not all that great to be honest.

I guess I haven't been a ham long enough to understand the reallity of audio fatigue if this radio in theory can cause it.  I even listend to some shortwave stations Monday and they sounded really good.

[ZENKI]

It will be interesting to see what the INBAND audio IMD of the KX3 is.

There is nothing better than a smooth sounding low IMD receiver. The TS870S was such a radio, very low distortion on RX.

Direct conversion receivers like the  R2 from  Rick Campbell  also excels at producing excellent RX audio.

Lets hope that the RX audio is better than the K3's!

Might as well get some use out of the videos I made.

With very limited experience I rate the KX3 as having the best Audi of the transceivers I have owned.  I have had more time with this radio this week and the audio both in and out is quite nice.  Amazingly I have had nice QSOs with even 10watts SSB. 

There are other issues though with this radio they are working on that we have not talked about.  VFO drift is significant enough to cause issues running PSK.  I hadn't realize that the KX3 is advertised as only 1ppm, you can see it in PSK.  They are working on it and some people already have the VFO temperature controlled patch in hand.  Final performance is supposedly going to be .1-.2 ppm.

It's interesting to see just how many things Elecraft is able to change in the firmware to resolve issues like this.  There are going to be improvements in opposite side band suppression as well.

If you buy one of these your buying and unfinished radio in essence. 

Ayways, it did occur to me that when you sell a transceiver to hams today, you better have your specs and stuff together because hams are going to test the living tar out of it! . Given that it's amazing that many radios still get the ratings they do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv9oNxdqyH4&sns=em

Unfortunately the cell phone mic is the limiting factor here and the source of any distortion you here with the exception of my audio being played back which was not all that great to be honest.

I guess I haven't been a ham long enough to understand the reallity of audio fatigue if this radio in theory can cause it.  I even listend to some shortwave stations Monday and they sounded really good.

[KE5JPP]

There are other issues though with this radio they are working on that we have not talked about.  VFO drift is significant enough to cause issues running PSK.  I hadn't realize that the KX3 is advertised as only 1ppm, you can see it in PSK.  They are working on it and some people already have the VFO temperature controlled patch in hand.  Final performance is supposedly going to be .1-.2 ppm.
It's interesting to see just how many things Elecraft is able to change in the firmware to resolve issues like this.  There are going to be improvements in opposite side band suppression as well.

The problem is heating of the si570 during transmit.  This is not a firmware fix.  Neither is the opposite sideband suppression completely fixable by firmware.  They can mitigate the suppression issue somewhat by allowing an I/Q calibration table on a band by band basis instead of the fixed point calibration they are using now.  This can be done in the firmware.

Gene