AmateurRadio.com

As you all know, I am a big Elecraft fan. I’ve built and used a K1, a K2, and a K3.  I now own two KX3s. That said, I don’t consider myself to be an Elecraft sycophant.  Heck, I’ll be the first to admit that I did my share of public grousing and fuming back when I was waiting for my beloved KX3 to arrive!  And I am anxiously, but patiently awaiting the arrival of my KXPA100 – this time minus the grousing and fuming. No company is perfect, including the one owned by Eric and Wayne.  They’ve made their share of missteps regarding announced shipping dates of new product. The fact that we Hams are a tough audience at times, also makes things difficult.  They want to satisfy us, and one could be generous and posit that they’ve been guilty of being overly optimistic at times.

However, when it comes to customer service, Elecraft stands head and shoulders among the pack.  Get a load of this sequence of e-mails that appeared on the Elecraft e-mail reflector yesterday. This floored me when I first saw it:

First, from Mitch KD5EYN:

Hi All, 

Love the KX3, and I did not think I had a problem before, but now realize that I do. I increased the height of my dipole and lengthened the feedline to locate the KX3 into my shack. Now the AM broadcast station KOMA 1520 5 miles from my QTH comes through on virtually all bands. I have tried most settings, it is minimal with the preamps all off, but that renders some of the functionality much reduced. A friend has loaned me his IC-756 and it works flawlessly. I realize two different intended radio uses; however the KX3 is my only rig. Therefore I am considering selling it so I can purchase a non-QRP rig to function better for the bulk of my use. 

I have the ATU & battery charger as well as very nice Samsung NiMh cells in the radio. It would come with the PC cable kit and the headphone/mic that was purchased off ebay. I have worked stations all over the world and received great reports. It is just not going to work as my only radio given the RF situation. So if anyone is interested, let me know. Contact me direct through KD5EYN@gmail, I love the SDR and the features as well as the small size. I am not willing on taking a big hit on the sale, but if you want a great radio at a reasonable price, lets talk. 


Mitch 
KD5EYN 

Here is Wayne’s response – one of the owners of the company, mind you!  An owner who actually keeps an eye on, and reads messages posted in just one of the various Elecraft e-mail reflectors.

Mitch,

Sorry to hear about the AM station so close to home. Ouch. 

Two things you may not have tried: (1) RX SHFT = 8.0, and (2) a broadcast-band filter external to the radio. We could easily design a notch filter for you that would take it out. If you’re interested, let me know. (No charge.)

73,
Wayne
N6KR

Now in turn, a little bit more detail from Mitch:

Hi Wayne, 


I have tried the shift and it helps a bit, but the signals are still present; with the preamp at 30db the audio is as if I am tuned to the station. On lower preamp settings it sounds a lot like loud static crashes. I finally realized the problem to its fullest extent when I set an AM radio at low volume where I could hear the programming relative to the noise on the KX3 audio – and BINGO. I have considered a filter, and have not completely ruled it out. But without trying one, I don’t know how much it might effect the receive capability. So sure, I’d love to have one to try and will gladly return it if it does not work. Also, I have really enjoyed the dual receive in split operations, and as I understand the shift negates that function at the moment. But I’m sure open to the filter. What more info do you need? Should I submit a support request? 


Thanks, 
Mitch 
KD5EYN 

Answer from Wayne:

Hi Mitch,

We’ll have the filter designed by tomorrow and enroute by Christmas. It’ll actually be a high-pass with a cutoff of 1750 kHz, built into a W2 sensor box.

73,
Wayne
N6KR

Oh my!  And for those of you in this hobby long enough, do you remember Heathkit’s famous tag line? “We will not let you fail.”? THIS is that philosophy brought to new heights.  You have to consider that sometimes, when a company makes a mistake, it can be due to unforeseen problems with suppliers, unforeseen problems with other 3rd party vendors, and sometimes problems of their own making. But when an owner of a company can and does make a difference for one of their customers?

Wow, Elecraft, wow!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

There aren’t that many modifications that you can do to the Elecraft K3. This is very different from the K2 as in my list I now have 138 different modifications for it. But Elecraft does have a few K3 enhancements and mods on their home page and here are two additional modifications that I have done to my K3.

Plug-in roofing filters on main RX board

The first one is to add a wideband LC-filter (roofing filter). The filter was inspired by ideas from W5DHM with three tuned sections at the IF frequency of 8.215 kHz. It is to the right in the image. It is not the best of filters, and probably compromises performance somewhat, most likely because of its low image rejection 30 kHz away. It has however served me well as a receiver filter for the latest version of K1JT’s software WSJT-X. That software processes a 4 kHz band for both the JT65 and JT9 digital modes, and the LC-filter has demonstrated to me the utility of having a wide roofing filter for reception of those modes. The filter also works well for listening to broadcast AM which was what W5DHM designed it for in the first place.

Back panel of the K3

The second modification allows for a connection to the P3 Panadapter without using the recommended KXV3A Interface. All that is needed for the P3 is simply a minicoax with proper terminations. On the underside of the main PCB it should have a plug that connects to the J66 connector (see page 10 in the KXV3 manual). In the other end it is soldered to a BNC connector on the back of the K3. I put mine in the hole reserved for the REF input, as I don’t have the K3EXREF External Reference Input option. The BNC connector was marked with a label that says “IF out” as seen in the image.

Both of these modifications are temporary, and as a matter of fact the last one was just replaced by a KXV3A after several years of service. I needed the KXV3A for the PR6-10 preamplifier. I also plan some day to replace the wideband LC-filter with either the KFL3A-6K 6 kHz AM/ESSB filter or the KFL3B-FM 13 kHz FM filter.

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!