I just put my order in for a Elecraft K-3. Estimated delivery is end of
March/beginning of April. No money required for order. I ordered the 100
watt
version/sub rx/general coverage/auto tune. I'm not sure if I'll put it
together myself or have it factory assembled. I need to do some more research
on
the filters. There are spots for five and two of them will be taken up by
the 2.1 kHz filters for split SSB operation.
Now for the info I received:
All eham reviews (15 of them) have been 5.0. Pretty good!
>From the guys who responded to the reflector question.....
Rx is superb, excellent sensitivity, very quiet, easy to listen to, noise
blanker/dsp outstanding, adjacent strong signal no problem.
A/B tests with several other rigs including Pro, 1000MKV and several others
including K2 resulted in the K3 being the winner. More than one guy
mentioned that sometimes it seemed like there was no antenna attached to the
rig...
it was that quiet. In short, it is a "dream rx".
Tx...all were happy with the audio. Unsolicited reports of excellent audio
for users. VOX is easy to setup and stays stable.
Negative stuff. Pretty much what the word has been on the
street....Problems with software updates being a little flakey. Some of the
beta testers told
me that they are the guinea pigs for these updates and most of the bad stuff
is caught by them. However, the screwups are quickly rectified and there
are constant updates every several days, incorporating customer suggestions
for
new features and fixes. That's about it for the negatives, except the rit
offset is not in constant display. Word is that that fix is in the works.
Customer service is outstanding...that was mentioned time and time again and
the fact you can talk to the real people who make the rig and not customer
reps was mentioned quite often.
More info on the rig.....
NCJ (July-Aug, Sept-Oct), general review and RTTY use
Elecraft archives _http://www.elecraft.com/elist.html_
(http://www.elecraft.com/elist.html)
K3 WIKI _http://www.zerobeat.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page_
(http://www.zerobeat.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page)
Several well known contesters using the rig include W4ZV, N6TR, N4BP, W0YK.
All are happy with it with the exception of BP who was less than thrilled
with the software issue.
So there you have it. I must admit I put my order in before posting, since
I think if you do your research and are considering a new rig you'll go the
Elecraft route. I wanted to go ahead of today's pileup. I think it's hard to
beat $3000 (the price of the 100W rig with sub rx, auto tune, and general
coverage) for a rig of this perfomance. Filters of course are extra.
One of my 1000MKVs will be used for SO2R, the other for a backup. After 35
years of using Kenwood, Yaesu, and Icom I finally changed.
I hope you guys can use the info.
73 Bill K4XS/KH7XS
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