[CQ-Contest] RX Heresy?

[steve.root at culligan4water.com]

Well I certainly can't speak for top ten contesters, but I will say that using the K3's at W0ZT's has been an interesting experience. For example, 160 meters on major contest weekends has all these empty spots and holes in the band that I didn't hear before. On the other hand, I've had people with lesser receivers yell "QRL!!!" at me too. DX contesting from the Upper MidWest (or "Under the Black Hole" as we refer to it) requires an ability to hear weak DX through a multitude of loud East Coast stations. The demands on a receiver are pretty serious. Now imagine that the K3 allows you to pull out 2 or 3 guys per hour. Over the course of a weekend that adds up to a significant improvement.

I guess I'd conclude that contesting is a game of small, incremental improvements and the K3 is definitely an improvement.

73 Steve K0SR

-----Original Message-----
From: Pete Smith [mailto:n4zr at contesting.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 07:46 AM
To: 'CQ Contest'
Subject: [CQ-Contest] RX Heresy?

I have watched with some amazement as the Elecraft K3 has seemingly taken over the top dog's spot among contest radios, both among the top ops and the rest of us.This impels me to wonder, though - how much does improved RX strong signal performance really improve your ability to score in contests? My suspicion (showing my going-in bias) is that most of us have long since developed responses to our receiving problems that tend to minimize the damage they do. Knowing when to abandon a run frequency, QSYing just a bit ("skootching"), riding the gain instead of using AGC, all of these devices have been useful since the dawn of time.And so the question - how much do serious, full-time, top-ten contesters feel that improve RX hardware has really improved their scoring ability, compared to other improvements in their stations over the years?-- 73, Pete N4ZRThe World Contest Station Database, updated daily at www.conteststations.comThe Reverse Beacon Network at http://reversebeacon.net, blog at reversebeacon.blogspot.com_______________________________________________CQ-Contest mailing listCQ-Contest at contesting.comhttp://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest