Here’s Frandy/N1FJ making a CW contact with a KX3 on Dry Hill – W1/CR-003 on August 15th, 2012.
Yep, dueling KX3’s? No, not really. We brought them both along but only used one at a time. Actually Frandy is using mine at the moment, his is the one further to the left on our ‘rock solid’ operating table. All in all we made 21 QSO’s, on 40, 20 and 15 meter CW.
The outing was a shakedown cruise for our KX3’s and a test of a new segmented dipole. The dipole is for 20 and 40 meters. At the end of the 20 meter segment you there is a connection you can leave open for 20 meters or complete the connection for 40 meters. It’s actually a three band antenna; when configured for 40 meters it will also tune on 15 meters (third harmonic). The antenna is purposely built very light to minimize the weight supported by the kite pole we use to hold up the center. It was configured as an inverted ‘V’.
The KX3’s worked very well, both of them sporting our ‘Palm Paddle’ modification. The transceiver is easy to use, the tuner is fast and we worked the world (well, from CA to Germany) with our 12 watts. Coming from an 817 the KX3 has more power, built in ATU, built in keyer, superb filtering, NR and a much easier to use display and menu system. The FT-817 chalks up some high points with better audio output and more durable packaging. But as Frandy says, “that KX3 is a keeper!).
KX3 #1124 (mine) should be QRV from a few summits in NS soon – stay tuned!
Jim/KK1W