Hello all,
my K3 just arrived back from the Elecraft service where it was repaired and mainly completely upgraded. As I purchased my K3 early in 2008 and radio has never been upgraded or modified from that time so it was really neccessary. Now it is up to date with current production release, some strange issues are repaired and even more...
Second receiver KRX3A is installed with additional CW filters, new KBPF3A is installed too, KTCXO3-1 and K3EXREF is added also and mainly the newest KSYN3A synthesizers are installed. All is installed in both receivers, all is fully adjusted, tweaked and tested by Elecraft service guy. So I am able to come back on the air after months with somethink like the new K3S...!?
The shipping and repairing story is long and could be bothering so I will not talk so much about it over here. Shipping overseas is always nightmare and very dangerous. So I used double packaging. Inside of really big hard card box filled with huge foam padding was inserted the suitcase. The K3 was inside again loaded with foam padding.
The K3 luckily survived both overseas ways (sounds like that after turning radio ON...) even although the suitcase is ready to be scrapped after arrival!
The most important information and hint for readers! If You are looking for suitcase for Your radio then be very careful. Most of cheap suitcases are made just from pressed/moulded paper and covered by tiny (believe me... really tiny) aluminium foil. It looks like rugged box but it isn't!
My K3 had hard life on the way overseas...
Even also the padding inside of the cheap Chineese's "Alu boxes" are really tiny. Just few milimetres of the foam on the pressed/moulded paper cover can not provide enough protection for Your radio.
My K3 after arrival from the Elecraft, unboxed and removed from paddings. Still protected in plastic bag as the production released new radios.
Well finally the radio survived it and I am going to testing all of the new h/w, features, functions and tools. I decided to install K3EXREF because I have working Rubidium FE5680A unit. So I am planning to put my K3 on that clock refference in the future. Also I decided to install the KBPF3A general coverage BPF into both receivers as I like lowbands and I would like to play with 500/137kHz bands using my K3. In my case I have external antenna BNC antenna input used for second KRX3A receiver as I really like to have all receiving pathes separated on the BNC connctors.
Fully loaded K3 rear panel looks nice, isn't it? :)
I would like to thanks a lot to Rene, K6XW from Elecraft for his exceptional effort and personal attitude in order to repair and upgrade my K3. Also I would like to thanks to Martin, OK1RR for his help with latest fw/sw release and personal macros uploading to my K3.
I will post my experiences with "quite new" K3 radio after huge upgrade soon. I have to learn all of the features and functionalities a bit...
73 - Petr, OK1RP
