Hi Guy,
Thanks for your well thought out and considered reply. The delay in
the IC-7700 is indeed causing me to carefully rethink my options.
Your tip about using it with the 756PROIII is indeed very useful and
thought provoking = thanks for that.

The K3 would land at my doorstep all charges paid at about $2,700,
which is about half the price of the IC-7700. (that includes two
filters and the general coverage option)

I have carefully looked at the specs of the K3 and had eMail exchanges
with Elecraft. The major disadvantage of the K3 is that it will not
tune in 9 Khz steps, a marvellous feature available on the Icoms, and
so necessary for MW DXer's. Also no LongWave, and I do like dabbling
with the LW NDB beacons during winter.

But as you say, it's low current draw, light weight and high specs
make it ideal for DXpeditions.

regards and 73's
John Plimmer, Montagu, Western Cape Province, South Africa
South 33 d 47 m 32 s, East 20 d 07 m 32 s
RX Icom IC-756 PRO III with MW mods
Drake SW8 & ERGO software
Sony 7600D, GE SRIII, Redsun RP2100
BW XCR 30, Sangean 803A.
Antenna's RF Systems DX 1 Pro Mk II, Datong AD-270
Kiwa MW Loop, PAORDT Roelof mini-whip
http://www.dxing.info/about/dxers/plimmer.dx

On Feb 20, 7:08*am, "Guy Atkins" wrote:
Hi John,

Maybe the delay of the IC-7700 to South Africa will be fortuitous for you?
It's giving you time to consider the Elecraft K3, I suspect!

I have followed this radio's development "from a distance", and it sounds
like the company is applying all the design lessons they learned with their
earlier, simpler models. It's great to see them giving FlexRadio a run for
the money... the competition is healthy and the radio enthusiast wins out.

I've read most of the eHam.net reviews, and these two tidbits caught my
attention:

"The receiver is as good as the ICOM 7800 with the dynamic rage being much
the same."

" It's also possible, as I did on Aruba, to hook up the IF OUTPUT to the
antenna input of the 756 Pro series, tune the latter to 8215 kHz, and use
the Pro as a bandscope (a pretty expensive approach, but it works -- thanks
to W0YK for that tip)."

What would customs and duty add to a K3 purchase if you were to buy a
fully-built one and had it imported? Perhaps the savings of the
"value-priced" K3 + shipping + customs would be enough to let you buy it AND
keep the 756 ProIII? That way you could use the ICOM's scope like was
described above (although the IC-7700 has a far better scope in terms of
zooming levels and resolution).

I'm sure the K3's 12VDC operation and reasonable size and weight are
attractive for DXpedition purposes.

73,

Guy Atkins
Puyallup, WA USAwww.perseus-sdr.blogspot.com

wrote in message

...





There's a new kid on the block with the most amazing high end specs
and
rave reviews from new owners on eHam
It's the new Elecraft K3, see
http://www.elecraft.com/news.htm
http://www.elecraft.com/K3/K3_specs.htm
http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/6673

The most amazing spec of this modestly priced radio (about US$1,850
with
extra filters) is its superb narrow spaced dynamic range. This spec is
supposed to make it a lot easier when you have our 9/10 khz MW splits,
when
say you are trying to get 1520 khz WWKB Buffalo N.Y. and 1521 khz
Saudi
Arabia is booming in next door. I can say from my own experience that
DXing
with my Icom IC-756PROIII is a hellava lot more convenient and easier
than
when I used to DX with my old Drake R8B.

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