At the weekend the Mrs and I decided to go for a walk on the West Pennine Moors (just at the back of our house). The weather was fantastic for February and it seemed criminal to stay indoors even though we both had a few things to do at home.
Rather than just go for a nice walk as usual, I decided to grab my new rucksack and try out the Elecraft KX3 up in the hills without the horrible S7 noise at home. Surely the noise-floor would be massively lower up there compared to the shack?
Well an hour later, we sat down on top of the hillside between Rivington Pike and Winter Hill (IO83RP) and had a drink and a sandwich. We were looking out West to the sea and ultimately, America. I didn't have my SotaBeam Dual Bander with me, so I just plugged a length of wire from my Texsun PL680 into the KX3 and switched on.
There was total silence! I spun the dial on 40M and picked up some French amateurs contesting. Loads of them - too many to keep interested, so I switched to 20M and again, total silence! The S-Meter was showing no floor-noise whatsoever. There was no audible hiss and when I spun the dial, I hit upon two American guys having a casual chat and WOW, it was like they were sat next to us!
I was really pleased to hear such vividly clear communications without all the horrible noise that exists at home. It made me very pleased to have gone for the KX3. It's a superb receiver and I cannot wait to get my callsign and try to do some QRP DX'ing.
(Taken at IO83RO56MI)
Rivington Pike in the background. Winter Hill to the right (off pic)
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