Meeting Interesting People, QRP WAS, and QRP DXCC

I’m very grateful for the blogs like Larry W2LJ’s in which he talks regularly about his operating activities and thoughts on ham radio in general. We get a real sense of the way that ham radio fits into Larry’s life from reading his regular posts. I do wish that this blog could be like that but mostly, if I don’t have a project that I’ve been working on about which I can post photographs and a description of the build, I don’t feel as if I have much to contribute. It’s odd really,  as I spent much of my working life being a communicator:

However,  I am an INTJ.  After a day spent DJ’ing and reaching out to people,  my social energy was all used up. I’d typically go home and veg after work.  No Hollywood night-life for me. As a semi-retiree, I have become quite reclusive; I think this is just my true nature. I only blog when I feel a particular urge or duty to do so. Sorry about that folks – please don’t look to this blog for regular updates. There are many other hams in the blogosphere who are much better at that – a few of them on my blogroll.

The next post with photos of a construction project will most likely be the next add-on I get for my K2.  The Part 15 AM broadcast band transmitter that I placed on eBay did sell, adding to the funds that I can use for future projects;  currently a KAT2 internal ATU for the K2 is looking like the most likely candidate.  However, I’m very good at practicing the art of delayed gratification (one reason I’m an early semi-retiree), so cannot say when I’ll be putting my order in with Elecraft.

In the meantime, I’ve been meeting some interesting hams, having fun with contests, and working to achieve QRP CW WAS.  As a rule, I’m not much of a rag-chewer.  Mike Rainey AA1TJ in an interview somewhere said that he looks at short QSO’s as the equivalent of hams giving each other high-fives.  I like that description.  While some may think of a brief exchange of names, signal reports, and basic station information as being somewhat perfunctory, I enjoy these kinds of QSO’s. They let me know that my station is getting out and although WSPR could do the same thing, a brief CW QSO requires some effort and input from me, and in putting in that effort I have, in a basic way, reached out and made contact with another operator; I’ve high-fived him.  Sometimes that’s all I need.

Occasionally during a QSO though, there is extra information exchanged that adds human interest and elevates it above the level of the quick high-five. Such a contact was the one I had with Gary N2ESE a few days ago. Gary and I first met on 20M a few weeks earlier in early December. I wrote in the log that he was running 5W to a 4 element something. I must have missed the copy on exactly what it was, but I’m forever grateful to guys with beams as they are the reason for quite a few of my QSO’s when band conditions are marginal. I was needing a QSL from NJ for my QRP CW WAS, so sent Gary my QSL, and received this fine-looking card back:

I’m wondering if I made an error copying him, because on the back of the card it says that he runs 75W, so perhaps I missed the 7.  Also from the card, I learned that his 4 ele beam is a Telrex.

Gary’s call rang a bell somewhere in the back of my head, but I couldn’t recall where I’d come across it. Then a little later, while reading John Shannon K3WWP’s online diary, I came across an entry in which he mentions his friend N2ESE. Bingo! I knew that Gary’s call had rung a bell somewhere. I’m a big fan of K3WWP and his ongoing streak of having at least 1 QRP CW QSO a day, which has lasted over 17 years now. He has other streaks, such as a milliwatt streak, but the main one is the oldest – quite impressive.

I haven’t yet had the pleasure of QSO’ing with K3WWP but I hope to one day. In the meantime, a QSO with someone who has had over 100 QSO’s with John, as Gary told me, helped make the QRP world feel a little smaller, would be the best way to describe it, I guess – something to do with that six degrees of separation thing. During our QSO, Gary told me that he has his own QRP streak going, in which he has had at least 2 QRP CW QSO’s a day for over 5 years now.  2 QSO’s a day for 5 years is 1825 QSO’s – not a hard figure to rack up, but the striking thing about Gary’s achievement is the fact that he is on the air every single day without missing a beat. Nice work Gary – thanks for the QSO, and I hope we meet on the bands again soon.

AA0RQ is someone I’ve  QSO’ed with on 14060 in the mornings a few times now.  When it’s not too cloudy, he runs his 3 watt signal from 100% solar power, which leads me to think that he must be running direct from the panel without a battery.  I like the idea that when I talk to him and he says that he is solar, his transmitter is directly powered from the sun – not from a battery that has been charged by the sun. It’s just one little detail that adds interest to our QSO’s.  Bill also runs an experimental QRPp beacon on 10133.57 kHz which is solar powered in the day. More details on his QRZ page.

I’ve also been dabbling in contesting – not for seriously competitive purposes, but more for the fun of making a number of casual contacts with little no conversational commitment – kind of the radio equivalent of sleeping around, I suppose The ARRL 10M contest gave me quite a few states for my QRP CW WAS, and the NAQP this last Saturday got me to within one state of achieving my goal. All I need now is WV, which shouldn’t take too long. The thing I liked most about NAQP was that I got the 2 states I thought would be the hardest – DE and RI.

I’m not a very competitive person and have never previously been interested in awards. However, with my new-found zeal for ham radio and the current preoccupation with CW, I thought that reaching both QRP CW WAS and QRP CW DXCC would at least give me some kind of baseline of achievement. I want to be able to say that I have worked all states and 100 DXCC entities with 5W of CW.  For the QRP version of DXCC, ARRL don’t require that you submit proof – merely to list your QSO’s, so after some thought,  I don’t think I’ll apply for that.  Instead, I’ll apply for the regular DXCC award. I’ll know that it was achieved with just 5W and that’s what matters to me.

I’ve set my own confirmation criteria for WAS, and that is that I won’t claim a QRP QSO for WAS until I have the physical QSL in my hand.  I will most likely collect the physical QSL’s for DXCC too – at least for the first 100, and then possibly for notable entities after that. Mind you, by then, I might be living my dream of living full-time in an RV in which case, I won’t be looking to collect extra stuff. More on that at some point in the future if it ever materializes.

My current QRP CW WAS standing is 42 states confirmed with QSL-in-hand. QSl’s from 7 states are (hopefully) in the mail or will be soon. I just need a QSO with someone in WV. Can anyone help me out? Of the 7 states I am awaiting confirmation, if the QSL’s don’t materialize, I have a few insurance QSO’s to lean on, though I’ll  be looking for insurance QSO’s with a few states, just in case

I’m getting close

Living With The K2

I didn’t know what else to call this post.  Unlike many of the other blogs that I eagerly follow, I usually only blog when I’m building something. I’m a big fan of the blogs that report on day to day operating, with information on upcoming events and contests as well as news on new kits and products , like those by Larry W2LJ and John AE5X. That’s not my modus operandi here though, so you’ll have to excuse me if I go for long periods with no updates.

Living with the K2 is exactly what I’ve been doing for the last month,  and it’s been grand.  It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty close.  Although it’s not the do-it-all-in-one-small-box that my FT-817 was, it does the things I want it to do, which includes a few things the 817 didn’t do.   No need for details here;  the internet is already full of information about both these rigs.

With the help of the K2,  I’ve taken part in the ARRL 10M contest  – 147 QSO’s including the pleasure of working John AE5X and TJ W0EA, as well as various smaller sprints. I came first in the 6 area division in the last NAQCC sprint although to be fair, it only took 5 QSO’s – we really need more participation from California stations. The guys back east have a lot more competition so I’m not exactly sure why there is less participation here. Perhaps we’re all busy BBQ’ing on the beach or something……..(insert your own partial myth about California life here).

I’ve been on the air quite a lot which is a good thing, as building the K2 satiated my desire for building, at least for a little while; I haven’t felt the urge to build anything else since finishing it. However, there will be a few additions to the K2, so in order to help fund them, I placed my Part 15 AM transmitter on eBay.  As of this morning, the bidding is up to $103.50, which will help to fund the growth of the QRP station at AA7EE

After a QSO the other day with Rick AA4W, we had an e-mail exchange in which he asked me what I thought of my K2.  I’ve said much of this here before, but it does sum up what I think of it so far.  Here’s what I told Rick:

“There are only 2 things that are less than perfect in my estimation, and neither of them are anywhere close to being deal-breakers. They are:

1)    Due to the number of bits in the D/A conversion, as you step through the bandwidth settings of the crystal filter when listening to a signal, the sidetone of the received signal varies very slightly. No matter how carefully you adjust the filter settings, you’d have to be very lucky to be able to eliminate this variation completely. With care and luck, my variation seems to be no more than 10-15Hz between settings. It has to do with the way the DC voltage applied to the BFO varactor is generated by the D/A convertor.  Apparently, they could have used more bits, but this would have increased the cost.

2)    On comparing the sound of the receiver to that in my Norcal 2N2, there is not as much of a peak in the center of the audio passband.  I’m assuming this has to do with the fact that the 2N2 is an exclusively CW rig, while the K2 audio stages had to be designed to pass the wider bandwidth of an SSB signal. From what I’ve read, the KAF2 audio filter, which is a lowpass filter add-on for the K2, is fairly gentle in it’s effect. The DSP option is supposed to work quite well, but nevertheless, there are still some digital artifacts when listening to CW. I am going to try a SCAF – probably the NESCAF, which seems to work well – and has the advantage that it helps a lot in cutting down electrical noise too – and all for just $31.  The only problem is that it is external to the K2, and I really wanted a filter option that was internal.  Incidentally, John K3WWP told me that he loves the DSP in his K2. He said that it is very effective at cutting down the electrical interference that he suffers from at his QTH.

      By the way, if you have the most recent edition of “The Complete DX’er” by W9KNI, he has some very good things to say about his K2.  He likes the relatively unprocessed sound of it, as compared to the more processed sound of the signals as heard on commercial rigs that use multiple conversion in their receivers. You’ll appreciate this too. Someone who comes from a background of only ever having listened on commercially-produced receivers with multiple conversion and much more complex circuitry than the K2 might mistake it’s cleaner sound for lesser performance which of course, it is not.”

The art of delayed self-gratification that I seem to be quite good at has kicked in and I’m waiting a bit longer to see what the first additions to the K2 will be. A KAT2 internal ATU will definitely be one of them.  I would like some audio filtering and I’m trying to decide between an external NEScaf, or the internal KAF2 or KDSP2 modules.

In the meantime, I’m just 4 states away from QRP CW WAS, and quite a lot of countries short of QRP CW DXCC, so there’s plenty to be working on – as long as the A index comes down soon

The 3rd and Final Stage Of K2 Assembly

The K2 has been finished for about 3 weeks and it’s time I made the post concerning the final stage of assembly. After completing the second stage and gaining a working receiver on 40M, the majority of the work was done. At this point it felt as if I was about 3/4 of the way through, and I think I probably was. The final basic  K2 consists of 3 boards – the front panel board which you can’t see in this photo, as it’s obscured by the control board which sits behind it, and the RF board. All boards are now fully populated with the exception of the occasional jumper or connector here and there which are reserved for extra options. The on-board frequency counter is shown plugged into the test point that reads the BFO frequency – useful in regular operation if you want to adjust the filter settings:

Although I know my own toroids don’t look as pretty as the pre-wound ones from Mychael AA3WF would have,  I’m getting better at winding them, and they don’t look too bad at all.  There are many examples of attention to detail  in this kit. One of them is that when you pull the toroid leads tight and then solder them, the toroids are actually straight on the board. Often in kits, the holes for toroid leads are placed such that when you pull the leads through and solder them, they are skewed just a little. It’s a small point, but it makes boards look a bit messy. Hats off to Elecraft for helping to line my toroids up in nice neat rows:

A view from above:

Here’s the view from underneath. Note the nuts securing the 2 PA transistors to the case:

The 2 chassis pieces that I received for the back of the transceiver had already had the green masking tape removed. That was a little disappointing, as I wanted to leave the tape in place over the holes that are currently unused.  I’m sure Elecraft would have replaced them for me but it didn’t seem worth contacting them about. I’ll use some regular masking tape:

What a beaut!  -

Everything about the K2 seems to be working the way it should. Sensitivity and handling of strong signals seem fine.  I plan to measure the minimum discernible signal at some point when I get a calibrated signal source. There are only 2 things that are not quite as perfect as I’d like then (though neither are deal-breakers):

Firstly, due to the way that the transceiver handles the D-A conversion, when stepping through the filters, the BFO is not on precisely the same frequency for each setting of the filter.  My filter settings are (nominally) 1.5K, 1K, 700Hz and 350Hz (though I understand the real bandwidths are narrower in practice). When receiving a signal and stepping through the bandwidths, the signal is at the same pitch except when the 350Hz filter is selected, when it lowers in pitch about 15 – 20 Hz. It’s not a lot, but to someone like me who is sensitive to pitch, it’s a bit annoying.  No matter how hard I try to adjust the BFO frequency, I cannot get it any closer. I understand this is due to the number of bits in the D-A convertor and was one of those compromise decisions that often have to be made during product development.

The other thing is not really an issue. It’s more of an indicator of how used I get to certain receivers and how I often am very picky about how I want my radios to operate. I suspect I’m not the only operator who wants his rig to operate exactly the way he wants it to so that it “fits like a glove”.  On comparing the K2 receiver to the Norcal 2N2 receiver, I notice 2 things. Firstly, the rushing background band noise seems to be pushed to a lower level in the background by the 2N2′s filtering.  It’s difficult to make a direct comparison though, as I don’t know the exact bandwidth of the crystal filters in the 2N2 and the K2  – this would be something worth measuring.  The K2 has more audio output power, so part of it may also be that I simply have the AF gain turned higher on the K2, creating the illusion of more rushing background noise.  On some very weak signals, I find that the 2N2 has a very slight edge.  I don’t think this is a sensitivity issue; I think it has more to do with the audio filtering – the audio on the 2N2 seems to peak more sharply at a fairly specific frequency (I set up all my rigs for a 500Hz sidetone), while the K2 doesn’t have this extra peak. My guess is that the audio circuitry on the 2N2 is tailored more specifically to CW, as it is a CW-only rig. The K2′s audio chain needs to accommodate wider SSB signals so needs to be fairly flat with a passband of a few KHz.  So I think the next step is to figure out some kind of extra audio filtering for the K2 – perhaps a KAF2 or the DSP option?

These 2 small points aside,  I’m happy with my K2 so far. Sure, it’s fun to compare figures and performance characteristics, but there is another very important factor that determines how useful a transceiver will be to the operator, and that is the feature-set and how easily accessible those functions are. No complaints in that regard yet.  Considering the relatively small size of the front panel and the fact that each button controls 2 different functions, Elecraft have made the most often-needed functions the easiest to access. I found it straightforward figuring out how to record and playback the keyer memories, as well as using the Fast-Play function, by which you can playback certain keyer memories with a single button push (great for contest operating).  Use of the dual VFO’s and operating split was intuitive – even for this guy who is fairly new to the world of operating split-frequency on HF.

In the few weeks since having it, I’ve worked T2T, YN7SU, HA3UU, JE4JPQ, JF1RWZ, PA0LEG, CO8WZ, 7N1PRD, BD4FM, CA2LQA, HL2DC, JE2UFF, DK1AX, CO6RD, PV8ADI, ZP6CW, ZP9MCE, GW4EVL, PJ2/W8WTS, C6ATA, JF1SQC, JR3NZ, JA6WFM, ZM1A, UA0ZAM, JF1NSD, JA7FTR, XE1CT, XE2B, JA5FDJ, PW7T, ZS4TX, PV0F, LS1D, C5A, HK1N, LW5EE, XE2AI, HK1R, JR1MQT, LU8YE, LT1F, VK4KW, JA1KGW and PY3ED. Oh – and a bunch of Stateside stations too

I think this rig is a keeper.  I’m already contemplating either the audio filter or DSP filter, the QRP internal tuner, the 160M option and (shock horror) perhaps also the SSB option

Second Stage Of K2 Assembly Completed

I actually completed all 3 stages of K2 assembly 5 days after finishing the first stage, and about 9 or 10 days after beginning the assembly, which included a couple of days off in the middle. However, as soon as I’d finished building it I wanted some time to relax, play with my new radio, and generally recharge my batteries, hence the lack of a timely follow-up post.  Sometimes I temporarily lose my urge to communicate.  Sorry about that.

At the end of this post, I mentioned how just one part was missing from the kit – a 20-pin connector that connects the front panel board to the main RF board.  It only took a day to arrive so while waiting, I decided to make the best use of my time by pre-winding the toroids.  I had originally planned to buy the pre-wound toroid kit from Mychael AA3WF, reasoning that if I ever wanted to sell my K2, I’d want really great-looking toroids in it. When push came to shove however, budget started becoming very important, so I decided to wind my own and was glad I did. They don’t look quite as nice as Mychael’s, but I think they’re not half-bad. Here are 3 of them.  The one with the yellow core is the VCO coil and is shown with just one winding (I hadn’t wound the secondary at this point).  You can also see the 2.1mm crochet hook I used to pull the windings through the cores.  It’s a method I learned from Jim K8IQY and I find that it helps in keeping the windings fairly close to the core:

This second stage of assembly,  after which you have a working receiver on 40M,  is lengthy. There are a lot of resistors and capacitors to install and as many builders before me have commented, the only way to deal with it is to just get on with it.  For relatively inexperienced builders, this stage could be a bit of a nail-biter, as you have so many parts to install before getting any feedback on whether the circuits you’re building do indeed work. However, if you have a reasonable amount of experience, the manual is so detailed, and entire assembly so well thought-out and described that you just know you’ll either end up with a working rig, or Elecraft will help you correct any mistakes made during assembly.

An advantage to building such a late model K2 is that all the mods, such as the thermistor board to stabilize the VFO further,  the few extra components to shape the keying waveform, and the 2 diodes to improve the handling in the presence of very strong local signals on nearby frequencies, are included. There’s only one little thing that slightly bugged my detail-obsessed mind, and that was that some of the mods look a little messy to me.  It’s probably unrealistic to expect the board layout to be revised for every single mod after the K2 hit the market, but the board is of such high quality and looks so good, that a few components soldered at odd angles on the underside of the board offend my over-developed sensibilities. Luckily, I got over it pretty fast. The components that are either horizontal or vertical are part of the original design while the ones that look patched on afterwards are, well, patched on afterwards.  In the real world, I’m sure that the economics wouldn’t allow having the board layout revised again for these small changes:

In one sign that through-hole components are becoming harder to find, to the left of the above picture in the middle, you can see D36, which is now an SMT part on a small board, modded to fit the main PCB. I feel a little sad at the slow passing of through-hole technology, as not everyone is comfortable with SMT construction and so the building of your own rig will be an experience available to fewer people in the future. Just under D36 is L33 which was originally a choke with axial leads. As I understand it, using a toroidally-wound component for this part and mounting it on the underside of the board gave greater suppression of the opposite sideband in SSB mode. It is wound from fine wire and there’s no need to worry – it comes already wound, though you do have to be very careful with the leads when installing it.

Another view of this part of the underside of the main RF board:

The entire underside of the main board after this second stage of assembly. Near the left side of the board about 2/3 of the way down, you can see the outlines where the 2 PA transistors will be installed in the 3rd and final stage of construction:

At this point, the majority of the circuitry has been built, and that is quite apparent in the following views. The length of mini co-ax connects the built-in frequency counter to one of 3 test points on the board. The K2, as you probably know, has a built-in DVM and frequency counter to assist in building and aligning the radio:

A close-up of the PLL upgrade board that increases the stability of the VFO. It’s the light-brown vertical board just to the left of the crystal:

Here’s the 5 pole variable bandwidth crystal filter. I did a slightly less-neat-than-normal job of soldering the ground leads to the crystal cases. The crystal nearest the front is the messiest-looking. These kind of things really bug me but it’s a perfectly serviceable joint, so I pulled myself together and got over it. In this picture, you can also see the crystals for the second, fixed bandwidth crystal filter and to the left of them (and slightly out of focus), the other SMT part that has been substituted for the original through-hole part. In this case, it’s U12, an MC1350 IC which you can see installed on a small PCB that solders in to the holes for the original DIP part:

This wider shot also shows the 2 BFO crystals. The manual notes that one lead from one of the BFO crystals needs to be folded over and soldered particularly close to the board in order to prevent fouling a rubber bumper that will be placed over it in a subsequent step.  I found that by pre-cutting the lead so that it didn’t quite poke out of the PCB underside and applying solder so that it filled the plated-through hole but didn’t spill over onto the pad, I ended up with a nice flat surface on which to lay the rubber bumper for L33 (the BFO inductor). If you’ve built a K2 before, this will make sense to you. If not – it will become clear when you get to that point in the instructions.

Aww what the heck, here’s another very similar shot. In the background is the control board, and underneath the processor chip, you can see the crystal and associated trimcap that should be adjusted to exactly 4MHz so that the frequency display reads accurately. The manual tells you how to do it – you don’t need any extra test equipment:

This shot shows the VCO inductor. It’s the toroid wound on a yellow core to the right of the picture:

Oh – and the receiver? Well, it seemed to be working well on 40M.  I’ve read blogs from some builders who after a fairly lengthy period of assembly, were having such a blast listening to 40M on their K2′s that they gave themselves a break before continuing. I don’t remember exactly, but I think I had a short break of maybe a day, while entertaining company.  As I had been several months without any capability on the upper HF bands, I wanted to forge on so that I could listen to the higher bands and catch some sunspot action.

In the next post, I’ll show some pictures of the completed basic K2 and share my impressions so far.

The 2011 Zombie Shuffle

This post is rather late coming, but better late than never. I’ve been busy building a K2 which I finished on Friday.  I owe you at least one more blog post on the building of the K2 but after finishing it, was a bit wiped out and just wanted to use it and also chill out a bit and regain some of my sleep. I still haven’t regained the mojo required to make the remaining K2 posts but that will happen at some point.

This will be a short post, but I just added some text to a photo I took of my operating set-up for the 2011 Zombie Shuffle.  Rem K6BBQ is making a video of his operation in this wonderfully fun event and asked if I had a photo I could contribute. After taking it, I figured I could also send it to NA5N for the Zombie Shuffle web page, and post it here too. Might as well get some mileage from it   I hadn’t yet built the K2 when the Zombie Shuffle was happening, so this picture is a little innacurate, but it’s more of an “in the spirit of things” shot than an accurate record of my station set-up.

My assistant CW op, Chloe-Rug, also known as Rug, Ruggie or “The Rugster” is also pictured. She really comes into her own on Hallowe’en!

Thanks to Paul NA5N and Jan N0QT for putting together such a fun event. Some people even operated from cemeteries. I’m already thinking of ideas for places to operate from next year.

First Stage Of K2 Building Completed – More Pictures

The missing part arrived from Elecraft yesterday (the day after I called).  The fact that I live just 50 miles from them helps in getting things delivered swiftly. The part was a 20-pin connector for connecting the main board to the front panel board. Once that was installed, it didn’t take long to partially assemble the case and plug the completed front panel and control boards into the RF board – which at this stage had just the DC power, latching relays and the I/O controller circuits installed. Before performing testing on this stage of the build, I had to install the bail on the base of the case – a procedure which some builders have had trouble with.  Following the procedure in the manual requires you to compress the bail which, if you have a vice, can probably be accomplished without too much bother, but if like me, you’re trying to do it with your hands, could be quite difficult.  It was in my case, at least.

This is what we’re trying to accomplish:

The method I used, which was adapted from one I found described on the Elecraft reflector, was to install one of the oval feet and place one end of the tilt bail in it. Then I rummaged around in the junk box and found a machine screw that fitted through one of the holes in the other foot but was longer than the supplied screws. I installed this screw through one of the holes in the remaining oval foot, but only screwed the nut on a little, allowing me to lift the foot enough to get the end of the tilt bail underneath it (you do have to compress the tilt bail a bit but nowhere near as much as you would if you had followed the procedure in the manual). Then I installed a regular length screw and nut in the other hole and screwed it down fairly tight. The next step was to replace the long screw and nut with the supplied (shorter) screw and nut and screw it all down tightly.

The first IC to be installed on the main board (called the RF board) is U1, the I/O controller. It controls all the latching relays for the micro-controller, as well as other input and output functions.  You can see it here, flanked by some of the latching relays:

A similar view:

The control board plugged into the main (RF) board:

A view from above:

It passed all the tests. The band changing relays work. The display does too, as do the circuits that drive the signal strength bar-graph LED meter. I can twist the tuning knob and the frequency readout counts correctly. The keyer and keyer memory work and sound great. It even looks great from the front. We know, of course, that at this point it is a gutless wonder; it really needs a synthesized VFO, as well as transmitter and receiver circuits. As gratifying as it is to play with it at this stage, the result of the next stage will be to have a working receiver on 40M.  I’ll talk to you next when I’m at that point!

Getting Started With Building The K2

I’ve been wanting to build an Elecraft K2 for several years now, but the desire has been getting stronger, until maybe a year or so ago when I started seeing it as the logical endpoint in a progression that has included the Norcal 2N2/40, the Fort Tuthill 80 and the CC-series of transceivers (which is ongoing, as we are still in beta-testing.)  At some point I realized that if I could successfully put all these kits together, there was no reason I couldn’t build a K2 as well.  If you can solder pretty well, can identify parts, and can follow written instructions, you can put a kit together.

A number of people have asked why I would consider a K2, now that the KX3 is about to be released. The answer is that I wanted to build myself a multiband full-featured HF rig from a kit at the component level, which I wouldn’t be able to do with the KX3. The K2 has been around a long time now – something like 13 years. It doesn’t have the cutting edge SDR technology that the KX3 will have, but it’s still a solid performer and very capable. If you want to build a full-featured HF rig from a kit containing individual components (as opposed to modules that you connect together), the K2 is the only choice out there. I had no problem with the fact that the K2 has no direct competition in the kit world, as from everything I’ve read, it seems to be such a great-performing transceiver – especially for the QRP CW enthusiast.

I’d been umming and aahing about ordering the K2 for a while and although the plan was to wait until the new year, the recent increased sunspot activity and excellent propagation on the upper HF bands prompted me to hurry up so that I can get in on a bit of the DX action too (as my current station consists just of 3 monoband QRP rigs on 80, 40 and 20M).

I ordered the basic version of the K2 (no options) online last Sunday evening. They shipped it on Monday, and the $12 Priority Mail option got it to my door the very next day, as I only live about 50 miles from Elecraft.

I know that the K2 has been extensively documented over the years on many blogs and websites, but allow me the obligatory “I just opened the box” shot:

I’m not going to go into great detail about the K2 kit as that has been done on so many other websites over the years, but I will offer a few of my thoughts and share a little of my experience.

Documentation is great. The manual is a lot like I imagine one of the old Heathkit manuals would have been like – very detailed with clear, step-by-step instructions. For the experienced builder, some of the descriptions and suggestions on how to install components will not be needed, but it’s definitely a good thing to have all that information there. In fact, I found that some of Elecraft’s suggested methods for mounting components differed from my preferred practices, in which case I opted for my way. More on that in the next blog-post.

There are 3 boards in the basic K2, the control board, the front panel board, and the RF board. The first board to be assembled was the control board; the brains of the transceiver:

You can see the multi-pin connectors at the bottom of the board that are used for all inter-board connections in the K2. That represents one big difference from the Heathkit days – no complex wiring to route around the inside of the enclosure. Not only does it simplify construction, but it must contribute a great deal to reliability too. On the reverse side of this board, you can see the extra caps that have been added (as recommended in the manual) to improve the keying waveform:

The control board wasn’t particularly exciting to build – just a board that needed filling with components.  However, the next stage – the assembly of the front panel board, felt a lot more engaging, as I got to slowly see the front panel of my new transceiver take shape:

To aid in making sure that all switches are mounted at the same height above the board, Elecraft include a really neat little spacer tool that you place underneath the switches before soldering them to the board. This ensures that all the switch buttons protrude an equal amount from the front panel to give a nice, uniform appearance.  A small PCB is supplied for constructing an RF probe to help with alignment. Attached to this PCB are two small strips of board that are broken off to make the switch spacers. The manual instructs the builder to snap the protrusions at 4 points as indicated in the manual, to make 4 spacers.  As well as being used to set the switch heights, the spacers are used later to set the exact height above the board of the LCD backlight. Although not mentioned in the manual, I found that it would be easier if I initially broke the PCB at only 2 points, to make 2 long spacers for setting the switch heights. This way, each spacer could fit under 2 switches at a time.  On reaching the stage where I installed the LCD backlight, I snapped each spacer in half to get the 4 spacers required for setting the height of the backlight.

I also want to talk about soldering, but first of all, another view of the front panel board just for the heck of it:

The back of the front panel board (with the front panel attached):

When installing the encoder, Elecraft recommend that the 4 wires that attach to the encoder are wrapped around the connection posts before being soldered. I didn’t do this because I figured that if the wires were wrapped around the terminal posts, it would increase the chances of a short between the posts on the encoder. The other reason was that it felt like overkill to me.  While I like to make solid electrical connections, I also like to plan for the possibility that I might need to disassemble parts of the transceiver in the future.  Here’s how I made the connections to the encoder:

If I ever need to de-solder the encoder, all I have to do is hold the iron to each post and move the wire away with a small screwdriver – or wick the solder away with de-soldering braid.  Job done – and personally, I think it looks neater than if the wires were wrapped around the posts.

While I’m on  the subject of soldering, take a look at how I soldered the IC to the left of the encoder. I’m not claiming that it’s the neatest or prettiest soldering job in the world. I’m still trying to find a pair of flush cutters that will cut a wire completely cleanly and horizontally, without leaving a bevelled edge on the wire. Does such a pair exist? If I have to spend a lot of money to get such a pair I’ll do it, as I’d like to have my PCB’s look neater if possible. Anyway, what I wanted to point out is the fact that I have filled the plated-through holes with solder but have not allowed the solder to build up on top of the board. Many people when soldering boards with plated-through holes like an accumulation of solder on top of the board, and it is just not necessary. Depending on your personal taste, I can see that it might possibly make your joints look nicer to have a little build-up of nice shiny solder around the wire on top of the board. Thing is, if you ever have to remove a part from the board in order to replace it, that’s a whole lot more solder you have to suck up or wick away with desoldering braid.

I think one of the reasons folk often put more solder than is necessary on joints is to “make sure” that it’s a good connection, and if they can’t see solder on a joint because it’s in the hole, they perhaps think that it’s not there, so they put a little more on top “just to make sure”. It’s kind of like putting one sugar in your coffee, and then adding an extra one (actually, I’m not sure that it is, but I’m feeling a bit sleepy and am in stream-of-consciousness mode). If you’re dealing with plated-through holes, all you need do to make an excellent connection is make sure both the tinned pad on the board and the component lead are hot so that the solder will melt onto them, then hold the solder close to the top of the hole and experience a wonderful moment of zen as you see the solder wick down by capillary action into the hole. If you use a nice thin solder (I use .02″) then you’ll be able to apply just the right amount to get the job done. If you’re fairly new at soldering, allow me to give you a tip. Once you’ve made sure the tip of your iron is clean (I wipe mine before every joint, unless I’m soldering several in a row one straight after the other), then a great way to ensure maximum heat transfer from the iron to the pad and component lead is to melt a very small amount of solder onto the iron. The solder melts, makes contact with the iron, pad and lead all at once, and you’ll notice the solder suddenly wicking down into the hole and making a perfect joint. Bingo. It’s a beautiful thing!

Incidentally, if you’re soldering on a board that is single-sided without plated-through holes, then you do need a little fillet of solder on top of the board.

EDIT:  I just read a short essay on soldering on the Elecraft site in which “Dr Solder” at Weller says that you should never have a solder joint in which the hole is slightly under-filled, leading to a dimple in the hole. This is what many of my joints in the above photo are like. Hmmm…..now I’m wondering if I should have put just a touch more solder on those joints.  I think I’ll leave them as they are and only resolder them if they are problematic.  I have a sneaky feeling they’ll be fine though.

Here’s what that front panel board with the front panel attached looks like from the front:

It’s really gratifying seeing the transceiver slowly take shape. The whole process of putting this together has given me even more respect for folk who put kits like this together – or who design any product like this.  So far, almost every component has fitted the corresponding holes on the board exactly – and with the rate at which these things change, it’s something of a feat to make a kit available – and have it still available for purchase 13 years later. Every single fastener, spacer, enclosure piece – they are all part of a whole, and it takes a great deal of creativity and engineering experience to fashion a product like this.

The next step was to assemble the DC and control circuits on the main board so that the transceiver case could be assembled and all the boards plugged into each other to ensure the correct operation of the control circuitry, before proceeding with the build of the receiver and transmitter circuits. I got very close to completing this step when I came across my first missing part, and kicked myself for not doing a complete inventory earlier.  I had performed an inventory of the control board and front panel board parts, as well as the bag of miscellaneous parts. On looking at the sheer number of parts in the bags for the RF (main) board, I decided to wing it and hope there was nothing missing, which there was – a 20-pin connector for mating the main RF board to the front panel board, a rather essential part.

At this point, it was late on Sunday evening, so I decided to conduct a complete inventory of all remaining parts so that when I called Elecraft in the morning, I could put in one order for all the missing parts.  As it happened, that was the only part that was missing. Only one missing thing out of many hundreds is pretty good. There was one other part which, although present, I wasn’t completely happy with, and that was the main tuning knob. I’m fine with the weight, feel and look of it, but the machining of the one I received was a little substandard; one of the holes for the set screws had a very ragged edge, and the knob looked like it had bumped up against some hard object or sharp edges, as there were a number of marks on the side. It wasn’t terrible but compared to the high quality of everything else in the kit, it looked a bit shabby. Madeleine at Elecraft was very helpful and suggested that they send me another tuning knob.  I may end up getting a different knob, but would like to start out with the stock one.  I’ve spoken to Madeleine over at Elecraft a number of times now and she’s great. It’s a real pleasure to call a company and have my phone call taken by someone who is articulate, friendly, and communicative.

So I spent part of yesterday taking pictures of the progress so far and writing this blog-post.  Later today when the 20-pin connector arrives, I’ll finish off the DC and control circuits, assemble the enclosure, plug the boards together, and run the first tests. Fingers crossed – hope there’s no blue flash or whiff of smoke

Buying and Selling Stuff – and Meeting People

I’ve been selling and giving away things in fits and starts for about 10 years now.  The first big downsize was in 2001 when I moved from a 3 bedroom house in the hills above Los Angeles to a 1 bedroom apartment in Hollywood. Many large pieces of furniture were shed in that move, but I still managed to cram a lot of stuff into that apartment in the slightly funky end of Hollywood across from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Then a move in 2008 to San Francisco, where you get less apartment for the same money, necessitated the shedding of still more belongings. Successive moves from San Francisco to a studio in Oakland, and then to a room in a lovely old house also in Oakland meant even more downsizing, and opportunities to turn all the expensive gear I’d been accumulating while I was making money, back into cash.  I figured that as much as I enjoyed photography, I didn’t really need the set of pro-level portable lighting made by German company Hensel, so I sold it to an Australian photographer who was visiting the Bay Area and saw my ad on Craigslist. That put some very welcome cash into the coffers and freed up some space. While testing out the lighting gear, we set up an impromptu photo shoot outside on the street and he shot one of my neighbors, a young aspiring hip-hop artist, who was very happy to get pro-quality promotional photos taken for free while the buyer was making sure my lights performed well (they did.)

Buying things and selling things.

Our lives go through many changes, and in the course of these changes we acquire and shed belongings. I think that it’s important to constantly take stock of our “stuff” to see what what we need and what is merely taking up space and not serving us. In the course of selling things, I’ve met some really interesting people.  When I’ve owned and taken care of my possessions, it’s gratifying to pass them on to people who will also look after them and get good use from them. A few months ago I sold my FT-817 to Frank KA8SYV. Frank’s a bit of a tinkerer and home-brewer, and we talked on the phone about our home-made construction projects.  He told me about an indoor loop he had constructed, the performance of which he was very impressed with.  He has a curious and active mind, and I remember thinking to myself that it felt good to be selling my FT-817 to him. We’ve spoken on the phone a couple of times since then and it’s always a pleasure. Another thing about Frank – he has just about the coolest QRZ profile picture I’ve ever seen (which he has now turned into a QSL card.)  Get over to his QRZ page and take a look for yourself.

More recently, I sold a W4RT One-Touch Tune for the FT-817 to a gentleman through the FT-817 Yahoo Group and a set of Mountain Ops cases for the FT-817 and LDSG Z11 Tuner to Jim KB0JTC.  Jim’s been interested in getting a set of these for his FT-817 and LDG tuner for a while and, as Mountain Ops have been out of business for years, they’re not easy to come by.  Although Jim owns a slightly later model of LDG tuner, he already has a plan on how to make his tuner fit the Mountain Ops case and I can tell that he’s going to get some good use out of the TacPacks and wraps.

I have a couple of items listed on my local Craigslist too, a digital calibration target, which is useful for setting your white balance in the field, rather than doing it after the fact, and a Tamrac Expedition 5 camera backpack:

This backpack is in great condition – no tears or damage. I think a local sale will be better, as the cost of shipping might not make it worthwhile to a buyer. I’m asking $70 for it, but might let it go for $65 to an online buyer, provided packing and shipping is paid for in full:

This backpack will hold a DSLR with lens attached, as well as several accessories. All the original dividers  come with it, which can be configured to accommodate a wide variety of storage needs.  The backpack fits snugly on your back and makes carrying while protecting your camera gear quite easy.

My main motivation in selling this stuff has been to help me purchase a K2. While the funds raised will only be a fraction of the money needed, it will be enough to push me over the psychological barrier and get me to the point where I can click on that purchase button.

In fact, it did the trick. Early yesterday morning I went to the Elecraft site and purchased a K2. I ordered it shipped via USPS Priority Mail and because I live only 54 miles from Elecraft, it is scheduled for delivery later today (Tuesday).

Thank you Frank and Jim for helping set me on the path to another chapter in the odyssey of my QRP life, and I’m glad that the need to sell some of my stuff caused our paths to cross!

The N0XAS PicoKeyer

I had a very welcome surprise last week when the mailman handed me a package. I was a bit perplexed as I hadn’t ordered anything recently, so wasn’t expecting anything. I had my first clue on seeing the name and callsign of the sender on the front – Darwin Piatt W9HZC. Inside I found a couple of small bags of parts and instructions for building an N0XAS PicoKeyer. What a great gift to receive in the mail! Dar had e-mailed me shortly after I made the blog-post on building the WBR Regen Receiver and we’ve been communicating over e-mail since then.  He is an ARRL Assistant Section Manager for Nebraska, Director of the Nebraska Elmer Squad, and is also a co-founder of the Midwest Homebrewers and QRP Group.  Oh – he also works full-time, teaches at the local Community College and runs Ham Classes.  Ham Radio is not his only hobby either, so I’m not sure how he found time to write his e-mails to me.  Dar wants to make a group build project out of the WBR Receiver for the 2012 OzarkCon.  For the 2011 Build Session, they built the Ham Can.  I think the WBR Receiver is a great idea for a group build project, so am really looking forward to seeing this project unfold.

Anyway, back to the PicoKeyer. It’s a perfect first-time builders’ kit as there are not many parts to solder. Even someone who has never built a kit before could finish this in one evening. For anyone who has built anything before, it goes together quickly and easily:

The pushbutton on the end of the wire came about because I originally intended to use the micro-switch that came with the kit by epoxying it to the inside of the Altoids tin. Unfortunately, I was a bit too liberal with the JB Weld and gummed up the workings of the micro-switch. The only other button I had I didn’t really like, so decided to mount it on the end of a longer piece of cable as shown above. On finding a button I liked better,  the plan was to mount it in the case and trim the longer cable down to make the connection. In practice though,  this current arrangement works quite well as I place the Altoids tin further back from the operating position, alongside the radios, and the button extends out and sits on the desk next to the paddle, so that I can easily trigger CQ calls or whatever other messages I want to play from memory.

Incidentally, the newer version of the PicoKeyer comes with the pot and the pushbutton mounted on the board. Anything that leads to less wiring up of connectors is fine by me! There is also a pre-drilled enclosure available.

My other keyer is an AA0ZZ Keyer from 4SQRP  I like the fact that it has 3 pushbuttons for playing each of 3 pre-recorded messages. The one thing it’s missing that I would like, is a pot for varying the speed;  sending speed is controlled via the paddle through a menu, which makes on-the-fly adjustment of speed during QSO a little trickier. The PicoKeyer has a pot for adjusting the speed. Another nice feature of the speed adjustment pot is that you can set a default speed for the keyer – the speed you most often like to send at.  If you turn the speed control pot fully counter-clockwise, the PicoKeyer reverts to it’s default speed. Nice!

Playback of the 4 message memories is accomplished by briefly pressing the button to play message 1.  If you want to play messages 2, 3 or 4, you press and hold the button in. The keyer will send 2 dits, then 3 dits, then 4 dits. Releasing the button after you’ve heard a certain number of dits will play the relevant message. This is quite intuitive after you’ve done it a few times. Accessing of the various menu items is accomplished by holding in the button and allowing it to cycle past message 4, when it cycles through the various menu items.  A full description of the features of the PicoKeyer can be found here.

After using both the PicoKeyer and the AA0ZZ Keyer, I think I’ve found the perfect duo of mini-keyers. The AA0ZZ Keyer works best for me when working DX stations or DXpeditions with pre-programmed memories.  In the heat of the moment, when trying to snag a rare one, it’s easier to have specific messages accessible by pushing individual buttons rather than hold a button and waiting for it to cycle to a specific message. On the other hand, the rest of the time, I prefer the PicoKeyer, due to the ability to easily change sending speed in QSO by simply turning the pot.

Thank you very much Dar – and have fun with the WBR Receiver group build project. Judging from the response that my build of the WBR generated, I think there will be a lot of people wishing they were taking part in that build.  Note to anyone wishing to build this fine little regen – the group build of the WBR Receiver will be at OzarkCon 2012.

Blog Comment From T32C Team Member

A little under 2 weeks ago, I blogged to share my surprise and joy at achieving a QSO with T32C on Kiritimati with my Fort Tuthill 80 – a simple 4 watt transceiver with a direct conversion receiver designed by Dan Tayloe N7VE. What made the QSO even more surprising was that the antenna was a coax-fed 40M inverted vee at 47 feet – not the best way of efficiently radiating a signal on 80M.  The magic of achieving a QSO with the Christmas Island team using this, was truly magical to me:

I thought the experience couldn’t get any better, but it came full circle when I saw the following comment underneath the blog-post yesterday morning:

“Hi Dave,

W3EF, Maury a T32C member pointed me to your blog. To make a long story short, I (ON7RU) turned out to be the operater of the 80m station at that moment. It’s a real pleasure to read these kind of stories and it shows we indeed had good ears, as we had hoped. Thanks for your patience and congrats with your DIY QRP stations. Keep up the good work, will follow your blog in the future.
Thanks again for the kind words and the flowers, but believe me the pleasure was ours.

73s from Honolulu, leave for EU tomorrow @ 4am. Believe me, that will be a bigger challenge then copying weak signals from the Pacific.

Frank, ON7RU
http://on7ru.blogspot.com”

Frank – you and the whole T32C team have created magic and a sense of sharing and camaraderie in the worldwide ham radio community. It sounds like you all had a great time doing it too.  Frank is now on my blogroll and I’ll be following his blog for news of any future DXpeditions he is involved with.

DXpeditions like this take a great deal of time, effort and money to organize.  If, like me, you had the pleasure of working T32C on one or more bands, you can donate to help offset their costs at http://www.t32c.com/. If you QSO’ed with them, a donation of 10 British Pounds Sterling or more will register you to receive a QSL provided you fill out the online QSL request form, which will be on their site soon after the DXpedition ends.