You have better luck than me on 80M but then your antenna is a lot longer than mine. Mine is a 40M doublet (fed with balanced line) so understandably, it’s pretty crummy on 80. One of these days I’ll find a way to extend it for some lower band action.

Perhaps we’ll get to QSO at some point,

Dave
AA7EE

I think I may have heard you check into the Noontime Net today. (And I think I’ve heard you in the past.)

Today, I was able to check via Jim in Reno with 500mw using my FT-817. He gave me an S2, slightly above his noise level. This is about the third time I’ve tried it. With 2.5 watts, I’ve checked in mobile using the mini-shark antenna. One of these days I’d like to find a way to go below 500mw but without an attenuator.

Two nights ago I was able to check into Western Public Service at 3952 with one watt. Last night, it was 2.5 watts. Band conditions vary. There are nights when they can’t hear me with 100 watts. The Noontime Net is much easier for me than Western Public Service but when conditions are good, it’s pretty amazing. I was S3 the other night in L.A. with my one watt.

My antenna is just a 120 foot long wire in a zig-zag pattern in my backyard about 7 feet off the ground. It’s grounded to the metal frame of a sliding glass door. I threw up the antenna in about 15 minutes as something temporary but now I’m afraid if I try to improve it, I won’t get as good results.

It was interesting to read what you wrote about CW. I too have had a similar experience. Learning the code was a pain but now my mind enjoys the challenge. Funny how that works.

Keep us posted on your QRP adventures.

And I’ll be listening for you on the net.

Robert

N6AIR

Firstly, you may well not need this as you’ve already built a few things, but I read the Elecraft Soldering Tips at http://www.elecraft.com/TechNotes/N0SS_SolderNotes/N0SS_SolderNotesV6.pdf In fact, I was trying so hard to do a great soldering job on the K2 that at first, I was putting too little solder on the joints (most people who don’t solder correctly apply too much solder). If you put too little solder on a board with plated-through holes, it will form a concave shape in the hole, instead of a small fillet up to the edges of the component lead. I found .02″ (.05mm) solder to be very useful for carefully controlling the amount to apply to the joint.

The next 2 tips are specific to the building process and will only make sense when you are actually putting the kit together.

Firstly, when breaking off the spacers for the push-button switches (page 23 of the manual), the instructions lead you to think that you should break the spacing tool into 4 separate parts. If I remember correctly, there will be a point later on when you’ll need to do that but in the beginning, breaking the PC board into just 2 longer spacers worked well, as I could seat 2 switches at a time.

The only other thing I did that differed slightly from the instructions (and once again, this is a minor point) came when installing the BFO crystals X3 and X4 (page 54 of the manual at the bottom left). The instruction says to trim the leads of X3 and “fold them down flat against their pads, before soldering.” This is so that when you later install the rubber stem bumper for L3, (page 60 right-hand side of the page) it will sit flat against the board. In my desire to have things as perfect as possible, I figured that it would be better to pre-trim the leads of X3 so that they don’t quite protrude from the underside of the board. Because it’s a plated-through hole, you can still solder the leads, make a good electrical connection, and have the rubber bumper sit completely flush against the board. That’s what I did anyway.

That’s it. Quite honestly Richard, the fact that those are the only two things I did slightly differently from the manual, it is a testament to how detailed and thorough the assembly instructions are. I have been getting very tempted to build the 100W option as well as the 100W ATU, but it’s just not in the budget (yet!) One day, one day……..

Yes – about the SSB. I have been spending quite a lot of time recently listening to folk rag-chewing on 40 and 80 and I wonder how they manage to think of so many things to say! It’s probably why my SSB operating so far has been mainly confined to checking in to nets. Not sure if I have said this to you before, but you live in a lovely part of the country by the way. Talk soon,

Dave
AA7EE

It seems to work fine. I have received several unsolicited reports of good audio with the BFO on the SSB adapter at the default settings.

I was wondering what microphone you use with your K2. I am going to build the SSB adapter for my K2 #7375 soon and I’m going to need a mic. The hand mic Elecraft sells seems rather large for the K2 and the cord is so heavy the radio moves around when you try to extend the coil cord.

Anyways love the cat! Makes my wife sad though, we lost our cat last fall. 73 Keith N8CEP