[Elecraft] KAT1

[Ken Roussin]

I just finished K1 #980 and it appears to work perfectly.  I built and
installed a "dual band" dipole and had my first QSO yesterday.
Particularly
exciting since not only was it my first QSO on the K1 it was literally
my first
QSO!

Running the K1 into an Oak Hills Research dummy load (with a theoretical
SWR
of 1.05)  my K1 is putting out 8 watts on 40 meters (7050 khz) and 5.5
watts on
twenty meters (14050 khz).  When I connect to my dipole the output drops
to
about 4.5 watts on 40 meters and about 2.2 watts on 20 meters (forward
wattage
less reverse wattage).  Is that to be expected?

I also discovered that the ARRL handbook shows you how to trim a dipole
by plotting SWR at different freqs (100 khz intervals).  When you only
have
80 khz to play with, it's not that simple.  I got lucky with the 40
meter dipole,
the SWR through the entire 80 khz range is from 1.2 to 1.4, using an
Oaks
Hills Research watt meter. Will a KAT1 improve the SWR over
what I already have, or is the difference  unmeasurable in the real
world?

As you can tell I'm very new to Ameteur Radio, but I find it
fascinating.  When
I heard my call sign over the air for the first time my hand was shaking
to the
point that I could hardly key-up my radio to respond!


73

Ken Roussin
KG6JAT
K1 #980