[Elecraft] re:K2 #2448 + KAT2

Mon Apr 22 03:52:01 2002

Nicholas 2E1LOK wrote:
>Just to say I have now installed the KAT2 and may I say it has been the most
>difficult thing to make so far (harder than the K2!).

My own KAT2 was completed and tested yesterday - great piece of kit!!

I am not sure that I would agree with Nicholas though.  It is slightly more involved
than the K2 and there are certainly a few areas of the construction which are tight
and could be improved.  However I did have my own share of hiccups along the way -
and from someone who has been building electronics professionally for over 30 years!!

1.  When stripping the multiway cable on p.11 I did not notice the instruction to
grip the wire with pliers and promply pulled the first wire out when I stripped it
with my wire strippers so that the far end was buried inside the cable.  Unable of
course to be able to push this back I had to cut the outer insulation back at the
other end to restore the situation.  This also happened with the coax but being aware
by now I was able to stop it before the other end disappeared.

2. When fitting P6 on the RF board I accidentally inserted it the wrong way round.
The outline on the pcb is a little ambiguous, and I overlooked the instruction to say
the tab should be towards the front.  I could have simply reversed the wires in the
mating J7 but I decided to do it the hard way...

3.  In the initial tests I got high current indication on the K2 and found the input
to the ATU was a dead short.  Traced to a nasty solder splash under L7 - it must have
been a very bad day when I put that in!!

Any way it is now working fine.  Pity conditions are so bad, I thought they had
recovered a little last night, but the bands are absolutely awful again this morning.

73s Dave G3YMC
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