[Elecraft] Re: Mojo Problem,

[Wayne Burdick]

Michael,

On SSB the lowest peak power the K2 will put out is, in reality, about 0.3 to
0.5 watts. This is as low as the SSB adapter can go with the present ALC circuitry.

It is possible to modify the K2 so that the power level is divided by a factor
of 10, which would allow you to drop into the 30-50 mW range. But the requied
modifications are pretty extensive.

What I would suggest instead is the use of a calibrated external attenuator just
in the transmit path. You can connect the antenna to the receive antenna jack
supplied with the K160RX option, then use a BNC "Y" adapter to tap off for the
transmit path, with will go through the attenuator. This will allow you keep the
attenuator out of the receive path, although the attenuator will still load the
antenna a bit on receive.

73,
Wayne
N6KR

Michael Groeschner wrote:
> 
> HI Gang,
> 
>         I have K2  and so far my only option installed is the SSB option. I have not done any mods either. For some time now I have been having a nightly sched on 75 meters SSB(3815 plus or minus) at 8:30 EST with 2 friends, one is K1GZL in Norther NH, about 300 plus miles from me(Stamford, CT.) One night I decided to test the rig at low power. I was transmitting with 10 watts using an 88 ft dipole up about 25 ft. I do sometimes use a different dipole a bit longer but about the same hight. I started turning down the power and transmitting my signal strength as I went. When I got down to .1 watts I just said .1 watts, now moving back up and dialed back up to 10 watts. Well K1GZL wanted more. He asked me to go back down to .1 watts and keep it there a while. What he did was record my signal. Apparently I was hitting him with an S9 at that power level. He played the tape back to me and I sure had a surprise at how well he did receive me.
> 
>         Now here is the problem. Nearly every night he askes me to dial down to .1 watts so he can record me. Sometimes he tells me that I am coming in so well that I could dial down to one hundreth of a watt and he would still hear me. I am getting tired of constantly changing my power level, but on the other hand it is exciting when he plays those tapes back and it sounds so good at one tenth of a watt. Do any others run into problems like this with such wierd requests to run at the bottom? I think the K2 is the only rig in history that could illicit this behavior at the other side of a QSO.
> 
>         I wonder if there is an easy way to transmit with less power, any suggestions on that. I am not wanting to do anything permanent to the great radio but sure would like to test it out with less than a tenth of a watt one night.g