[Elecraft] KAT100 trial.

[Ron Willcocks]

Hi all, I had the oportunity to give the KAT100 a decent trial yesterday and
it passed with flying colours.
I was going flounder fishing that night and the tide was going to be late,
so we went over to our beach cottage early and I strung up a long wire into
a tree (shanghi method) with the other end some 40 metres away into the
branches of a tree overhanging the (tidal) river, then running at right
angles from there into a window of the "shack" about another 10 metres away.
For an earth system I threw about 20 metres of wire out the window and
into the river. (I actually attached it to a piece of copper power line wire
I had
 buried in the sand some years ago)
Results.:   It tuned fine on all bands except 80 metres , where we were
having a CW Improvers Net that evening. I dropped the high end, and added
about another 20 metres of  wire so it dropped to about 2 metres off the
ground and tied to a mangrove tree...It now tuned all of 80m fine, I had no
RF problems on any bands, and as I was running off my battery pack I use for
portable operation, I tried the antenna out by working into the States on
20m with good reports while waiting for the 80m nett to start. (Running 10w
SSB and CW)
This antenna was about as "unscientific" as one could hang in the air, but
worked fine, and the KAT100 was able to match it 1:1 on all bands no sweat.
Had forgotten how noise free the site is out there on the river, away from
most of
civilisation, so am planning another trip there to do some serious operating
before
the Christmas break.
Thanks to Team Elecraft for all the additions sent here this year. I have a
"Full House"
K2 operting now, and I in all the constructing, I never had one wrong part
supplied,
or any parts missing. I am impressed.
Merry Christmas to all
p.s ...the fishing was a success too !!
Cheers.......Ron ZL1TW