[Elecraft] ARRL 10m and K2 drift

[Dominik Bugmann]

Yesterday was my KPA100 + KAT100 test day. Both house in an EC-2 and K2 is
#1062.
QSK is really great an in the morning I could hear my backscatter and people
who wanted to steal my QRG. They never succeded :-)
100W and 400 QSO in 4 hours brings the PA temperature to about 50C (measured
with my hand) and it stayed there.
KAT100 brought my SWR down since the trap-beam has 2:1 at 28050.

Sunday morning when I arrive in my contest-shack the room-temperature was
11C (C not F). For QSO direction JA und UA9 I had to move RIT to +50 Hz. In
the afternoon - roomtemperature was now up at 23C - and I was running
stateside on 28088. For the average QSO I had to turn my RIT to -150 .. -180
Hz and I can tell some W6, W7, VE6, VE7 were weak and you need to know where
zero beat is!

After reading several posting about "drifts" I guess the BFO modification is
my next project. Anyway I was a bit surprised that my K2 drifted almost
200Hz (11C to 23C room temp and K2 idle to K2/100 in full action). In summer
time I'm very active on 10 Ghz Rainscatter and even at this high frequency I
can hold my QRG to 100Hz (temp controlled OCXO).

Well, I still love my K2, because I build it, perfect QSK, loads of goodies,
QRP & 100W and even KAT100 in such a small space.

Cu in RAC and 160m Contest with K2/100 !

73 de Dominik, HB9CZF
http://www.qsl.net/hb9czf