[Elecraft] "discovering" Elecraft

[Wallace, Andy]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: k4wtf@ENTERZONE.NET [mailto:k4wtf@ENTERZONE.NET]
> 
>  After we went QRT, I
> fired up the laptop and went out to the elecraft site.  A few 
> days later, a box full of parts that would later become K2 #2490 arrived 
> at my house!

Perhaps a more pleasant thread than the 100/10 battle would be 
to recount how you discovered Elecraft, as the List ends 2002...

I heard of them a couple of years back when a local SWL/Ham in
the club brought back a K2 flyer from Dayton. "Look at this! It's
a kit!" 

"Wow, over $500? Too much rig for me," was my reply at the time. 
I was using a tube rig and didn't see the need to plunk down
five hundred clams for a new one... I promply "forgot" about the
K2.

January, 2002: I had connected my TiCK keyer to my KnightSMiTe,
a Pixie2 clone using SMT parts which I had built, and started it
calling CQ on 80m on a Sunday morning at 7AM -- after sunrise of 
course...

I had made some contacts on the little transceiver but nothing that
wasn't pre-arranged by phone. Best DX was about 15 miles and that
was all I thought 200 milliwatts and my randomwire could do...

Well after a few CQs another W1 answers. I figured, great, two
towns over, but it's a non-arranged contact! Cool.

Guy was in Maine, perhaps 175 miles away! Not bad at all. I described
the contact to an inactive ham at work and he complained that he
would like to get on, but had no space... I told him my Pixie clone
was the size of a 9V battery, and even the Ten-Tec 1330 QRP kit was
small, and only $95. I sent him TT's website, and remembered the K2,
so looked up Elecraft as well. 

What's this?!?! A K1? I didn't know about that! 

I read the info, read the QST reviews that night, and ordered it the
next day.

-Andy

PS Before learning of the K1, I worked a guy on 40 who said he 
was using one. I thought it was a "typo" and wrote it down as K2
in my log. :-D