[Elecraft] First K2 is working in HA

[Arato Andras]

Hi,

I am Andras from Budapest Hungary. My #2398 K2 started to work in the
last days of 2001. It was my very first kit. I made two mistakes, forgat
to install one capacitor C84 in PLL reference part and wounded everywhere
plus one turn in toroids. The BFO test instructed me very well. The PLL
frequency calibration first indicated not enough range. After wounding
off one turn from every toroid the frequency became very low so I
understood to look for the error in the PLL oscillator and not in Q18
neighborhood. I was extremely happy with the working K2! Have a lot of
QRP QSO-s and two DX-s with it. One is on 28 MHz form USA the other is on
14 MHz from Canada.

As I know, my K2 is the first Elecraft rig in HA (probably because this
price is high for us in Hungary).

One question: is it necessary to correct wounding of L33? Now it has
41+4+4 turns instead of 40+3+3 (the software man problem is here to count
from zero or 1 :-). L33 was the only toroid I did not corrected.

I set the proper frequency using beacons as I have no other frequency
counter. This was an excellent experience! My friends did not expected
that such a complicated transceiver can be completed by me. I understand
that most of the glory is of Elecraft people...

I have problem with the KAF2. Probably Pic is not programmed. I am waiting
for the new chip. Gary promised me to send even a new resonator for any
case. Thank him in advance. I will start to build soon the SSB option too.

Second question: the sound with the internal speaker is rather bad. I
found a cheap old passive speaker. It sounds much better. The sound in the
headphones is better. I had to use an isolator tape at the front part for
eliminating the echo of the internal speaker. Why is it so quit and
distorted? Is this only me problem? The case is unfortunately is not
closed (but nicely modular) of course.

Finally another good news: My K2 is speaking HUNGARIAN with K2Voice
program! I used 16 bit 16 KHz sampling rate but Microsoft ADPCM coding
when recorded the speech files. It works well as you use standard playing
routines. The size of my .wav files are not higher.

I will have suggestions how to improve the usability of this option by
blind hams (my wife Theresa HG5BDR is blind and lost her left arm in
childhood so she can use the fully automatic option of the K2Voice).

The very important improvement would be to interrupt the speech when new
message arrives from K2.

Thank you for reading my long and "Hunglish" mail. Waiting for suggestions
and hope to meet you on the bands.

73! de Andras HA5BDU K2 #2389.