[Elecraft] Re: Manuals

[Tom Hammond NØSS]

Hi Michael:

>Hello, been a while.  Hope all is well and that your Holidays went great!

Yup... went right well... lotsa fun and had most of the family with us. 
Thanks for asking.

>I noticed your post about manuals and their version.  I got the option 
>kits a while ago and I'm just getting around to building the last 
>few.  Since I got them a while ago new versions of the manuals came out in 
>the meantime. Example: I'm just about done with the ssb option and getting 
>ready to install it. I have revision B of the manual. Should I have used 
>the new revision of the manual in addition to the one I have?  Same thing 
>goes for the KIO2, noise blanker and maybe the AF ( haven't looked to see 
>if a new one is out already).

Sometimes a newer manual revision will instruct you to do something a bit 
differently than the version of the manual you had. This can merely be an 
improvement upon the original instructions, or it can be a 'fix' to 
something which cropped up in a previous version. HOWEVER, any time such a 
change is made, if it is substantive enough that it might effect the 
overall OPERATION or FUNCTION of the device, I feel pretty confident that 
Elecraft will have it covered by an ERRATA or via a BUILDER'S NOTE.

So, the answer is, you probably do not need to download a newer version of 
the manual. However, you SHOULD always look on the Elecraft web site, to 
see if there were any ERRATA published for YOUR manual version.

Finally, it's NEVER a bad idea to download, if available from their web 
site, or another source (possibly me), a PDF version of all manuals for 
your devices. PDFs are REALLY GREAT for just retaining in the event you 
might accidently LOSE one or more of your hardcopy manuals. ADDITIONALLY, 
the Elecraft Manuals in PDF format CAN be "SEARCHED" for the appearance of 
key words. So, if you want to find out why you still haven't installed a 
component you think SHOULD have been installed by now, or if one happens to 
FALL out of the PC board several weeks later (<G>), you can search the PDF 
to find all occurrance of that part # or that value, to see where it should 
go, and WHEN it should be (or have been) installed. It'll even find 
references ON the schematic... a REALLY BIG benefit to many of us.

>Also, is there any reason I should check the new K2 manual.  I have K2 # 
>797 so there has been out a couple of updated manuals since them.

You can probably pass on that effort. There will have been some changes, 
but, as I said above, any substantive changes should have been previously 
noted in ERRATA for your manual or in BUILDER'S NOTES. Just make sure you 
have all of them (for your manual version).

>The manuals take a while to download, I have a slow connection, so I don't 
>want to go through it unless there is a good reason for it.

I'd ALWAYS try to have machine-readable copies of the manuals for all of 
the devices _I_ owned. Otherwise, it's up to you whether you try to 
maintain a complete set of all manuals. In most cases, probably NOT required.

73,

Tom Hammond   N0SS