[Elecraft] Checking in with good news.

[Dudley Chapman]

A while ago I checked in for the first time with the status of my newly 
constructed K2 #2522.  Everything was fine except I had no TX or RX on 
10/12 meters.  A few days later, Tom, N0SS, sent me his advice on just 
using a little wire and a cap as a signal injector to trace where signals 
disappear.  I did that and quickly narrowed my problem down to the bandpass 
filter.  On closer inspection, I found that a little piece of the plastic 
tuning tool had broken off and filled the small slot in the slug of one of 
the 10/12 meter bandpass filter inductors.  So when I was attempting to 
adjust that particular slug, the remainder of the tool was not getting 
traction.  DOH!   I cleared the problem, tuned the filter, things came to 
life, and I got over 10 W on 10 and 12 meters.   So that's my status 
update.  Thanks, Tom.

Since then, I put up a SuperLoop 80 from RadioWorks way out in my 
woods  (cant figure out if this antenna is a crock or not, but it sure is a 
lot of wire in the air.  That can't be bad, right?.).  The top of it is at 
about 80 feet.  Since the loop is about 400 ft from the house, I ran really 
classy BuryFlex coax and put an LDG RT-11 autotuner out at the antenna end 
of the run.  Its powered with a sealed lead acid battery which is sitting 
in a cheap Walmart tackle box (for now, anyway).  With my K2 autotuner set 
to CALS, all I need to do is change bands, push the K2 tune button and 
watch the swr fall at the far end of the feedline.  Life is good.

Its funny that I never before had much of an urge to crack pileups when I 
was running 100W or more.  With the K2, however, its a great thrill to wade 
into a big pileup and outfox the big guns with my 10 watts and strategic 
use of XIT or split.  It takes a while, but I haven't walked away from a 
pileup yet.   Low power operation is really addicting.  Way more fun than 
QRO, I have decided.  We should tell more people about this.

Thats all I have.  Just checking in.

73's everyone.
Dudley, WA1X /8