[Elecraft] K2 #2522 QRV

[Dudley Chapman]

I completed K2 #2522 a few weeks ago, and recently finished KAT2 and 
KBT2.  All went very well, except I have no RX or TX on 12/10 meters.  I am 
sure its probably a solder joint around the bandpass filters, so I am not 
really frantic about it.  The VFO voltages check out fine and I can hear 
the VFO on another RX, so I don't think it will be hard to debug.  On all 
the other bands, 12-15 watts of output is easy to obtain.  Other than that 
and falling into the R6 trap on the KAT2, it was a dream to build.  The 
instructions seemed to anticipate every question that came up.

The K2 was part of my plan to get back on the air after about ten years of 
radio silence.  Since I am behind on a number of house improvement 
projects, I was not ready with an antenna system for the K2 when it was 
completed.  Last weekend, I just couldn't stand it anymore, so I fired a 
slingshot into a very tall tree near the house and cranked up a 100 ft 
sloping vertical wire to my back porch and ran a wire to the electric 
service ground and put the K2 on the air late one night.

Running on battery, I turned on the K2, hit tune and it made peace with the 
wire vertical almost instantly.  With 5W into 40m S7 QRN, I went back to 
N4LQ's CQ and he came back to me instantly.  What a thrill.  Just when you 
think you have done it all, something like this K2 comes a long and 
suddenly Ham Radio is as much fun as when I first fired up my freshly built 
DX-60 as a teenager.

The last time I had QSK this good was with my first rig in 1967 when I had 
a DX-60/HR-10 running into a Johnson TR switch.  I would have the RX 
running all the time with the AGC off and it would recover instantly 
between dots and dashes.  Crude, but very smooth and effective.  The K2 
reminds me of that QSK perfection where your own sidetone sounds like just 
another signal on the band.

One reason for writing to you all is thank you for all the great reading 
you have supplied me during those breaks from work during the day.  The 
other reason is to pose an important question to the list.  Where should I 
stick the serial number sticker?

73's
Dud, WA1X