[Elecraft] New XTALs and BFO/PLL Mod Questions

[Tom Hammond NØSS]

GM Dave:

>I just got all the stuff for the 14 xtal change and the BFO mod.  Has 
>there been anything established about the best order to do these 
>things.  I thought I'd do the 7 IF xtals first, check how that works, then 
>do the 7 ssb xtals, check how that works, and then do the BFO mod 
>last.  But there might be some reason to do the BFO mod first.  Any thoughts?

I'm not sure there is a 'best' order for these two. EACH one will 
eventually require that you run CAL FIL, so that's a no-brainer.

I just completed BOTH mods (within the past couple weeks) and I did them in 
the order you noted above, but only because that's the order in which I 
received them... XTALs first, and then the BFO/PLL.

By the way, when I installed the XTALs, I attached the ground wires FIRST 
and then installed the XTAL and GND wire at the same time... no problems. 
The only exception was with regard to a few of the KSB2 XTALs (X1 & X2 and 
X6 & X7). I first tinned the attachment spots for all XTALS. Then I 
attached long(er) ground wire(s) to X2 and X6 allowing extra length on the 
upper ends of each wire for them to eventually connect to X1 and X7. I then 
installed X2 and X6 (pre-grounded) and just tack-soldered the short grounds 
to X1 and X7. Thus, all XTALs (CW and SSB) are grounded near their bottoms, 
and with little added effort.

Regarding the new CW XTALs, for what it's worth, I noticed that the slope 
of the skirts with the new XTALs appears to be steeper. Not sure about the 
ultimate rejection yet, but so far I'm happy... they played very well in 
the CW Sweepstakes a couple weekends ago, and this is a VERY GOOD test of 
the CW filtering.

Regarding the SSB XTALs... it appears that I have a bit wider passband on 
SSB. And this is a GOOD thing... it's still only about 2.2-2.3kHz wide, but 
this is better than I previously had (FT version of the XTALs at that 
time), and there doesn't appear to be quite as much ripple in the passband 
either.

Just did the BFO/PLL mod yesterday. I'm gonna post a message to the 
reflector in a couple minutes, so you might want to read it as well.

73,

Tom Hammond   N0SS