[Elecraft] K2 on top in TARA PSK Rumble Contest

[bills4570@att.net]

All:

There have been several suggestions by local ham friends that I post a recent 
contest win on the Elecraft reflector, and now that the results are final, I 
guess that's appropriate.

I used K2 #2715 to win the Super category (5 watts and below) of the 2002 TARA 
PSK World Wide Rumble, which occurred the first week of October.  I made 131 
QSO's during the 24 hour contest period, and had a lot of fun doing it.

My K2 is unmodified, with KSB2 and KAT2 options and it runs fine in the digital 
mode at 5.0 watts.  I drove an 80M G5RV wire inverted vee with the peak at 50 
ft., and I used a Rigblaster interface and MixW 2.02 software.  There was 
nothing special about this station (other than the fact that it's a K2); just 
the average stuff that nearly anyone can put together.  Even though the antenna 
was oriented to favor North/South, I had no trouble working the Eastern US, and 
several Japanese stations to the West during 20, 15, and 10M openings.

I thought the agility of the K2 band change coupled with the autotuner 
performance was key to following the tricky band conditions.  The ALC 
architecture of the K2 is perfect for PSK-31 mode.  No fiddling with mic gain, 
or drive levels to get a nice clean signal.

I also used this combination during the PODXS 160 M PSK sprint contest driving 
a 160M inverted vee dipole with good results. It was the first time I had 
operated on the 160M band, and I was surprised that my QRP signal was 
competitive with those running up to 100 watts.

Kudos to the Elecraft team for a fine design and excellent support.  This is 
the most fun I've had in a long time!

--
Bill Schwantes, 
W7QQ  K2 #2715