[Elecraft] K6SE Sprint Summary for Team Elecraft

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Earl wrote: 

> I would never rate 
> it very high in a review, mainly because of its intolerable 
> temperature drift problem and inadequate mike gain for certain mikes 
> and its poor xtal filter skirts.

There's also a BIG difference in the amount of "drift" from one rig to
another,  apparently. 

My K2 drifts all right. After a 15 minute warm-up it'll drift maybe 10
or 20 Hz over the next 10 hours. That's darn good for a rig without a
temperature-compensated crystal oscillator in it.  That's operating in
an indoor shack.

The 15-minute warm-up is critical though. The BFO moves quite a bit in
that first 15 minutes. It's especially obvious using a narrow filter for
CW. The center frequency will be clear down the "slope" of the filter at
a 200 or 300 Hz bandwidth for the first several minutes. I don't have a
KPA100 bolted on mine either. 

As I think Earl (and others) pointed out, the filter shape is a matter
of personal taste. I'm one of those guys who hates the sound of
"brickwall" filter shapes. The steep bandpass characteristics add
artifacts to the signal that I find very irritating. I've always really
liked the "softness" of the K2's filters. But that's strictly a personal
choice, like the color of one's toothbrush. There's no pleasing
everyone! 

In my case, it's the sound of that little fan in the KPA100 that I find
irritating.  It has all of the appeal of a mosquito buzzing around the
shack. But then I hate odd steady noises in general, Hi! 

Ron AC7AC
K2 # 1289