[Elecraft] Beyond the K2, Part 1 of 3

[Guy Olinger, K2AV]

> I loaned my K2/100 to a friend a while back to try with his new
Alpha 99
> amp (his rig did not have adjustable tx output).  He returned it the
next
> day saying that it worked fine with his new amplifier, but he didn't
like
> the K2 because the S-meter was stingy.  This was embarassing for me
and
> surely was the loss of a potential Elecraft customer.

Why were you embarrassed? There is NO standard S meter anyway. Won't
start that thread here, it's in all the archives. The standard that
some think is the standard, and a few RX actually try and implement,
rarely can get the linearity and/or uniformity in the rig circuits to
make the meter match the standard up and down the scale.

Then sometimes people just have to say negative things.

Not to dump on your friend particularly, if the only thing he noticed
was the S meter, then I would say he was not particularly perceptive
in this instance. There's a lot to notice, IF you know anything.

Personally, I find the rig, and the seemingly endless stream of
user-driven circuit upgrades, a veritable smorgasbord of innovation
and fresh ideas.

And certain aspects of the K2 outperform better known
"top-of-the-line" contest radios. That's not a made up assessment -- I
got 'em setting side-by-side on the table here, sometimes tuned to the
exact same frequency. Run them into the same headsets. K2 left audio,
MP right audio. Stuff that's louder in the K2 is left, stuff that is
equal is in the center, stuff louder in the MP is right.

The low and high level muddle that sounds to the right is something
the MP is adding to the signal on the band. The weak signal that
sounds to the left is something the K2 is hearing that the MP is
losing in the muddle.

So all your friend noticed was the S-meter....

Enjoy your K2. Next year this time it will be all the rage among
contesters. You heard it here first.

73, Guy