[Elecraft] K2 #3218 is alive and on the air!

[Martin AC6RM]

You're welcome Bob; gratifying from this end fer sher!  I'm a bit of a
believer in fate -- through having made a couple of mistakes on my own rig
(k2#3021) and having to break out of the component plugging mode into a
"find out what's wrong" mode gave me a LOT of confidence toward working on
my own rig.  And just makes me a more proud K2 owner.  So in my mind,
there was a "reason" for my mistakes.  The universe works in mysterious
ways ...
73, Martin

> I am having one heckuva good time with my K2.  I started (as a first
> time builder) with the inventory on 2/11/03 and completed the "Finishing
> Touches" on p.77 on 2/21/03.  I don't feel like I rushed the assembly,
> but admit that I was so very eager to have my K2 working that (against
> some very good advice to the contrary) I did stay up late.  I only had 2
> real mistakes on my part.  The first (really dumb) one was installing P1
> on the SSB board into one side of the pin connections for the U1 socket.
>
> After recovering from that boo-boo the rest of the SSB board build went
> OK - or so I thought.  I made 1 CW contact on 80 meters and one SSB
> contact on 75, then last night made a phone contact on 20 and then
> shortly
> afterward noticed that the audio dipped severely, Pressing the RF/ALF
> key during this period indicated that the SSB board was not installed.
> Checked the menu for SSBA and found the dreaded ---- on the display.  I
> immediately went to a search of the reflector archives (Thank You so
> much Martin!) and found a post by Wayne back in 1999 advising Bob KI7MN
> to measure all the voltages on the ICs.  Well out came my multimeter and
> I found that there was 0 V on pin 1, 6.08 V on pin 2, ... I better write
> this stuff down.  OK, again 0 V on pin 1, 6.08 V on pin 2 ... and I
> "accidentally" jumpered pins 1 and 2 with the probe and the audio
> instantly came back, then died again after about 30 seconds.  Hmmm,
> checked the schematic and pin 1 "should be" 6 V.  Out comes my loupe
> (which helps my almost 43 year old eyes see the detail) and #@#$%% darn
> it I didn't solder pin 1 to the board.  Ergo dumb mistake #2.  Maybe I
> should have heeded the wisdom of the reflector and gone to bed a bit
> earlier.  Alas, my eagerness to get on the air overwhelmed me but with
> all of the information available to me at my fingertips, here, I
> corrected the problem and I absolutely love my K2.
>
> I look forward to the QSO party on the 8th and 9th!
>
> 73  Bob KC2JAV  K2 #3218
>
>
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