[Elecraft] Is there a new breed of ham out there?

[James T. "Jim" Rogers]

	Look guys, we are amatuer radio operators and acknowledged the world over
for our enterprise and initiative. Now the way I see it is there are
"appliance operators", and I love them too, and there are folks I call
"hombrewers" who are more my kind of folks. Now lest you folks associate
this "good ole boy" from the deep south with a libation know locally as
"homebrew" which has been know to inflict blindness and lack of judgement, I
must emphatically state I am speaking of adventuresome folks who desire to
"roll" their own and I ain't talking about tobacco.
	Now when I set out upon such a path, I understand this effort will probably
require some measure of energy expended in diagnostics because in spite of
the documentation I do dumb things.
	Now with Elecraft I started with a great kit, quality components, excellent
documentation and a most unique and wonderful service orgainization. Thank
you Eric, Wayne, Gary, Scott, Lisa and everybody else in the organization.
You have almost single handedly restored ham radio to me.
	You know there was a time I had to trace the 8R line visually across the
board to the t-r switch area on the K2. Would a scan of the unpopulated
board have helped? Maybe some, but not much. The scanned board image is not
going to show your cold solder joints and solder bridges. It might even
delay your solution because I would just bet you will look at the origin and
the destination and the last place you will look is along the rail. I say
this from my experience of over fifty years, both as a professional and a
hobbyist. Because I had to look closely, I now know more about my
transciever and am much more confident should other problems arise.
	Now that is fun to me, sometimes exasperating, more times enlightening,
educational, confidence building, and EXACTLY WHY I BOUGHT THE KIT!... and
yes, I wound my own toroids.

Jim W4ATK
K2/100 #4028