[Elecraft] KX1 #447 Lives, K2 #2646 rocks in it's 1st CW contest

[Steve Holton]

KX1 #447
Completed last Wednesday 10 days after arriving. Worked FB straight off the 
bench. I have a weekly breakfast with local hams and they have watched it 
and it's predecessors K2 - KPA100/KAT100 Twins  #2646 & 2843 progress in 
weekly "show and tells" to appropriate oohs and aahs. Expect to build at 
least one more for some of the attendees. Last Friday had a "monthly" 
(monthly works out to about 5 times a year hi hi)  lunch with hams I used 
to work with - they looked it over as well and requested that they'd like 
to see my K2 "up close and personal" at the next lunch. Everyone is 
impressed by the size - "it's smaller than I thought, " and by the 
packaging and design. My never really competent CW skills - passing a test 
does not equate to being a good op - I have been working to recover and 
develop my CW in anticipation of using the KX1. The consequence of which 
........

K2 #2646
I decided to give the ARRL DX CW contest a whirl with my K2 - KPA100/KAT100 
Twins, Writelog and two wire antennas. I had no idea if I'd have any 
success as I had never tried a CW contest. To say the least I was more than 
pleasantly surprised! The K2 performed admirably. I had finally gotten 
around, after about 9 months, to building and installing the KDSP2. It was 
also impressive, though I've just begun to explore it. The high band -low 
band tuning "direction change" still takes a little getting used to. All in 
all I was amazed by the whole thing and working strictly search and pounce 
and listening over and over to make sure of calls the results blew away any 
of the very modest expectations I had going in.

N1NB Summary:
  Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   160:    0     0
    80:   26    16
    40:  101    40
    20:   97    49
    15:   86    43
    10:   60    33
-------------------
Total:  370   181  Total Score = 200,910

73
Steve N1NB