[Elecraft] K1 No.1784 finished tonight...

[Kevin Danks]

I haven't had so much fun in a long time. Even winding toroids was really
enjoyable. No real problems, but not having ever built anything on this
scale I made sure I had all the right tools for the job, spent a long time
reading the archives and checked everything twice and three times. Two
things showed that the answer usually is very simple:

1. RFC8 jumper has to be installed before the RX voltage checks will work.
The erratum note was there in my own handwriting, which is maybe why it took
me a while to see what was wrong...

2. Doing RX tests, everything was OK until I plugged the filter board in for
the first time, when the K1 wouldn't switch on. I'd put the IC the wrong way
round in the socket.

2. TX tests, saw about 3 watts on 30m, then it died and couldn't get any
power out on any band. Bad joint on T4 caused that, and after a quick
re-solder I'm getting at least 5 watts on all bands.

One thing I would say about those toroids is that I couldn't get the solder
blob method to work - even with the iron at 450C I just got a black residue
from the enamel, and I found that scraping back to clean copper and then
tinning was much better.

I've got the K2 ready to start, but I think I'll spend some time with the K1
first.

Kevin Danks
50�49'N 1�43'W
G0DBI <><><> www.novaforesta.org