[Elecraft] troubles with kits

[Bob Tellefsen]

Hello Herb
Welcome to the wacky world of ham radio.  There are a lot of old timers
here, as well
as relative newcomers (less than 40 years :-) ).

You ask a fair question for a newcomer.  The truth is a lot less exciting.
If you follow the building directions in the manual, it is hard to get into
trouble,
although not impossible.

Most troubles seem to boil down to soldering problems.  Overlooked soldering
connection, cold solder connection, too much solder allowing a short to an
adjacent circuit point.  If your soldering skills are at all ecent, you
should have no trouble building a K2 or any well-documented kit.  These
days, the spotlight is on kit manufacturers, and with the internet for
instant feedback, when a manual is less
than perfect, the world lets the manufacturer know about it.

One reason you see a number of posts here discussing problems, is that this
is a
prime reason for this reflector.  If a person does get into trouble, there
is a very large commnity of folks who have already built their K2s and are
willing to help debug whatever the problem turns out to be.  Remember, there
are over 4000 K2s out there already.  Also, Elecraft monitors the reflector,
and if there is a serious problem, it gets addressed.  No sluffing off of
the problem on the poor customer.  Elecraft technical support is
outstanding.  You only have to ask for help and it is there.

In a nutshell, don't be afraid of building a K2.  Essentially, the K2
community won't let you fail.  If you have any doubts about your soldering
skills, I suggest you find some
simple kit and build it just for the experience and building up your
soldering skills.
It really isn't hard at all.

Good luck and 73
Bob N6WG
K2 s/n 12