[Elecraft] re: NorCal Meeting Sunday; Four-band KX1 will be there

[wayne burdick]

Doug Hendricks, ki6ds, wrote:

> Yes, there will be a NorCal Meeting this Sunday....  Bring your 
> projects for show and tell.

Hi Doug,

Look forward to seeing everyone there. And of course to an Ostrich 
burger!

For show and tell, I'll bring my prototype 4-band KX1 (including 80 
meters), which uses several construction techniques I haven't tried 
before. I'll also bring a new adapter designed by Francis Belliveau 
(KA4FRH) that allows the KX1 keyer paddle (KXPD1) to clamp firmly to 
the tilt bail of the K2. This is useful for limited-space operations, 
e.g. on the table in my VW van, and cuts weight a lot compared to 
taking along a paddle with a heavy base.

One more item I'll bring is a sample of the panelized KXB3080 PC 
boards. There are 18 board sets to a panel, pre-routed for easy 
breakout (including an innovation called "mouse bites," which I'll 
explain if anyone's interested). Panels of this type are used by 
professional SMD fabricators who do machine insertion of parts. We use 
such fabrication for some products with tiny SMDs that not all kit 
builders would want to tackle (I'm getting pretty good with 0603s, 
myself, but it takes a steady hand and a good iron).

Panelization is also a great way to handle sets of boards used in a 
single product, e.g. something that has a main board, front panel, I/O 
board, etc. In the case of the KXB3080, there are actually two boards: 
one for the 30/80 m RX front end parts, and one for the relay-switched 
low-pass filter. The latter board is really small -- just 0.4 x 0.8".

Hopefully it won't be raining all day! If someone has an 80-m loaded 
whip we can see if the KXAT1 will fine-tune it on 80 m.

73 & Happy New Year to all,

Wayne
N6KR