[Elecraft] KX1 #978 lives!

[Andrea Borgia]

Hello everybody!


Bottom line is, KX1 #978 passed Alignment/TP III yesterday afternoon! 
8-) As usual, some random thoughts on the last step:

-toroids are easy, if you only consider inductors: transformers are 
altogether another beast! 8-)

-another tricky point is wiring the battery holders, mine only had two 
nubs instead of four and the diagonal ridge kind of got in the way, but 
the suggestion to avoid tightening the single screw was very precious: a 
bit of patience, a small flat-blade screwdriver and the wires placement 
was done ok!

-if I'm in some menu and the display timeout kicks in, the display is 
not completely dark: some segments are still partially lit up. This fact 
contrasts (sorry for the pun) with the pitch-black display I get when 
the timeout kicks in when in frequency display mode. Is this to be expected?

-manual, page 64: "WPM" is marked as "Speed" on the front cover.

-manual, page 66: please add a short note wrt P=0, to the effect that 
also TUN is affected by this setting: I was under the impression it 
applied only to memory playback and spent some time scratching my 
(empty) head and wondering why the external tuner's wattmeter was idle.

-inventory of KXAT1 and KXB30 checks out ok, ready for building next 
w/e. The footnote about "not verbally abusing hookup wire" was indeed 
quite amusing ;-)


Plus, some misc operating questions:

-as a straight (key) guy, I'm a bit miffed that the internal memories 
can only be written to using a paddle. For the time being, I asked my 
friend Nicola to record my standard CQ message for me, still I'd like to 
ask: why is it so? Wasn't it possible, within the contraints of the PIC, 
  to allow programming with verticals?

-what causes the KX1 to write the frequency to its MRU memory to display 
on powerup? Is it random, time-based or triggered by some event, like a 
band-change?


As soon as the contest is over, I'll try some casual qrp CQs. Now I'll 
and apply the errata notes to the accessories' manuals.

B73,
Andrea.

-- 
Homepage: http://andrea.borgia.bo.it     /    Amateur radio: IZ4FHT
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