[Elecraft] Elecraft Kit suggestion and other stuff

[Margaret Leber]

W3FPR - Don Wilhelm wrote:

> I do arrange all the capacitors, diodes, resistors and
> other long leaded components in value order in the holes along the edges of
> a corrugated cardboard tray (old Heathkit method) so each one is in a known
> place where I can lay my hands on it when it is needed.  I cut the USPS
> shipping box in half along the narrow sides to produce 2 parts trays, your
> method may be different, but it is quite helpful to know where to find any
> particular part quickly.

While I had a rather prolonged parts inventory phase (started the 
inventory, discovered a part was missing halfway through, put project on 
the shelf for four years), I still think the parts inventory is very 
valuable.

I used green plastic school cafeteria trays (the kind with three 
smallish compartments and one large one) for holding various parts 
during construction. These could be stacked on each other (the "wrong" 
way) to conserve workbench space.

And for some reason (totally unexplainable by the amount of breadboard 
work I do: none) I happened to have a "QT socket" type breadboard on the 
bench. This turns out to be an excellent way to sort a bunch of 
components that all look the same (like the Whizzio Quality Capacitor 
Assortment from the RF board) into cute little orderly rows.

Just plugging one lead (or several) from each component into the socket, 
and they'll stand up nicely so you can hold the whole mess under the 
illuminated magnifier to find a particular value and pluck it out for 
use.

Did I mention the presentation I did at Phil-Mont Mobile Radio Club 
about K2s? You can view the slides at

   http://www.phil-mont.org/k3xs_k2/slide1.html

  or see the whole thing as a single page at

   http://www.phil-mont.org/k3xs_k2/index.html

The illustrations are stolen shamelessly from the Elecraft site (and a 
few other places, like PA3CEVs wonderful construction photos) so if 
anybody complains that I'm outside the scope of "fair use" I'll have to 
take it down. But it was fun to do.

Oh, yeah...that part that was missing during inventory "phase 1"? I 
found it stuck to an envelope flap later on...

  73 de Maggie K3XS K2 S/N 1641

P.S. I did operate briefly during FD as K3XS 1E EPA...logged four SSB 
contacts: K5FD 3A WTX, N0GF 3A ND and AA0AA 1A Missouri. W3NWA 4A EPA 
was just a few miles away.

-- 
-----/___.   _)Margaret Stephanie Leber CCP, SCJP/"The art of progress /
----/(, /|  /| http://voicenet.com/~maggie SCWCD/ is to preserve order/
---/   / | / |  _   _   _    `  _  AOPA 925383/ amid change and to  /
--/ ) /  |/  |_(_(_(_/_(_/__(__(/_      K3XS / preserve change amid/
-/ (_/   '        .-/ .-/        ARRL 39280 /order."-A.N.Whitehead/
/________________(_/_(_/_______AMSAT 32844_/<maggie at voicenet.com>/