[Elecraft] KX1 #1467 Completed and On-Air

[Paul Neuman]

What a thrill... This is the first kit I've built in about 25 years.  
The last ones were a couple  of Heathkit weather instruments that I put 
together in the early '80s.  I was a bit leary of attacking this one but 
I guess I did ok.  The toroids weren't really such a big deal, but I 
sure made good use of a magnifying glass!

I took my time and apart from some confusion here and there, I 
encountered no real problems.  I did have some trouble though with the 
final receiver alignment.  I just couldn't get the trimmers peaked but I 
finally switched antennas and that seemed to help.

Everything seems to work just FB.  Power output appears pretty even on 
20 & 40.  I made about 20 contacts today in the IOTA contest, across 
both NA and EUR.  The little paddle works quite nicely too.  Of course,  
I had some help today from the big guns.  I'll see how I do with the 
bumblebees tomorrow.  I hope to be out there next year with my KX1 as a bee.

Next will be to install the tuner and then really make sure there are no 
kinks before finishing up the 3080 module.  I'm sure glad I didn't try 
integrating everything at once.

Thanks to all those who post here.  I learned a lot without even having 
to ask.

73,
Paul, kd2mx