[Elecraft] K1

[Mike Morrow]

Dave asked:

>How easy would it be to convert the 2 band module which is on
>40-20 mtrs at present to cover 80 and 17 mtrs and what exactly
>would i need parts wise ...

It's a rather easy project that can be done in a couple of hours if you are slow and take your time.  I did exactly the same thing, same bands, after the four-band board became available.

For parts, contact Elecraft for the price of the band-specific parts for 80m and 17m.  These packets of parts aren't listed on the Elecraft web site, but they are available and are modestly priced.  Make sure that they send along the following:

1.  RFC8 (should be in the 80m kit, but it installs on the RF PCB, not on the filter PCB).
2.  C78 (should be in the 80m kit, but it installs on the RF PCB, not on the filter PCB).
3.  Wire for winding the new toroid coils.

Items 2 and 3 were missing from these part kits when I got mine several years ago.

If I recall correctly, approximately 30 components (crystal, toroids, capacitors) have to be removed from the filter board before installing the same number of new band components.  The Elecraft PCB is very high quality and suffered not at all from this re-work.  In fact, the final PCB looked better than it did before starting work.

As part of your alignment of the new two-band board, band b1 will get assigned to 80m and b2 to 17m.  When you swap back your four-band board, all that you have to do is tell the K1 that b1 is 40m and b2 is 30m.  The K1 will have saved the band-specific VFO calibration factors for each of these six ham bands, so you won't need to re-calibrate the VFO display each time you swap a filter board.

Mike / KK5F