[Elecraft] New K1 Born Yesterday

[Mike Morrow]

wa5pgl wrote:

> K1 Serial Number 2305 operational on 2/6/07.
> 2-Band (20&40)w/Antenna Tuner

That's 2130 K1 units since my number 175 arrived in November, 2000.  I ordered it in June, so I waited five months.  It was worth it.  I'm not all that fond of the monotony of stuffing resistors and capacitors on a PCB, so I bought the K1 in spite of it being a kit, rather than because of it.

Sandy wrote:

>You will find the receiver supurb during heavy QRM situations like contests! 
>Best QRP rig I ever owned.

It's a real gem in the Elecraft line.  I know of no other QRP rig that I'd rather carry portable.

>I have 4 band board (40/30/20/15) and a 2 band 
>160/80 meter board.

The roll-off of the elliptical low pass filters on the four-band filter board is much sharper and deeper than that of the very simple filters of the two-band board.  I've never seen any spurious-output specs for a four-band K1, but since the two-band K1 has the best figure for spurious output of any Elecraft rig, the four-band K1 can only be even better.  It has better performance than the two-band 40m/20m board, and twice the the available bands (including 15m, IMHO the best QRP band when open).  How could one beat that combination of *both* improved versatility and improved performance?   

>If I did it all over again, I'd opt for the little 
>external tuner (T1?) instead of the internal tuner.

I really like the internal tuner, even though currently mine has recently developed a yet un-diagnosed problem and now never returns a VSWR less than 9.99, even into a dummy load.  I tried the KBT1 for more than a year, but eventually discarded it.  I don't like sources of chemical leakage and outgassing next to printed circuits.

73,
Mike / KK5F