[Elecraft] that Drake or Collins cost

[Fred Jensen]

Stephen W. Kercel wrote:
> Charles and all:
> 
> In 1964 the basic Drake 2B receiver without the Q-multiplier was $279. 
> Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, that is the 
> equivalent of $1875 in 2007.

I used a KWM-2A on CW as HS1FJ for about 6 weeks in the mid-60's.  I was 
CW only, and don't recall any problems [other than having the entire 
planet call me :-) ].  It was VOX QSK of course.  I had an S3-line for 
many years, again mainly CW, and don't recall any issues.  In both 
cases, CW was with headfones, and the SSB quality depended heavily on 
the speaker I was using.  I had a 2B also, and until I got my K2, really 
thought it was the greatest rx I had ever seen, better than the 75S3, 
but again, "sound" quality depended nearly totally on the speaker.  The 
filters in my K2 rival the Collins mech filters, and in fact have gotten 
me back into RTTY contesting.

FWIW:  In the 3.8 years I served in the USAF in SE Asia in the 60's, we 
had KWM-2A's in every environment you can imagine.  They got beat up in 
trucks and jeeps, full of sand and dirt, wet, overheated, and subject to 
less than ideal power regulation [OK, really crappy regulation].  They 
tolerated extreme VSWR.  We pulled them out the back of low-flying 
C-130's on shock pallets with snap-opening cargo parachutes [LAPES] in 
the middle of the night, they fell off tables and boxes being used as 
tables when someone tripped over the coax or power cord.  They became 
scratched and worn.  I remember one that fell on the front panel and 
fractured the tuning knob.  Our depot in the Philippines sent a new knob 
and the radio continued to work just fine.  In all of this, the failure 
rate was exactly zero ... a very good thing since more than once, our 
survival depended on the KWM-2A working.  I wonder how many $10K radios 
of today could duplicate that reliability and durability?

Rest in peace, Art ... and ignore all the latter-day critics.  Your 
radios were engineering marvels.  I now have another engineering marvel 
on my desk, it's much smaller and lighter than a KWM-2A, and its 
performance surpasses your marvel.  Fittingly, its name begins with a "K".

A number of our airborne missions required that we destroy all of our 
gear with thermite when we ran out of JP4 for the turbine generators and 
the Army came to recover us in a couple of CH3's.  We had two KWM-2A's 
on every mission.  We ran 21 of those missions.  Does anyone know how 
hard it was for a ham to purposely destroy 42 KWM-2A's? :-(

I'll be in the Flight of the Bumblebees this coming Sunday with my K2 
and KX1 as back-up.  Hope to work a bunch of Elecrafters.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2007 CQP Oct 6-7
- www.cqp.org

K2 #4398
KX1 #897
KPA100
KAT100