[Elecraft] K3 #642 on the air

[Fred Jensen]

KEVIN: If you see this, my S/N is 642, not 624.  Not only did I QLF it 
on the air in ECN, I remembered it all wrong as well.  I think it's 
called "age." :-(

ALL:  Assembly went really great, no problems; follow the directions. 
Lots of screws, multiple kinds of washers, and a few nuts [what would 
ham radio be without a few nuts]; a muffin tin or two and a ruler helps 
a lot.  Two momentary panics:  One after the KPA3 was done and I 
couldn't get the power above about 12W.  As a last resort :-) I read the 
manual and found out the CONFIG:PAio menu, which was turned ON, only 
applies if you have the IO module installed but not the amp itself. 
Proceeding up the choices, I then found CONFIG:PA, turned it to 'nor', 
and 100W wafted from my beam.

Other panic: I have a little Radio Shack audio amp I use to get my 
radios up to afterburner roar since my hearing aids don't work under the 
headphones.  I tried it, and the AF Gain was about 9 o'clock for good 
listening.  Later hooked it up again, and virtually no sound from the 
radio, even with the AF Gain maxed out.  No antenna -- end of panic. 
This is a veeeerrrry quiet radio!

At the tool store in town, I picked up 3 or 4 little stainless surgical 
clamps awhile ago.  They are very useful for getting screws started 
without dropping them into the guts of the radio.  I had to use a 
fingernail file to round off the mini-coax plugs from the Ref Osc, but 
that was easy.  No other issues.  This is a clean kit for sure.

I've had a couple of weeks with it now and I can't really come up with 
my top ten "likes," there are so many.  But I know a big one is that the 
radio comes alive right after calibration in a highly usable state 
without much menu tweaking.  Just enable the modules you have, and 
you're on the air, mess around with the menu entries at your leisure.

Nice job Elecraft!  I'm a happy ham.  We'll try it out in WPX CW this 
weekend after #3 grandson Joe gets married Sat.  Most everyone will have 
the K6 mult by the time I get on.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2008 Cal QSO Party  4-5 Oct 08
- www.cqp.org