[Elecraft] KX1 help

[W7BRS]

> [..]  Solder the other end of the coax to
> a PL 259 plug and you should be done.

I believe the jack on the KXV1 is a BNC connector.  Right?  Not sure what the 
PL-259 gets you.  Converting from PL-259 back to BNC is just another 
RF-speedbump.  It might not matter though.  I tend to try to avoid converting 
coax connectors and instead put on the connector for the application.

On the coax, here's what I thought, but I could be mistaken:

For portability  I was going to mention RG-316, it's O.D is just less than 
0.100" and therefore really light in the backpack, but the matched loss is 
substantially higher than other selections.

I haven't tried RG-303 (Belden 84303) but the O.D. is only 0.170" and the 
matched loss is just a bit less than half of RG-316.  (1.2 db at 10Mhz per 
100ft, 4.1db at 100Mhz per 100ft)  compared to RG316 (2.7db at 10Mhz at 100ft 
and 8.3 (wow) db at 100Mhz at 100ft).  Your rig is going to be operating at 
frequencies lower than 20m so 1.2db at 10Mhz per 100ft would be ok with me, If 
you use a feedline that is 40ft or so or less from the portable antenna 
(backpacking situation) that would be just fine.

There's other narrow O.D. coax listed in table 19.1 of the ARRL handbook, 
RG-400 also has a narrow O.D. and decent loss values. Just depends on how much 
weight you want to carry with you, availability of connectors for the various 
coax.

If weight isn't an issue, I'd go with RG8-X to get started, not the absolute 
best coax but cheap and fairly good dB loss figures for the bands you can work 
with the rig you have.


-jeff