[Elecraft] K1 #2973 on the Air (Choosing the K1 or KX1)

Thu Apr 7 20:37:05 EDT 2011

Mike, thank you for your comprehensive report as you see it.  I'm 
ordering my K1 next week because I happen to agree with you.   I already 
own the KX1, K2, and K3.  I want the K1 for all the reasons you laid out 
so nicely + for the pure and senseless satisfaction of owning one of 
every transceiver Elecraft makes.  True, no person or business entity is 
"perfect" but Elecraft arouses a certain "something" in me that is 
deeply satisfying.  Something I haven't felt in recent years.

I'm no electronics expert; for me ham radio is a pure hobby.  I've found 
that each of the Elecraft rigs I own so far have some unique quality 
that's not found in the other products in the line.  I only do QRP.  The 
KX1 fits in my pocket, loads up 26 feet of wire good enough to earn me 
my 1KMPW award, yet "feels" like a "real" radio at the picnic table in 
the park.  The K2 gave me the pleasure of (perhaps for the last time in 
my life) soldering scores of parts together to make a superior 
transceiver with enough bells and whistles to make me competitive on our 
crowded bands.  My new K3 promises to provide me with an education and 
with a platform I can expand as my education broadens my operating 
interests.  The upcoming K1 is going to be my mobile rig.  I'm presently 
building a capacitive loading mobile antenna base (Phil Salas, AD5X, 
February, 2004 QST) for my hamsticks.  Thus, the 'niche' the K1 will 
fill for me is to act as a dedicated mobile CW station for my VW Bug 
(Now what else would a CW op drive but a "Bug"?).

Thanks for the heads-up about the backlight and the 4 band vs 2 band.  I 
was actually going to pass up the backlight option and buy the two band 
module for 40 and 20.  I now think I'll go with 40/30/20/15. I never 
intended to stuff a battery in it nor did I want that stand.  I figured 
the NB would be a good idea for mobile work -- not that I actually plan 
to drive and operate at the same time but because I'll be in the 
vicinity of other cars and the NB might help out on that account.  Of 
course, the internal ATU is a must.

73,  Stan WB2LQF

On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 6:03 PM, Mike Morrow wrote:

>> Great to see K1s are still popular.  I'm looking to get a K1 or a 
>> Kx1.
>> I was not sure how well the K1s were selling.  Can you tell me why
>> you selected the K1 rather than the Kx1?
>
> I ordered my K1 after seeing the prototype at Dayton 2000.  It was 
> delivered
> (S/N 175) in late November, 2000.  In 10.5 years of sales, about 3000 
> K1s have
> been sold.  That's one for every business day for the past 10.5 years. 
> I don't
> know what the current sales volume is, but the K1 remains firmly after 
> more
> than ten years of ownership my favorite QRP rig of all time.  Nothing 
> else comes
> close.
>
> With respect to the choice of KX1 of K1, as far as ham band CW *RF* 
> performance
> goes, the K1 is inarguably superior.
>
> (1) The K1 uses a L-C VFO that is cleaner than the direct digital 
> synthesis frequency generation scheme of the KX1.  This reduces 
> transmitter spurious output, and improves receiver performance because 
> fewer spur frequencies are part of the local oscillator signal fed to 
> the front-end mixer. According to
> reported measurements of the K1 with two-band board, it has better 
> transmitter
> spurious output specs than even the K2. The low-pass filtering of the 
> four-band
> version is much better than the two-band version.  Beware of drawing 
> conclusions
> from the QST review of the K1, because they tested a two-band model, 
> which had
> the poorer filtering.
>
> (2) The K1 can be placed on any HF band, though Elecraft sells parts 
> for 80m
> through 15m only.  The KX1 DDS chip is clocked at its maximum rate of 
> 50 MHz,
> which limits KX1 frequency coverage to around 20m and lower.  The 15m 
> band is
> one of the finest QRP bands when open.  It's my favorite band.  This 
> *alone*
> would be enough to make me choose the K1 over the KX1.
>
> (3) The K1 uses a four-pole crystal IF filter, while the KX1 IF uses a 
> three-pole
> filter.  It's a well-noted characteristic of the KX1 to be able to 
> receive on
> *both* sides of a CW signal as one tunes through it because of the 
> lack of
> selectivity of its IF filtering. OTOH, since many use their KX1 to 
> receive SSB,
> there the three-pole filter is an advantage.
>
> (4) The K1's optional auto antenna tuner tunes a *much* wider range of 
> impedances than that of the KX1.  I'd choose the K1 with KAT1 without 
> any question over any
> external tuner.  The argument that an external tuner makes it easier 
> to swap filter
> boards is specious, since very few K1 owners of the four-band model 
> make such
> swaps except rarely.
>
> (5) Most find the continuous L-C VFO tuning of the K1 to be more 
> natural than the step-wise tuning of the DDS in the KX1.
>
> (6) The K1 has a noise blanker option, while the KX1 does not.  I once 
> thought
> that the KNB1 wasn't all that useful, but I have some odd type of 
> digital noise
> in the area I now live on which the KNB1 is *most* effective.
>
> (7) The K1 transmitter can produce up to seven watts of output power. 
> The KX1 is about half that, if one is lucky.
>
> (8) The K1 case contains a speaker, the KX1 does not. The K1 has 
> plenty of audio to drive it too.
>
> (9) IMHO, the full-house K1 (with KNB1, KAT1, and four-band board) is 
> easier
> (less-tricky) to build than the full-house KX1 with all its options 
> (40/20m with
> 80/30m option, KXAT1).
>
> (10) I like the front-mounted controls of the K1 more than the 
> top-mounted
> controls of the KX1.  The so-called "trail-friendly" top control 
> configuration
> is, I think, without demonstrable advantage.  I've often used my K1 as 
> a
> backpack rig.
>
> I personally do NOT like the K1 KBT1.  It is a bad idea to have a 
> chemical
> corrosion source inside a radio, the pack can't be charged internally, 
> and
> the normal K1 speaker is far better than the micro-speaker that comes 
> with
> the KBT1.
>
> I do not like the KTS1 tilt stand.  It is way over-designed.  A simple 
> wire
> tilt-bale would be much cheaper and could be premanently stowed under 
> the rig
> when not in use, unlike the KTS1.
>
> I think that it is a disservice to supply the K1 without the LCD 
> back-light as
> standard equipment.  That back-light is a *tremendous* asset to the 
> K1, and it
> is, IMHO, a real pain in the butt to back fit to a K1 that has been 
> built without
> the back-light.
>
> The KX1 is clearly superior in terms of VFO stability.  The DDS is 
> about as stable as a crystal oscillator.  It is superior in its span 
> of frequency
> coverage within the limits of the DDS.  It can switch between USB and 
> LSB due
> to the frequency agility of the DDS as the local oscillator. It has 
> neat
> features like audio feedback to controls.  It is definitely smaller 
> and lighter.
> The KX1 definitely has some positive features that the K1 doesn't 
> have.  *None*
> of them, except VFO stability, are improvements in *RF* performance on 
> the
> ham CW bands.  Yet, the K1's L-C VFO is astonishingly and surprisingly 
> stable.
>
> But...if the K1 were not available, the KX1 would be my very next 
> choice for a QRP rig.  It's a very fine and well-designed rig.  I 
> would like to see a new KX2
> that offered four-pole IF filtering, a DDS that could provide 
> operation at least
> up to 15m band coverage, and "from the design stage" coverage from 80m 
> to 15m
> without the trickiness of the current KX1 design.  And maybe, a little 
> more
> versatility in the auto antenna tuner (more like the KAT1).  I'd also 
> like to
> see an option to choose a case that did not waste volume for a battery 
> pack.
> I do NOT want batteries inside a radio.  A little external 10-cell 
> AA-holder
> works just fine.  An option to buy built and tested would also be 
> nice.  I've
> built many things since I started messing with radio gear in 1964, and 
> today
> I don't have the time to waste on mostly mindless, definitely boring 
> kit
> building activities.  I'd buy such a QRP rig in a heartbeat.  If 
> Elecraft doesn't
> step up, China will at much lower price.  But Elecraft has been pretty 
> much a
> K3 enterprise for several years now, just like this list.  But many 
> will *never*
> want a K3 type of rig for QRP operation.
>
> Mike / KK5F
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