[Elecraft] K2 Initial Test

[Paul Agoglia]

I have been testing my K2  serial 7059 on receive only today.  It has a SSB adaptor, KAT-100 tuner, and  100 watt adaptor.  All just recently built.  I hung an 80 meter dipole with each leg 66 feet long for a start (not trimmed yet).  The 165 feet of ladder line feeds into a 1:1/1:4 Elecraft balun.  The only test I have not done on all the units, to my knowledge, is the Transmit Tests, and that is because the necessary dummy load is on backorder.  I only have a 15 watt and it calls for a 100 watt.  FYI: I have the antenna grounded with rods, but my equipment is not grounded yet.  Not sure if that would make a difference in the receive test that follows in the next paragraph.

On receive, the bands that were open were 80, 40 and 20 meters.  I could hear voices on all three bands.  On 40 and 20 meters, they sounded human.  On 80 meters, the voices sounded more high pitched.  I could not tune them in.   This was odd to me, as the antenna is cut to that band, and it would seem that the antenna tuner would not have to do any work to hear 80 meters clearly.  I am guessing that those voices should have been heard clearly?

Any suggestions?

73 de WN2K
Paul Agoglia