[Elecraft] What made you decide on purchasing an Elecraft transceiver?

[John Ragle]

     After some very lean years as a high school and college student, I 
allowed myself the luxury of commercial rigs. They included Heathkit, 
Kenwood, and TenTec boxes. My first experience with a TenTec Triton IV 
and real QSK made me a TenTec fan for years, and the final one in this 
sequence was an Omni VI-plus. In the interval I also owned a couple of 
VHF/UHF single-band all mode rigs and a small FM box for the car. The 
Kenwood TS-520 was deliberately chosen to be somewhat portable, as I 
bought it before spending 15 months in Germany. I think it was the 
handle on the side that convinced me (joke).

     The Omni VI+ was IMHO a bloated piece of hardware, though it worked 
just fine. It was early in the sequence of enormous boat-anchors now 
prevalent from the Land of the Rising Sun. When it came time to pass on 
to the next xcvr, I looked for something that was petite, modular, and 
inexpensive. At the time I was recovering from a serious illness, and 
wasn't sure that my finger dexterity would permit either fast QSK CW or 
assembly of a kit, and I specifically wanted a kit that was of the 
"hole-stuffing" variety with no (or pre-installed) SM components. The 
low-end K2 served my needs very well, and I found I could manage the 
assembly without any problems. Over the subsequent few months, I added 
the ATU, the PA100, and the SSB modules to the base K2.

     About this time, ads for the FLEX series of rigs in QST started 
catching my eye, and after building a small all-band software controlled 
receiver, I decided to graduate to a FLEX-1500. I had acquired a Tokyo 
Hi-Power 45-watt amp, and figured that the resulting power level would 
be plenty satisfactory with a gain antenna and CW, RTTY, and PSK. 
Unfortunately, for a long time, the FLEX-1500 was vaporware, and after 
waiting almost a year for it to materialize, I canceled my order, sold 
off the augmented K2and bought a FLEX-3000 instead. This was a serious 
mistake. The F3K would not do QSK, it would not tune my triband or 50 
MHz Yagis, requiring an external tuner, and its horrific IEE-1394 
interface kept spontaneously un-installing every few weeks. In fact, the 
CW part of the F3K was so bad that it would not follow my paddles and CW 
had to be done from the keyboard of the computer.

     After struggling with the FLEX for a year or so, I sold it off to a 
'phone operator and purchased a fully elaborated K3/100. It matched the 
portability requirements, did QSK beautifully, managed to tune my 
antennas without the external tuner, and so on. For digital modes other 
than straight CW, I have chosen to use a SignaLink USB with FLDIGI, and 
I have added a 144 MHz transverter and a pair of TE systems amps for 6 
and 2 meter operation.  I am very fond of this combination. In 
particular, it is "pluck and go" if I want to operate portable from the 
car with a 12-Volt battery or from a hotel, although of course I leave 
all the ancillary components behind. I use it with a BuddiPole, which 
can also be configured as a small 6-meter Yagi, or a wire tossed out the 
window. On the road, I can run the rig from a netbook using DigiPan, 
though this means that I lose the CAT ability. So far, I am still able 
to turn the tuning knob!

     In summary, the K3 is a very nice base station rig. It does not 
dominate the desktop, it is portable, and it does very nice CW and 
digital communication. It is not inexpensive, but it is 
inexpensive-enough to be manageable, particularly in its less elaborated 
versions. Interfacing it to the outside world is easy, though there was 
the oft-cited difficulty of finding a USB->serial converter that worked 
when using it with FLDIGI. The factory support system is excellent. The 
Elecraft list-server is a world unto itself, easily as entertaining as SNL.

     73 to all,

John Ragle -- W1ZI