[Elecraft] Elecraft KX3 Owner's Manual now available (*preliminary*)

[Jim Brown]

On 3/5/2012 11:09 AM, W7GJ, Lance wrote:
> However, my solid state 6M-1000 amplifier has a little mechanical antenna relay in
> it, and the last thing I can afford to do is to hot switch that amp on a 6m EME
> DXpedition and blow up the transistors and/or the little transfer relay inside it.

I understand, and like many others, greatly appreciate your initiative 
to recycle those high quality ch 2 power amps for 6M. BUT -- designing 
and building some sort of bulletproof T/R antenna switching ought to be 
part of that conversion.  It doesn't take much to rig a suitable vacuum 
relay like the Jennings, Kilovac, or Gigavac, and the Ten Tec schematics 
for the Titan 425, which are on my website, illustrate an easy way to 
sense that the relay has positively switched. They did it in the late 
70s with discrete small signal NPN and PNP transistors, and it still 
works just fine 35 years later.  BTW -- Alpha uses  Gigavac relays in 
their current production, and they're not expensive. They will sell 
small quantities directly to hams at about $80 each, and I've heard of 
at least respected ham vendor who beats that price by something like 20%.

While it's great to see more features built into Elecraft rigs, we must 
realize that they are not free (at a minimum there is engineering time 
to do the programming and document it), some can be costly or 
impractical, depending on the hardware, and when they are costly, it is 
not reasonable to burden all KX3 owners with things that can (and 
should) be done outside the radio.

73,  Jim K9YC