[Elecraft] K2N "QRP CW DE-Xpedition" Results and Video

[stan levandowski]

Our three KX3s performed flawlessly through eight hours of solid 
pounding.  We made 148 contacts and probably influenced the purchase of 
at least a couple of KX3s in the process.  The three KX3s were operating 
within a few of feet of each other but we experienced no interference 
issues we couldn't mitigate - except for fundamental overload when we 
put two of them on parallel vertical antennas only a few yards apart. 
Gosh...that's asking just a bit too much, even from Elecraft!

So Tony W1ZMB had to give up his 70 foot vertical for a 12 foot whip 
antenna on the flying bridge that was fed with 200 feet of coax.  The 
KX3's ATU matched it 1:1 and whatever RF Tony had left by the time it 
got to the whip found its way west to California, south to Uruguay, and 
east to Europe.

Ulrich N2DE made 67 contacts on his 80 foot wire vertical.   Primarily 
DX.  Ulrich doesn't believe in wasting paper; he used his CW Machine to 
autolog everything.  I'll have to wait till he emails me an ADIF file to 
see exactly where his signals landed.

I spent the day on 40 meters at the end of a 100' long wire.  The KX3 
and its ATU were very happy with the antenna and the 1200 ton 
counterpoise ;)  My signal reports were mostly 559 to 599 with a 
pipeline to the south, right off the end of the long wire.  No DX for 
me, except for Canada.  Guess it was too early for 40M and we had to QRT 
at 8:00 p.m. EDT.

We all noted with great pleasure how many KX3s we worked today.  We also 
worked a number of K3s and K2s.  We were hoping for at least one K1 and 
a KX1 to make a clean sweep of the product line but (as far as I know at 
this point) that didn't happen.

My best "DX" was W4FKM in Bristol, TN.  Claude had a homebrew 450 mw rig 
on 40 meters into an inverted V. The APF function and a very narrow 
bandwidth brought him out of the noise quite effectively.

Condx were "OK" -not great but certainly not terrible.    Wish we could 
have gone longer.

At the end of the day, we all agreed that the KX3 is a real winner. It's 
moved the art and science of QRP ahead by a giant step.

We accomplished our goals - We had a great deal of fun, got some 
publicity for a historic ship, and called attention to QRP by 
demonstrating that "it works."

We probably could have made many more QSOs but only one (1) of us 
(Ulrich) is of that caliber.  Tony and I are just common ragchewers and 
we admit to being sort of clumsy when it comes to keeping up with the 
hand-logging while trying to field the next call.

The Begali "Adventure" prototypes, both iambic and mono,  were a joy to 
use.  We accumulated some additional input for Piero to consider as he 
brings the paddle forward toward production.  One of the guest operators 
fell in love with both the KX3 and the Begali mono paddle.  He was left 
handed and easily accomodated by swiveling the paddle from 45 degrees 
right to 45 degrees left and then retightening it.    I thought I'd 
never get my rig back!

Here's a video in which you can catch a glimpse of the Begali 
"Adventure" prototypes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b_cXOyiskU


73, Stan WB2LQF