[Elecraft] KX1 alignment and testing guidance

[Paul C]

Thanks, Don.  I think I can get a dummy load from HRO today and can probably borrow a transceiver from my local club.  My random wire is 34 ' each leg, which is close to what the manual suggests.  

I have a signal generator which I forgot about.  It goes into the MHz range.  I've never used it on a radio before.  I guess I can just attach it to the antenna jack.

This a really neat radio.  Construction took longer than I anticipated but went well.  I wanted to have it going before my backpacking trip to New Mexico, but I'm running out of time now.

I appreciate the ideas you mentioned. 

73, Paul KG5KXG

-----Original Message-----
From: "Don Wilhelm" <donwilh at embarqmail.com>
Sent: ‎12/‎26/‎2016 7:47 AM
To: "Paul C" <paulc22 at sbcglobal.net>; "elecraft at mailman.qth.net" <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] KX1 alignment and testing guidance

Paul,

At this time during the sunspot cycle, and especially over a holiday 
weekend, you are not likely to hear many signals from a random wire 
unless you have some way of tuning it - that is doubly a problem if it 
is just strung out on the house floor.  Being 70 feet long, it is likely 
presenting a high impedance at the end approaching 4000 ohms, where a 
lower impedance (ideally 50 ohms) is needed.

The TUNE buttons put the KX1 into transmit, but you should be operating 
into a 50 ohm load.
Can you obtain or borrow a 50 ohm dummy load?  That and some means of 
indicating power output is necessary.

For receive, a signal generator of some type is a real asset if you do 
not have a good resonant antenna with a 50 ohm feedline.

I suggest you contact some of the local hams who might have some test 
equipment and dummy loads to help you out.

73,
Don W3FPR

On 12/26/2016 1:48 AM, Paul C wrote:
> Hi folks.  I'm in the final steps for getting my KX1 working and am kind of stuck.  Since Elecraft is closed until Wednesday I thought I'd check with y'all for a few ideas before then.
>
> Q1). What exactly is TUNE mode supposed to do? For me it doesn't appear to do anything.
>
> BTW, I'm trying to align the thing and I have a random wire dipole fed directly to the antenna jack.  I have the KXAT1 ATU option assembled but it's not installed in the rig yet.
>