[Elecraft] (KX1) A Story for a Winter Day in NY

Thu Feb 9 22:45:05 EST 2017

Beautiful obit for the KX1 Stan. Ops like you will remember it like us O.T.s remember our 6L6 crystal controlled oscillators built on a breadboard. Newer rigs do as well (sometimes better) but are never the same. 

Waaay back in the 1950's I volunteered to operate NCS for a RACES exercise in Southern California at W6CV, owned by a good mentor, Brook Sawyer. The station had a room of its own in his homw with a state-of-the-then-art Viking II A.M. transmitter and big HRO receiver hooked to a dipole on his hill top via open wire line. I spend a long day managing that net, constantly impressed with the station. But then that evening, as I drove home in my 1947 Studebaker Champion, I remember looking forward to firing up my one tube 6V6 oscillator to look for a contact with my Hallcrafter's S-38 receiver. Running the big rig at W6CV was one thing. Pounding brass with my 6V6 oscillator was a whole different experience. 

Certain rigs we never ever forget, no matter how much "better" what followed has become.  

73, Ron AC7AC

-----Original Message-----
From: Elecraft [mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of stan levandowski
Sent: Thursday, February 9, 2017 2:52 PM
To: Elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Elecraft] (KX1) A Story for a Winter Day in NY

Just a couple of months ago, on December 7, I purchased a KX1.  It was a replacement to the KX1 I had built several years ago: my entry into the Elecraft world.  I thought I had "outgrown" it so I sold it.

Fast forward through my K1, K2, K3, KX3, and now KX2/KXPA100 setup (plus other stuff like the K2 amp, the KAT100, the PX3, an earlier KXPA100 for the KX3....lots of other stuff plus the mini-modules) and we come to today.  Elecraft has made a small fortune on me! 

We're having a blizzard in New York.  My picnic table out back has over
12 inches of snow on it.  As a prisoner of the house, I decided to do a little operating;  However, 40 meters was dead and so was 30 meters.  It wasn't so hot on 20 meters either.  I went down to the living room and built a fire.  But gosh, I really wanted to operate...

So I brought my KX1 down to the living room.  I stretched a 40 foot length of {high loss} RG174 from my shack to the fireplace.  I have a 67 foot bent up doublet in my attic managed by an SGC231 autocoupler and that's where one end of the RG174 extension coax went.  The other end connected the antenna to my KX1 on AA batteries.  With less than 13.9 VDC, the KX1 doesn't have the oomph required to kick the autocoupler into tune mode.  No problem.  I just used my QRO setup to find the match on 14.030. That would give me a few kHZ either side with a good SWR.

So there I am, sitting in front of the fireplace with a rig on batteries putting out maybe a watt +/-, a high loss connection to the antenna, a coupler with some degree of loss, a freakin' blizzard outside, a bent up antenna in my attic and a foot of snow on the roof and conditions on 20 meters reportedly "Fair."

Well, guess what.  I worked a whole pile of stations - Minnesota, New Mexico, Florida, Hungary, Ireland, Germany and the Bahamas.  After an hour, I brought the rig back to the shack and promptly worked  V53DX, a new QRP country for me.

Thus, it was with more than a little sadness that I logged onto the Elecraft website and saw that the KX1 has been discontinued!  I don't recall seeing any email announcements about this or any chatter on this reflector about it either.

I certainly understand that business decisions must be made and change is inevitable.  In fact, I'm surprised that the K1 didn't go before the KX1.

I just thought I'd take the time to salute one of the greatest QRP rigs I've ever had the pleasure to build and operate - twice - and WOW - I'm happy that I gave this new KX1 to myself for Chistmas!

During the period of time between my first KX1 and this new one, I explored lots of other QRP rigs because I was curious.  I spent a lot of money too!  They were all well engineered.  They all worked. They all had their own uniqueness.  BUT the KX1 distinguished itself because it had everything one needs to operate right there onboard.  The LNR Mountain Toppers, for example, were about the size of a pack of cigarettes. However, the operator had to have an outboard key, an outboard power supply and an outboard antenna tuner.  That's more like a full carton smokes. Same for the LD-5 and LD-11.

The thing about the KX1 was its apparent simplicity which masked its elegant design and robust menu.  I love my KX2 with its dual watch function, autospot feature and filtering.  But now it's hooked up to the amplifier and it's no longer a candidate for "grab and go" operations. 
 The KX1 was (and IS for me) just plain FUN and all in one nice package.

Sorry to see it go west.

73, Stan WB2LQF
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