[Elecraft] Sunspots and the K2, K1

[Jim Sheldon]

I had just gotten my K2 after having problems with a close neighbor ham 
that ALWAYS ran his 2KW amp full bore, even for crosstown QSO's, had an 
early  Yaesu FT-1000 with super key clicks.  He refused to do the key 
click mod (so he could grab and hold a frequency in a contest without 
people encroaching on it).  He overloaded a Yaesu FT-897 which I 
replaced with an ICOM 706 MKII and overloaded that too.  I ordered & 
built a K2 which took care of the overload, if not the key click 
problem.  I loved that K2 and had a lot of nice successes with it.

First off, I was working 160 meters one early morning, heard a Caribbean 
station (will remain nameless to keep from shaming him) calling CQ (not 
CQ JA or CQ DX) so I called him.  He acknowledged but refused the 
contact because he said he was only working JA stations.  I continued to 
listen to him call CQ for a while when a JA station answered him.  After 
he returned the JA's call, the JA station said "Sorry, I'm only working 
USA stations this morning and then the JA called me!  - Wow.  I was only 
running the K2 at 5 watts on 160 and that was totally unexpected.  Had a 
nice chat with the JA station (got the QSL card to prove it about a 
month later).

Later, I inherited a tidy sum of money when my favorite Aunt passed away 
and got a full K line.  Final to the story, the FCC got on the local ham 
with the key clicks so he had to fix them, I now had a KPA500/KAT500 
behind the K3 and in a contest I could operate within a couple KHz of 
this guy with the K3's attenuator on and not have a problem 
copying/working weak signals.  Back when he was overloading the Yaesu & 
ICOM rigs I had, I asked him to turn the amp off in local QSO's but his 
comment was "Get a real radio!".  Well after I got the K line and ran 
the amp in contests, he asked ME to turn MY amp off.  My response to 
that was -- "Like YOU said, get a real radio!".  Shortly after that he 
moved out to a farm he inherited about 35 miles from me and I haven't 
heard him since - LOL.

Speaks extremely well for the Elecraft line's strong (even extreme) 
signal handling capability.  It was good, but not perfect with the K2 
but even better with the K3 and now a K3S.  At 78, I doubt I'll ever 
have a K4, but I fully expect the K3S to just keep on truckin' as it has 
for the last few years.

Thanks Elecraft for some of the best rigs of the age.

Jim Sheldon, W0EB