[Elecraft] Notable SSB QSO (HD8R)

[Wayne Burdick]

I took advantage of the excellent conditions today to work a little DX with the KX2. I was running 10 watts on 17 meters to a 20 meter vertical.

There was HD8M (Galapagos), loud and clear, calling CQ "up 5" on 18.145. 

When I broke the pileup on the third call, I reflected on how many of the KX2's features came into play to make this happen:

  - ATU easily matched my 20 meter vertical on 17 meters (1.0:1)

  - internal battery allowed transmit at a full 10 watts

  - speech compression made it sound more like 20 or 30 watts :)

  - used the KX2's stereo audio/dual-receive function to listen on both 
    18.145 (RX) and 18.150 (TX) at the same time; transmitting SPLIT

  - annoying S8 noise pulses were vanquished by the NB

  - carriers from the inconsiderate were dealt with by auto-notch

  - used one of the rig's two DVR messages to do the calling

That's a lot of fully integrated fun in a radio that weighs less than one pound and draws only about 170 mA in receive mode. And a great excuse to get outdoors.

Details on the KX2 can be found here:

   https://elecraft.com/collections/kx-line/products/kx2-ssb-cw-data-80-10-m-transceiver

73,
Wayne
N6KR