I put the new KPA/KAT500 to work with my Flex 6500 this weekend in the
ARRL-DX-CW contest and I had an absolute blast! It was generally a casual
effort but netted 500 contacts, about 90ish being unique DX and qualified
for CW DXCC. I worked 80,40,20,15 (surprisingly productive on 15) and ran
the KPA between 250 and 500 watts. Mostly glitch-free operation.
I did happen to kill my wife's satellite reception. Tech coming this week
to check it out.
[Tech arrived, wind damage to the dish, not me!]
Also, her TV would bring up different menus. This only happened on 40
meters above 190 watts. I will need to drop some ferrites on the various
leads up there and see how that works for her. The neighbors, about 160'
away, didn't complain but I'm bigger than they are so maybe they were too
scared. ;)
I used N1MM+ along with CW Skimmer. I set up the skimmer as a local cluster
and telnet'd to it from N1MM+. The bandmap was useful but the list of
available Qs and Mults was the key. I just worked my way top to bottom
(sorted by newest) and it was like shooting fish in a barrel. I think. I
never really shot a fish in a barrel. But it was very easy to work the
list, see a mult come in and jump on it immediately. At some points I
almost felt like I was in Run mode with how quickly I was nabbing contacts.
Again, it was a real pleasure working this way when everything just snaps
into place.
I have a hex beam for 20 meters. It is only about 10' off the ground on a
roof mount. I really felt the value of the hex finally. When selected over
the dipole the noise level dropped along with most of the signals. While
the S-meter read lower for the signal of interest there was also much less
noise and interference from other signals. I only saved one audio sample
showing dipole/hex a/b while working a Japan station. Not sure if
attachments make it on the reflector but if it does, the first few seconds
is dipole. Then I flip to the hex and you can dig Japan out of the noise.
Being able to not only copy him but work him successfully was pretty
exciting for me. My QSOs with that part of the world are very rare.
Thanks Elecraft for all the fun. Thanks for making the KPA/KAT combo deal
and making such great equipment. Big thanks for making them valuable even
if not run with an Elecraft rig. I don't think I missed out on a single
feature of the amp/tuner combo running with the Flex.
Unfortunately the audio was moderated out. It's posted here
<
https://goo.gl/r2iOVG> in case you're interested.
73,
Kev K4VD
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