K1 s/n 1031 on the air practice...

[Petr Ouředník]

Dears,

as my K1 s/n 1031 arrived on Fri last week I was happy to test it in the air during this weekend.

When I unwrapped the double box I found something so small that I though its just dummy sample of real radio only and self radio will come later ;) How surprised I was when I connected the power and it receiving...hi.

First quick check found that its K1-4 covering 40/30/20/15m with KAT1, KNB1 installed including the KST1. So except the KBT1 (which I will order in the future) its fully loaded baby...es expected. Radio seems to be clean and not damaged so first good news. BTW: I am happy that I was able to buy it builded already cause as I am relly overloaded over the week with business I would like to spend a little free time with on-air operation.

I had the time to test on the air just in dark time so 15m was out. My first station I heard from jo60xj in Kostice, Czech Republic was JH6 on 20m then PY4 and many EU's.

My first QSO I made after longer time of my replying to lot's stations. I was a bit flustrated for first few mins cause I was not able to catch nobody although the LCD bargraph shows 5W out. After 15mins of unsatisfactory operation was clear to me the reason > the receiver is as good as I am calling with my poor antenna ( 20m sloper at 4m only ) only DX stations ! :) With my one evenning radio like RockMite on 40m I called stations not far away from me and I got reply very easily. Here I called PY4, ZL2, JH6...so its nothing special that I did not grabed them, hi.

So my first QSO I made with AA3B on 20m with 5W output into the low sloper beaming to East in contest CQM. After I made another QSO's see log...

13.5.06 19:49U 14034.7  AA3B 599/599 001/114
13.5.06 19:50U 14036.3  W1MK 599/599 002/150
13.5.06 20:10U 14022.1  KS1J 599/599 003/090
13.5.06 20:14U 14021.5  K8GL 599/599 004/091
13.5.06 20:41U 14002.6  K8PO 599/599 005/110
13.5.06 21:50U 14038.9  5B4AGC 599/599 006/268
13.5.06 22:02U 14029.4  N9RV 599/599 007/126
13.5.06 22:33U 10108.0  EA6SX 599/599
14.5.06 20:34U 14009.9                      W1MK        599/579 Rob, MA

KAT1 has problem on 40m to tune up as the Inv.V antennas as its arranged for 160m band and reactive part of feed point impedance will be high. 30-15m was not problem to tune up all my antennas. (i.e. Inv.V 2x38m linear loaded, double wires 20/15m low sloper)

KNB1 filter helped just one time from five different situations I tested on the bands but it seems to be standard.

Variable IF xtal filter sounds to me well specialy when 200Hz bandwidth selected although the stopband will not be high as sounded on the air.

Audio makes a bit pop&click efect when keying but it can be the alignment problem only I will see. Otherwise the receiver is very sensitive and extremly quiet with enough gain so its very comfortable operation.

Finaly it seems that my new K1-4 works very well and will make lot of fun specialy on travelling, backpack, or camps. Great.

73, Petr OK1RP
Petr Ouředník
00420608230010 (private)
[hidden email]
www.qsl.net/ok1rp
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