K2 5087 first breath and some ot stuff

[jferg977]

Comrades,

What a great kit! as well as a great manual!  I'm up to end of second
stage of construction - where you can start listening on 40 meters and
I was astonished at what I could hear even with the goofy antenna I
threw up on the upper deck of our boat (qth?).

But I do have a question.  The final Part II action is 40 Meter Band
Pass adjustment where you adjust L1 and L2 for peak signal strength.

I did it doing first L1 and then L2 and did indeed strengthen the
signal.  Is there some sequence that this should be done in?  Do L1 and
L2 affect each other such that this should be a more iterative process?

Advancing to  completion will probably need to wait until I pass
elements one through three, hopefully next month.

On another subject:

I asked for advice last spring about whether to get paddles or a
straight key right from the start.  Interestingly, the preponderance of
advice was for a straight key although two of you did suggest I buy
whatever I was going to use and have at it.  I wanted to practice
sending to see if it was going to be a problem and supposed that if it
wasn't, learning to send would hasten picking up the listening.  Guess
what, the two things have nothing to do with each other - at least in
my head.

I bought  Palm paddles and their neat little keyer which has an audible
sidetone.  I can send almost 20 wpm from printed material - goes in the
eyes and out the fingers without much thought.  sending off the top of
my head is harder because I lose track of where I am - asynchronous for
sure.  But all this sending practice did absolutely nothing for
listening. I' getting there but I hadn't reckoned on the sending
practice not being particularly productive.

I also built a Micro908 analyzer.  I'm blessed with very poor vision -
near sighted which means when I take my glasses off I can read anything
including the 1206 smt diodes in the micro908 kit and the glass diodes
in the K2 kit.  After the 908 experinece, I don't quite see what the
apprehension is about building surface mount stuff - it seemed easier
and quicker to me, but then I could see what I was doing.  My guess is
that if you can't easily see these things, then it would be very very
hard.

I'm 63, and built Dynakit Hi-Fi's for my Dad's friends when I was a kid
as well as Heath, Eico, and Allied Radio's stuff.  I think the K2 is
really better than any of them although it may be that the design is
more repeatable - K2's built carefully are likely to be more
electronically similar than the things I did in the '50's.

Thanks much for this great product.

John Ferguson

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[Don Wilhelm-3]

John,

Just peak L1 and L2 in any order that you wish.  Go back and forth between
them to be certain you get them both peaked. Any interaction is minimal, but
go back and forth a couple times just to be certain.

73,
Don W3FPR

> -----Original Message-----
>
> But I do have a question.  The final Part II action is 40 Meter Band
> Pass adjustment where you adjust L1 and L2 for peak signal strength.
>
> I did it doing first L1 and then L2 and did indeed strengthen the
> signal.  Is there some sequence that this should be done in?  Do L1 and
> L2 affect each other such that this should be a more iterative process?
>
>

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[jferg977]

Thanks,
It's good to know how to do this for sure.
I was otherwise astonished by how closely my k2 tracked the numbers in
the manual. If memory serves, I hadn't built anything electronic in at
least 20 years.

-----Original Message-----
From: Don Wilhelm <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]; [hidden email]
Sent: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:42:28 -0500
Subject: RE: [Elecraft] K2 5087 first breath and some ot stuff

John,

Just peak L1 and L2 in any order that you wish.  Go back and forth
between
them to be certain you get them both peaked. Any interaction is
minimal, but
go back and forth a couple times just to be certain.

73,
Don W3FPR

> -----Original Message-----
>
> But I do have a question.  The final Part II action is 40 Meter Band
> Pass adjustment where you adjust L1 and L2 for peak signal strength.
>
> I did it doing first L1 and then L2 and did indeed strengthen the
> signal.  Is there some sequence that this should be done in?  Do L1
and
> L2 affect each other such that this should be a more iterative
process?
>
>


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