K2 -S/N 5087 alive and well

[John Ferguson-2]

Hello all,
It looks like it may have been several years since I said anything here. so....

I built 5087 and the tuner as well as an AMQRP Micro908 in late 2005, I think. After some cavorting with a stray ground line on an Icom VHF hand mike, I was up and running - getting my tech, General and 5 wpm the same day.

i didn't know anything but thought I would need HF on our boat and read a write-up on the K2 in a QST i found in a laundry. It was an obvious choice for this old heathkit and Dynakit hi-fi builder.

It has worked wonderfully well, far beyond my expectations and to the astonishment of some of the DXers I've worked SSB, mostly on 20 meters.

Antenna is a shakespeare 23 foot Marine ssb whip, grounding is reached by 3/4 inch copper pipe down to the bilge where this backbone is connected by copper tape to the engine, a through-hull, and the stainless steel rudder shaft.

The only mod to the K2 has been to replace the screws with stainless ones - radio looks a bit Russian (no offense to Russia) and there have been no corrosion problems at all after 5 years on a boat in saltwater.

I did have two or 3 zaps from static discharge all in the Bohemia River in northeast chesapeake bay.  different years too.

i sent radio to Gary after the second one (first strike only zapped the bridge diodes in tuner and k2)because i wasn't sure what limit of damage was this time.  At same time I built an antenna to ground shunt with a big torroid set up as a 1 Millihenry inductor -- no more problems since then.

There seems to have been no drift and no further problems of any kind - it just works.

Regrettably, this fine performance doesn't justify stepping up to a K3.

I might add that i received a considerable amount of help here when I was getting started with this or when I encountered something that i couldn't understand including much off-line correspondence with several people I see still active here.

The K2, by the way is an excellent boat radio since it is much less sensitive to voltage than most other ham sets.  I seem to get out quite well with input voltages as low as 11 volts.  i don't think an Icom 706 can even light it's display with that, much less get out of an anchorage.

This was a lucky byproduct of buying the k2, since I had no idea this could be an issue when I bought the kit.

So this is to thank everyone who helped me along, and the wonderful Elecraft people.  I hope I can talk management into letting me buy the DSP kit.

73  AI4TO  John Ferguson  M/V Arcadian   Marathon, FL until Wednesday, then North to Chesapeake.


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