..so there I am, in the garage, late afternoon two days ago, with the newly homebrewed 20M mag loop sitting in an umbrella stand about 18 inches off the concrete floor. It was threatening to rain and I didn't want to put it outside. Pretuned the loop with my antenna analyzer for the low end of 20M. Now I need something to transmit with. Quick....run upstairs, grab the KX1 and a headset and run back down to the garage!
There were 8 fresh "AA" batteries in the KX1 with 1.4 watts going out according to the KX1 display. 20M sounds open and pretty hot! Let's try. Standing in the garage, a few feet from the loop, with the KX1 in my left hand, I worked Illinois, Indiana, Guayama, P.R., and St. Petersburg, Russia (UA1CE) from here in NY. ..and if the band wasn't "open" then I doubt that even a hundred watts would have been enough power. With QRP, timing is everything, in my opinion and experience. Just my opinion, of course, but there are two radios that Elecraft should never mess with - the K2 that launched them and the KX1 which is the premier QRP ultra-portable. For those who may not be familiar with it, there is a SDR in Atlanta, GA - WB4MAK ( http://www.websdr.org/ ). Log on and "tune" the SDR to your transmitting frequency, plug a recorder into your computer's earphone jack, and record yourself calling "CQ" at 15 or 20 watts. Then do it at 10 watts; then at 5 watts, etc. You'll certainly notice a difference in signal strength but you might be surprised at how little that difference is. The KX1 - in my opinion - has just the right amount of compromise between form and feature. If the KX1 were enhanced to higher power, a more powerful and longer lasting power source, and a few extra options such as noise blanker and upgraded filtering.......then it would approximate the K2 which already has 15 watts, options galore, and a hefty battery alternative. It seems like it would be a pretty weak business case to insert a product between the "barebones" KX1 and a "barefoot" K2. At least that's my opinion. Stan Levandowski WB2LQF HF QRP CW -- Doing more with less for over 50 years! QCWA #35038 OOTC #4558 NAQCC #4740 SKCC #6488 FISTS #14992 ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
