"Has anyone reduced his rig collection to just a K2/100 and regretted it? If so, would you mind sharing your reasons why? I'm considering doing just that - the reducing, not the regretting. :-) A lot of very personality dependent variables in the decision, but I'm curious nevertheless."
Mike: I did, last year, somewhat involuntarily. I was unemployed for an extended period of time (like so many thousands of my peers in the telecom industry). Property tax bill needed to be paid, so, off went the 756 Pro 2, the Hercules 2 amp, Heil mic, accessories, etc. Notice I sold the factory-built stuff. All competent gear, but, no soul. Some people get it. Others do not. The Elecraft K2/100 (#0771) built by me and with all mods and options EXCEPT the DSP, is a FAR better RX and CW TX than the Icom was, comparisons are a joke. The SSB TX seems to not be at the same par according to some signal reports, but it sounds great to me and still others have offered unsolicited praise. Weird. So, on phone, yes I miss the Icom, on which I sounded like a million bucks no matter what. But without the 500W amp ... Or decent sunspots ... I've become more active on CW. That is a good thing no matter what else happened! I find I don't miss the twin PBT too much, nor the autonotch. I *do* miss the manual notch and the monitor port, the real-time spectrum scope, and the 'second' RX that Icom calls 'Dual Watch.' Some annoying things about the Icom I do NOT miss!! Like no CW spot function, lame 6m performance, 1.2A draw in RX, digital artifacts all the time... There's a LOT more room in the shack now, and less noise and heat too, as the K2 has no obnoxious fan running all the time. So I could go on for some time extolling the virtues of the K2-only shack. Caveats: I do also have a TenTec RX-320D, which mitigates the loss of the general coverage RX, and I have a K1 for portable use. There's a 706mk2G in my truck, and an HW-101, PSK20, and Warbler in the shop downstairs. So I'm not radio poor. But the main shack (with 80' Rohn 55G tower and multiple yagis) is Elecraft-powered. I have no plans to add the Icom back, once I recover financially. I'd rather buy the new Elecraft amp, and I will also be early in line to buy another Elecraft radio that has more bells and whistles than the K2 -- as long as it has an equal or better receiver to the K2. If not, the K2 will be the horse to beat for many years to come. Hope this helps. 73 Steve KZ1X/4 * * * Stephen S. Jackson CTO RadarFind Corporation 2 Davis Drive P.O. Box 13169 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 (919) 386-8089 (919) 740-2345 cell http://www.radarfind.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * * RadarFind: Where, Matters. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new Resources site http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
