I've been having so much fun with my K1 that I find myself looking at
Elecraft's website every day, looking over the K2 specs, pricing out
various options, reading the PDF manual... I think I've caught the
addiction.
The thing is I don't really need a K2. Or rather, I don't need
both. I would have got the K2 to begin with but I wasn't sure about
spending that much money on something I'd never seen or heard in
person. I hadn't even heard of Elecraft 2 months ago (the resident
homebrew / QRP guru in our club told me about Elecraft in November).
So I'm trying to come up with good excuses, reasons why I 'need' a
K2. I've come up with one but I'm not sure how well it'd work.
Would the transmitter stages of the K1 -- driver, pa, etc -- be able
to handle running nonstop with about a 50% duty cycle, at about 4.5
watts? I've been running homebrew equipment for my 10-meter beacon,
and it's always been just adequate, never great. I'm now looking to
upgrade the current rig, and instead of looking for something like a
cheap HTX-100, I thought about my K1.
With its great characteristics, the K1 should make a super beacon
transmitter. For the frequency, I'd tweak L1 to bring the low end up
to just beneath my beacon frequency, and then swap C2 for something
in the <10 pf range, NP0 for temp. stability. That should make it
easy to fine-tune with the 10-turn pot, so that it's right on the
correct frequency. These changes would be easily reversable, to
bring it back to normal operating ranges, so nothing 'permanent'
would be changed.
So I'm pretty sure how to make it work, I'm just not sure if the
transmitter would be ok with the continual use. But best of all, I'd
have an excuse to start building a K2 for myself!
Suggestions, opinions, comments?
73 de Stephanie
va3uxb
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