Hi I would say that depends. If a beginner follows the directions and installs all of the parts correctly the radio has the potential to perform the same as a radio built by a pro. The difference is the little tricks you learn after building several in the alignment. A beginner can get the alignment right but in my experience it may take several tries to get optimized. Where the pro will get it the first time. The beginner may not know when something is not quite right and live with it because he has never had a properly working K2 to compare it with. I see this sometimes when two owners get together and compare K2's and notices a difference in one of the rigs. I have build many K2's and worked on quite a few and unless there is a mistake in the assembly they all work about the same (very good). Some are not very pretty inside and others are beautiful but they all work about the same. What you get from a pro (or someone that has built several) is the experience of making the mistakes on their first radio so that won't happen again. I try to build Elecraft products to "display" quality so if you remove the covers the insides look as good as the outside. I clean all of the circuit boards except the front panel (you do not want to get flux residue in the switches or on the display). I use the proper crimp tool for all of the connectors and cables as well as dozens of other little techniques learned in over 40 years of electronics experience. The beginner may not know how to do all of this or may not want to. Does it make the radio work any better? Probably not. Its just part of being meticulous (anal?) As to the rework , if it is done carefully it will not make any difference to the performance although if not done carefully it can make quite a mess. The proper tools and techniques help a lot in preventing lifted pads and/or damaged circuit boards and again this takes a little experience.
It really does not matter who built the radio as long as it was done correctly. On the alignment do it a few times to get the hang of it and use Spectrogram on the filters. You should be able to put the K2 right on frequency and hear little or no frequency shift when you change filters and get rated power out on all bands. If you are a beginner or a pro the reflector is a great resource to solve any problems you may encounter. Someone on the reflector will usually have the answer if not there is always Gary at Elecraft. He has seen it all. Don Brown KD5NDB ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darwin, Keith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Elecraft Discussion List" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 8:18 AM Subject: [Elecraft] Does build quality affect performance? Hey guys, Does a K2's performance vary depending on how well it was built? Is there a difference in performance between one built by a pro, one built by a beginner who has no problems and one built by a beginner who has lots of problems and does rework to correct them? - Keith KD1E - _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] 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 _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] 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
