Jay, As you no doubt noticed when reading the instructions, the KXB3080 does take a bit more care and patience than most. In fact, I would rate it as the most critical construction item that Elecraft has produced. It takes care and careful attention to the instructions if one expects everything to fit together and work when complete.
After doing 12 of these upgrades, and repairing 3 others, I can easily do the job in a couple hours now, but the first couple times it took a lot longer to get it right and refine my technique. I do recommend Mychael's pre-wound toroids because they are a bit tricky to wind and tin the leads properly. Mychael's price is $9 per set plus $6 for shipping based on the latest info I have, and I consider it a bargain. If you need me to do the KXB3080 install for you, I charge $39 plus $10 for pre-wound toroids (I order in bulk and pass along the savings) and $16 for return packing and insured shipping - total $65. I try to turn these around in a couple days so you are not without your KX1 for a long time. The only advice I can offer on the antenna is to stay away from lengths that are 1/2 wavelength on any band for either the radiating element or counterpoise wires (assuming direct connect to the KX1 with no tuner - or feedline plus radiator lengths) - the W3EDP lengths of 85 ft and 17 feet have been found good by several folks, and I can say that my doublet 22 ft per side with a 25 ft parallel transmission line feedline (47 ft total per side) works nicely on 80, 40 and 20, although it is getting close to a half wave on 30 meters where I have to experiment with adding or subtracting a bit of feedline. 73, Don W3FPR > -----Original Message----- > > I downloaded the KXB3080 manual and had some questions: > > How hard is it to put together for a KX-1 that has already had > the KXB30 30M > unit and auto antenna tuner installed? > > Has anyone found some universal wire antenna lengths that will > work with the > KX-1 and internal antenna tuner - over all four (80, 40, 30, 20) bands? > > Thanks, > > Jay > W6CJ > _______________________________________________ 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
