Hi - The beauty of building the Elecraft K2, as compared to the many Heakkit kits they sold - there is no wires, or point-to-point wiring and bundled cables - like one often found in various places in Heathkits. I think I built 6 or more Heathkits. They all worked - very little if any "alignment" was possible. The Elecraft K2 is just beautifully layed out - everything in its place. You finish one board, and it naturally plugs into the next, and the next. Just a matter of carefully soldering all the parts into the 4 or 5 pcb boards.
The only thing one must be careful with, on a K2, is to carefully solder with the correct Kester solder, and a good temperature soldering-station, and to carefully read the manual instructions - as you go along. After 2 hours of building and soldering, it is best to put it aside, for the next day. What did I do wrong in my K2: I soldered a main dual-row jack, on the wrong side of the main RF board. I dropped the LCD on a hard tile floor and caused me to have to buy another. And I mistakenly folder-over 1 pin on a 14-pin dual-inline IC, where 1 pin was folder under the IC - not thru the hole. In each case - Elecraft's parts department, and the Elecraft email list of experts - lead me thru those 3 mistakes. Oh yes - a inexpensive SOLDER SUCKER tool - is an absolute tool to buy. (like $10) What I did do very well - was solder parts, a skill I got quite good at - with all my previous Heathkit experience. And I built 3 boats in the past - because of good mechanical skills I was born with. Fred, N3CSY ____________________________________________________________________________________ TV dinner still cooling? Check out "Tonight's Picks" on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.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
