Re: [Elecraft] K1 IF Amp Mod?
Curt wrote: I thought the K1 was the commercial version of the Sierra. The...er...Sierra is the commercial version of the Sierra. :-) It's still sold by Wilderness Radio. The Sierra is rather different from the K1. Not least difference being the four PIC controllers found in the K1/KFL1/KAT1/KNB1 combo, and none in the Sierra. It has always amazed me how non-existent digital noise is in the K1. There's an interesting article about the Sierra, with schematic showing the IF stage design that is at the root of this thread, found here: http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/tis/info/pdf/96hb1789.pdf Didn't the Sierra predate Elecraft? Sierra = 1994, Elecraft = 1998, K1 = 2000 BTW, the K1 is about the neatest QRP radio I own... I agree. It's sad to see its current reduced status in the Elecraft catalog...but it *is* 14 years old. Few other ham rigs besides those from Elecraft survive for such long runs. I'd give up almost every ham rig I've ever owned before I'd let my K1 #175 get away. I'm also pretty attached to three of Dave Benson's DSW-series that I built. Like the DSW's, when the K1 finally goes away completely, many will count themselves lucky to own one, especially if it has the four-band filter board. At least the KX1 is still available for those who want a DDS QRP rig...but there's nothing exactly comparable to the K1. 73, Mike / KK5F __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] K1 IF Amp Mod?
Maybe not. The Sierra has been shown on the Wilderness Radio website as out of stock for quite a while now. Too bad. It was a very versatile kit. 73, Rick Dettinger K7MW On Oct 19, 2014, at 11:02 AM, Mike Morrow wrote: The...er...Sierra is the commercial version of the Sierra. :-) It's still sold by Wilderness Radio. __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
[Elecraft] K1 IF Amp Mod?
I thought the K1 was the commercial version of the Sierra. Didn't the Sierra predate Elecraft? BTW, the K1 is about the neatest QRP radio I own, even above my K2. I've built boards for every band 80M-10M, especially enjoy working from the patio @ 1W into an EFHW on 20M. It's my go to rig for QRP contests. 73, Curt KB5JO __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
[Elecraft] K1 IF Amp Mod?
Hi. I have noticed that the K1 and Sierra rcvrs are very similar (as 602 based designs). The main difference is imo that the Sierra has a MC1350 IF amp (as has the K2 btw) followed by an LM386, but the K1 seems to do all amplification after XFIL on AF frequencies using LM386+LM380. Could/have the K1 be(en) modified with an IF amp and IF based AGC? Thanks. Roy RF Tinkerer __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] K1 IF Amp Mod?
Since you consider yourself as an RF tinkerer, it sounds like an interesting experiment. Since the technology in the K1 predates my interest in Elecraft, probably the up to date inclusions in the Sierra were not available when the K1 was designed 20 years or so ago. The K3 design is not getting long of tooth and the KX3 is the ultimate QRP design from Elecraft. It does not sound like a design change that will make Wayne and Erik any money! Willis 'Cookie' Cooke, TDXS DX Chairman K5EWJ Trustee N5BPS, USS Cavalla, USS Stewart On Friday, October 17, 2014 1:16 PM, r j rjinsp...@gmail.com wrote: Hi. I have noticed that the K1 and Sierra rcvrs are very similar (as 602 based designs). The main difference is imo that the Sierra has a MC1350 IF amp (as has the K2 btw) followed by an LM386, but the K1 seems to do all amplification after XFIL on AF frequencies using LM386+LM380. Could/have the K1 be(en) modified with an IF amp and IF based AGC? Thanks. Roy RF Tinkerer __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to wrco...@yahoo.com __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] K1 IF Amp Mod?
... probably the up to date inclusions in the Sierra were not available when the K1 was designed 20 years or so ago... The Sierra predates the K1. The NE602 mixer and MC1350 IF amp was in common use long before the Sierra was designed and even longer before Elecraft was formed. Elecraft used MC1350 in K2, but chose to substitute it with all AF amplification in K1. When - one day - the K3 and all IcoYaeWoods are irrepairable junk (due to special technology/chips/firmware), you can always rip apart your dead and dusty K1 or K2, throw away the microcontroller and the display, put in a few jumpers on the RF boards, and voila - you have an all analog radio that you can repair from your component junk box and (then) obsolete fleabay ICs. In the exact same way as people do 50+ years old tubes today. No surprise. Yes, I know. That is why I wonder why the IF amp was changed for an AF amp. Roy RF Tinkerer On Sat, Oct 18, 2014 at 1:12 AM, r j rjinsp...@gmail.com wrote: Hi. I have noticed that the K1 and Sierra rcvrs are very similar (as 602 based designs). The main difference is imo that the Sierra has a MC1350 IF amp (as has the K2 btw) followed by an LM386, but the K1 seems to do all amplification after XFIL on AF frequencies using LM386+LM380. Could/have the K1 be(en) modified with an IF amp and IF based AGC? Thanks. Roy RF Tinkerer __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] K1 IF Amp Mod? Some history.
...were not available when the K1 was designed 20 years or so ago. That's a pretty fanciful date to just pick out of thin air! :-) There wasn't anything that was Elecraft 20 years ago. The K1 was shown first at Dayton 2000, after which many of us ordered one. The first deliveries to the mass unwashed customer base were made in October, 2000, after a wait of more than five months. I got No. 175 in November, 2000. Not 1994! It's already been noted that the Sierra (also designed by Wayne/N6KR) came out long before the K1...in fact...in 1994. So there's your 20 years! Mike / KK5F __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] K1 IF Amp Mod? Some history.
More history - Elecraft was formally created July of 1998. (We began working on the K2 design well before that.) We shipped the first 100 K2 Field Test Units January and Feb. of 1999. We took orders for production K2 kits at Dayton in May of 1999. We followed that with the K1, then the KX1, the K3, and most recently the KX3. 73, Eric elecraft.com On 10/17/2014 5:40 PM, Mike Morrow wrote: ...were not available when the K1 was designed 20 years or so ago. That's a pretty fanciful date to just pick out of thin air! :-) There wasn't anything that was Elecraft 20 years ago. The K1 was shown first at Dayton 2000, after which many of us ordered one. The first deliveries to the mass unwashed customer base were made in October, 2000, after a wait of more than five months. I got No. 175 in November, 2000. Not 1994! It's already been noted that the Sierra (also designed by Wayne/N6KR) came out long before the K1...in fact...in 1994. So there's your 20 years! Mike / KK5F __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] K1 IF Amp Mod? Some history.
Well ... Thanks for the history. One can also look at Elecraft's website http://www.elecraft.com/about_elecraft.htm But my question remains: Why did the (very early) Sierra and the (first Elecraft product) K2 have IF amp (MC1350 - and of course the standard AF amp LM386), but the K1 was equipped with no IF amp but two AF amps (LM386 and LM380) and an accordingly somewhat problematic AF based AGC. Thanks. Roy RF Tinkerer On Sat, Oct 18, 2014 at 8:34 AM, Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ, Elecraft e...@elecraft.com wrote: More history - Elecraft was formally created July of 1998. (We began working on the K2 design well before that.) We shipped the first 100 K2 Field Test Units January and Feb. of 1999. We took orders for production K2 kits at Dayton in May of 1999. We followed that with the K1, then the KX1, the K3, and most recently the KX3. 73, Eric elecraft.com On 10/17/2014 5:40 PM, Mike Morrow wrote: ...were not available when the K1 was designed 20 years or so ago. That's a pretty fanciful date to just pick out of thin air! :-) There wasn't anything that was Elecraft 20 years ago. The K1 was shown first at Dayton 2000, after which many of us ordered one. The first deliveries to the mass unwashed customer base were made in October, 2000, after a wait of more than five months. I got No. 175 in November, 2000. Not 1994! It's already been noted that the Sierra (also designed by Wayne/N6KR) came out long before the K1...in fact...in 1994. So there's your 20 years! Mike / KK5F __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to rjinsp...@gmail.com __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] K1 IF Amp Mod? Some history.
Roy, I think one of the reasons for the change from the MC1350 to the NE612 followed by the LM386 was due to the fact that when the K1 was designed, the MC1350 in its DIP format was not to be used for current designs. Yes, the MC1350 is still available in SMD format, and Elecraft has designed a carrier board that allows its use in the DIP format holes (for the K2 ongoing support). To redesign the the K1 to use the MC1350 would be challenging. The AGC system would have to be changed to use that part. There is nothing wrong with the dual NE612 designs - there are several out there, and they perform quite nicely. BTW - the K2 used the LM380-8 audio amplifier, not the LM386. 73, Don W3FPR On 10/17/2014 9:50 PM, r j wrote: Well ... Thanks for the history. One can also look at Elecraft's website http://www.elecraft.com/about_elecraft.htm But my question remains: Why did the (very early) Sierra and the (first Elecraft product) K2 have IF amp (MC1350 - and of course the standard AF amp LM386), but the K1 was equipped with no IF amp but two AF amps (LM386 and LM380) and an accordingly somewhat problematic AF based AGC. Thanks. Roy RF Tinkerer On Sat, Oct 18, 2014 at 8:34 AM, Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ, Elecraft e...@elecraft.com wrote: More history - Elecraft was formally created July of 1998. (We began working on the K2 design well before that.) We shipped the first 100 K2 Field Test Units January and Feb. of 1999. We took orders for production K2 kits at Dayton in May of 1999. We followed that with the K1, then the KX1, the K3, and most recently the KX3. 73, Eric elecraft.com __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] K1 IF Amp Mod? Some history.
Yep - the K2 uses LM380, but the Sierra uses only an LM386 as headphone amp. My ill formulated sentence. But it doesn't matter - its all AF dBs. My point is that the Sierra and the K2 uses an IF amp MC1350 before the product detector 602 (612, NE, SA ...), and gets a 'proper' AGC. The K2 is of course a better design since it uses a TUF-1 mixer (w. pre- and post amp) in stead of the 602 mixer. But the K1 - a later design then the Sierra and K2 - is imo one step back and down by not having an IF amp. The main rcvr guts of the K1 looks something like: 602 MIXER - XFIL - 602 PROD DET - LM386 AF PRE AMP - LM380 AF POWER AMP There is no IF amplification, and the AGC is based on the very slow CW AF signal. Anyway - it is a piece of cake to mod the K1. Quite a few of the other QRP rigs (in addition to the Sierra) from the period are 602-1350-602. I just wanted to know why they chose the all AF way. I guess someone has asked before - but the answer is imo not all clear. http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/RE-Re-K1-AGC-time-constant-and-how-to-radically-improveK1-AGC-td388515.html Roy RF Tinkerer On Sat, Oct 18, 2014 at 9:37 AM, Don Wilhelm w3...@embarqmail.com wrote: Roy, I think one of the reasons for the change from the MC1350 to the NE612 followed by the LM386 was due to the fact that when the K1 was designed, the MC1350 in its DIP format was not to be used for current designs. Yes, the MC1350 is still available in SMD format, and Elecraft has designed a carrier board that allows its use in the DIP format holes (for the K2 ongoing support). To redesign the the K1 to use the MC1350 would be challenging. The AGC system would have to be changed to use that part. There is nothing wrong with the dual NE612 designs - there are several out there, and they perform quite nicely. BTW - the K2 used the LM380-8 audio amplifier, not the LM386. 73, Don W3FPR On 10/17/2014 9:50 PM, r j wrote: Well ... Thanks for the history. One can also look at Elecraft's website http://www.elecraft.com/about_elecraft.htm But my question remains: Why did the (very early) Sierra and the (first Elecraft product) K2 have IF amp (MC1350 - and of course the standard AF amp LM386), but the K1 was equipped with no IF amp but two AF amps (LM386 and LM380) and an accordingly somewhat problematic AF based AGC. Thanks. Roy RF Tinkerer On Sat, Oct 18, 2014 at 8:34 AM, Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ, Elecraft e...@elecraft.com wrote: More history - Elecraft was formally created July of 1998. (We began working on the K2 design well before that.) We shipped the first 100 K2 Field Test Units January and Feb. of 1999. We took orders for production K2 kits at Dayton in May of 1999. We followed that with the K1, then the KX1, the K3, and most recently the KX3. 73, Eric elecraft.com __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] K1 IF Amp Mod? Some history.
Hmm .. so where is the KX2, Eric? :-) 73, Phil W7OX On 10/17/14, 6:34 PM, Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ, Elecraft wrote: More history - Elecraft was formally created July of 1998. (We began working on the K2 design well before that.) We shipped the first 100 K2 Field Test Units January and Feb. of 1999. We took orders for production K2 kits at Dayton in May of 1999. We followed that with the K1, then the KX1, the K3, and most recently the KX3. 73, Eric elecraft.com On 10/17/2014 5:40 PM, Mike Morrow wrote: ...were not available when the K1 was designed 20 years or so ago. That's a pretty fanciful date to just pick out of thin air! :-) There wasn't anything that was Elecraft 20 years ago. The K1 was shown first at Dayton 2000, after which many of us ordered one. The first deliveries to the mass unwashed customer base were made in October, 2000, after a wait of more than five months. I got No. 175 in November, 2000. Not 1994! It's already been noted that the Sierra (also designed by Wayne/N6KR) came out long before the K1...in fact...in 1994. So there's your 20 years! Mike / KK5F __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
