I don’t know exactly how many hours I spend reading, winding cores and soldering, but it was one great adventure and I really enjoyed building the K1! More then one of my amateur friends asked me why I bought an Elecraft. They are expensive and do not have much functionality (at least the K1 doesn’t). But when you open the package you’ll see the effort and accuracy Elecraft (thank you Susan and Stephanie!) put in to a great kit, you realize not everything is about functionality. It’s probably much cheaper to it put together at Foxcon in China rather to compose a whole kit with a detailed manual.

That said, I was completely surprised about the performance of the K1 after it’s completion and first test run! It’s so simple to operate and the receiving performance blows my previous QRP-rig (Yaesu FT-817) out of the water! I specifically bought the Elecraft K1 for portable operation (maybe SOTA in the future?) with my BuddyPole. And with it’s extremely low power usage (just 58 mA in receiving mode) it should do about 2 or 3 hours on 8 AA-battery’s! That’s a lot better then my previous rig which did only 20 minutes of receiving on the same battery’s (with transmitting even less).

And just one day after finishing the build a package arrived from Rose N7HKW! She made me a great case for the K1. Totally handmade, great materials, absolutely perfect finishing! I’m sure this case is more beautiful and stronger then any case I ever seen! I love it!
Of course the K1 fits perfectly and is really protected when I engage in SOTA-activity

I ordered the K1 with the battery-pack option and the display back lighting kit. The back lighting is build in but the battery pack I still have to build in. The manual said it’s a good idea to wait with that option until I have some experience in operating the radio. So I’ll pick up that later.

Some pictures of the building process, finished K1 and Rose’s great case found here: http://t.co/RhFRxqX

I just ordered a K1 with the 4-band module and the internal battery adapter (I want to be able to use it portable of course) and the backlight kit for unbuild K1′s.

I’m anxious to see how long it will takes till the kit arrives. Maybe I’ll record a YouTube-video of assembling the kit since I’ve noticed there are no build video’s of a K1 around.

Now off to Learn CW Online to practice some more. I need to be able to run a cw-conversation when it’s time to test the kit

The TS-590S did a great job at this contest! Sometimes I heard the blowers hit in to cool down a bit, but overall I didn’t notice anything weird during the contest. Filtering is great, also with RTTY! Results? 208 Q’s and a claimed score of 56.106 points. Not bad for a RTTY rookie!

1. In [SSB-DATA] mode, Speech Processor might not be disabled internally.
2. At the end of TX tune mode, carrier output returns to normal mode level after a short delay.
3. When the TS-590S is turned ON, the USB port connection may be unstable.
4. When the built-in electronic keyer is set to Mode A, CW keying may not work properly.
5. TX rise time power spike activates some linear amplifiers’ input power protections.
(The firmware Ver.1.02 revises the ALC response characteristics to reduce the power spike.)
6. When a separate RX ANT is connected, TX output power may be fed back to the RX ANT connector and might affect internal circuits.
(The firmware Ver.1.02 deactivates (opens) RX ANT relay every time the radio transmits.)

Let’s upgrade here!

Also feeling tidy up because the shack is cleaned due to selling all the old stuf. Very good start of 2011 for PA1JIM!

Ohw mama! I traded in my TS-850S and got a good deal from the Kenwood dealer. Already completely rebuild the shack. The 590 has 2 antenna connections I’m able to connect both my Cobwebb for 10, 12, 15, 17 and 20 meter and my horizontal loop for 40, 80 and 160 meter! So I don’t have to switch between antenna’s no more. In the future I could also use a extra (active) receiving antenna on the receive input of the 590.
Also great: no more need for the SignaLink USB. If I’m understand the manual correctly I can attach the 590 via USB to my computer and both CAT and sound are connected! That is awesome!
So the shackcomputer is already installed with both driver and Kenwood software.
I guess I’m all ready the welcome my new rig

Last week I did get the opportunity to listen to the new rig over at Robs, PA3EKE. Great guy (he did not hesitate inviting me over when he heard I wanted to listen to the new radio before buy one), took the time to show me around, absolutely lovely! He is known for his extremely critical opinion on radio’s. Even he was quite excited about the performance of the 590.
And I’m even more impressed by the real life performance of the 590! It’s really a great radio.

But for now I hope the new one will arrive next week before thursday. Then I’ll leave for another week in the France Alpes. Of course it would be great if I could run it a few hours over there More news and pictures will follow!

I’m nearly half way to the new Kenwood. Still one thing I need to do: listen to the thing with my own ears and check if I like the sound of it! Only thing I’m in doubt of: shall I swap my good old TS-850S for the TS-590S or should I keep it as a backup transceiver? Hmmmm, tough one.

We really need to get up more monoband dipoles and get them up high! Problem is there are enough high trees around our clubstation but almost none possibilities to climb them. I think we need to figure out how to get the antennas up. For the PACC next year we want to try a multi-multi-station for the first time. So that is gonna need some serious preparations!