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What's this all about?I recently decided that I wanted to build an HF radio and started to look at the various designs. I could have built a very simple radio but I was after more of a challenge and wanted to learn a lot more about how the 'black boxes' work. I also was after a radio that I could adapt in the future. After a lot of looking around I decide to build an Elecraft K2 because of its excellent reviews and from talking to a few fellow Hams. In late December 2002 K2 #3107 arrived..... What is the K2?The K2 is a high performance, synthesized, CW/SSB HF transceiver covering all of the HF bands. The radio is designed to be truly portable as well as a shack based radio. The basic K2 covers 80-10m on CW only with approx 10watts of power. There are various options available to expand the radio and currently these include An SSB adaptor with optimised 7 pole crystal filtering Elecraft provide an email reflector and I would strongly suggest anybody contemplating building, or building, any of the Elecraft products joins it. I joined the list and after posting my first question found a fellow UK based Ham, a G3 on the Isle of Wight, that was also building one. We are now in regular contact passing advice as we progress with the construction. The K2 is not a kit for the novice constructor. It contains thru plated boards and some experience of soldering is definitely required. The kit also contains a lot of inductors that need to be wound, although these can be purchased pre wound. You should not be put off by this as with help I am pretty sure that given the quality of the manual and kit anybody could build the K2. Elecraft also offer the K1 a CW only radio. The Building of #3107The following links describe my building of the K2 highlighting any problems and hopefully providing some guidance to other builders. |