"It's alive," sort of!

[EMD]

Well after getting discouraged I decided to take some time off from my KX1 project.  After about 3 months I decided to get back at at with a little encouragement from Gary.  

I was having trouble with the receiver alignment, no signal.  I decided to go to the manual and review each step of the receiver build process and check for the obvious, wrong part installed and so on.  The first thing I found was I never installed R2x, then in a close inspection I found L10 was cracked, crikey!  So I installed the missing resistor and ordered a new L10.  After installing L10 this morning I was amazed to hear a signal on my radio.  I have not had time for the alignment yet but I will get to it this afternoon.

So I hope to get finished and on the air soon, so I can frustrate everyone with my poor morse.  Another learning process.

73,  Ed  KE7HGA

[Mike Scott-7]

Ed, welcome to Elecraft. I wish to relate my own experience. I had been off
the air for 30 years. I got the bug to return to the community. I took the
tests in November 2005 and for Christmas I asked for a KX1. I built it and
in January 2006 I finished. I put up a 40M inverted vee (still up and my
main antenna). The acid test soon came. I was tuning around 7.040 and I
heard JA3OLW call CQ. His signal was okay and I thought, why not? I returned
the call and he came right back. Suke was my first QSO in 30 years on a
radio that had never transmitted before. I was just as nervous as when I was
a novice in 1967. The best part: I built it myself! Crikey!

 

Any time you wish to get on the air with whatever Morse you can bring, I am
game.

 

Mike Scott

AE6WA Tarzana, CA

K3/100 SN508

 

 

>first thing I found was I never installed R2x, then in a close inspection I
found L10 was

cracked, crikey!  So I installed the missing resistor and ordered a new L10.


After installing L10 this morning I was amazed to hear a signal on my radio.


I have not had time for the alignment yet but I will get to it this

afternoon.

 

So I hope to get finished and on the air soon, so I can frustrate everyone

with my poor morse.  Another learning process.

 

73,  Ed  KE7HGA

 

 

 

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[EMD]

Some javascript/style in this post has been disabled (why?)

Hi Mike,

That sounds great.  I have never sent cw before, but I have been trying to prepare.  Now I really need to get up to speed since my radio is nearing completion.  

Thanks Mike,

Ed Doyle  KE7HGA  Colora MD  

On Oct 15, 2009, at 8:18 PM, Mike Scott-7 (via Nabble) wrote:

Ed, welcome to Elecraft. I wish to relate my own experience. I had been off
the air for 30 years. I got the bug to return to the community. I took the
tests in November 2005 and for Christmas I asked for a KX1. I built it and
in January 2006 I finished. I put up a 40M inverted vee (still up and my
main antenna). The acid test soon came. I was tuning around 7.040 and I
heard JA3OLW call CQ. His signal was okay and I thought, why not? I returned
the call and he came right back. Suke was my first QSO in 30 years on a
radio that had never transmitted before. I was just as nervous as when I was
a novice in 1967. The best part: I built it myself! Crikey!

 

Any time you wish to get on the air with whatever Morse you can bring, I am
game.

 

Mike Scott

AE6WA Tarzana, CA

K3/100 SN508

 

 

>first thing I found was I never installed R2x, then in a close inspection I
found L10 was

cracked, crikey!  So I installed the missing resistor and ordered a new L10.


After installing L10 this morning I was amazed to hear a signal on my radio.


I have not had time for the alignment yet but I will get to it this

afternoon.

 

So I hope to get finished and on the air soon, so I can frustrate everyone

with my poor morse.  Another learning process.

 

73,  Ed  KE7HGA

 

 

 

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[EMD]

And now it's complete, KX1 #2140!  I still have to figure out how to configure the Auto tuner but other than that it works.  I had one small problem on the final build.  I had trouble with the wires under the battery holders and so now I have 4 shiny new bolts with equally shiny nuts sticking out from the bottom of my radio.  No big deal it's just not as sleek and pretty.

Thanks to all who took the time to give me help with the trouble I had.

Going to be a long cold fall and winter so maybe a K2 will get me through it.  Well see what Santa brings.

73, Ed KE7HGA

EMD wrote:

Well after getting discouraged I decided to take some time off from my KX1 project.  After about 3 months I decided to get back at at with a little encouragement from Gary.  

I was having trouble with the receiver alignment, no signal.  I decided to go to the manual and review each step of the receiver build process and check for the obvious, wrong part installed and so on.  The first thing I found was I never installed R2x, then in a close inspection I found L10 was cracked, crikey!  So I installed the missing resistor and ordered a new L10.  After installing L10 this morning I was amazed to hear a signal on my radio.  I have not had time for the alignment yet but I will get to it this afternoon.

So I hope to get finished and on the air soon, so I can frustrate everyone with my poor morse.  Another learning process.

73,  Ed  KE7HGA

[4Z5TO]

EMD wrote:

...on the air soon, so I can frustrate everyone with my poor morse.  Another learning process.

73,  Ed  KE7HGA

Don't worry about that. I am as rusty as the Titanic with my code. In all instances of my cw QSOs, I have had much better/faster ops slow down and work with me to ensure a solid QSO.

The more you use it the easier it gets and the more fun you have. I also started using a program called Morse Mania by Black Cat Systems (it's Mac based software) to get up to speed. I chose the Koch the method. I'm sure there is some PC equivalent.

My K3 can be set to test TX or 0 watts and I can key w/o actually tx-ing for practice too, I don't know about your K1.

Pound away!
73 de 4Z5TO

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

That's great to hear. After more than 50 years of pounding brass, I enjoy
setting the bug aside and using my J-38 'hand pump' from time to time
whenever I run into a slow operator.

I haven't tried it myself, but I understand NUMORSE is similar to Morse
Mania but runs on a PC under Windows:

http://www.nu-ware.com/NuMorseP/nmpdload.htm

73,

Ron AC7AC

-----Original Message-----

EMD wrote:
>
> ...on the air soon, so I can frustrate everyone with my poor morse.
> Another learning process.
>
> 73,  Ed  KE7HGA
>

Don't worry about that. I am as rusty as the Titanic with my code. In all
instances of my cw QSOs, I have had much better/faster ops slow down and
work with me to ensure a solid QSO.

The more you use it the easier it gets and the more fun you have. I also
started using a program called Morse Mania by Black Cat Systems (it's Mac
based software) to get up to speed. I chose the Koch the method. I'm sure
there is some PC equivalent.

My K3 can be set to test TX or 0 watts and I can key w/o actually tx-ing for
practice too, I don't know about your K1.

Pound away!
73 de 4Z5TO



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[EMD]

Some javascript/style in this post has been disabled (why?)

Okay I'll be giving it a try.  I have never sent cw or used the paddle style keyer so it should be fun.

73,  Ed KE7HGA

On Oct 31, 2009, at 6:38 PM, 4Z5TO [via Elecraft] wrote:

EMD wrote:

...on the air soon, so I can frustrate everyone with my poor morse.  Another learning process.

73,  Ed  KE7HGA

Don't worry about that. I am as rusty as the Titanic with my code. In all instances of my cw QSOs, I have had much better/faster ops slow down and work with me to ensure a solid QSO.

The more you use it the easier it gets and the more fun you have. I also started using a program called Morse Mania by Black Cat Systems (it's Mac based software) to get up to speed. I chose the Koch the method. I'm sure there is some PC equivalent.

My K3 can be set to test TX or 0 watts and I can key w/o actually tx-ing for practice too, I don't know about your K1.

Pound away!
73 de 4Z5TO