K1 -- latest sighting !

Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 
From: Radman <radman@best.com>
To: elecraft@qth.net

Gang,

Speculation abounds as to the whether the K1 is actually in Field Test.  Well, it's not. But, I was able to bribe Wayne with an invitation for a  free lunch & have a peek inside his lab & recent K1 developments. I took a  quick test-drive of the latest 'n greatest K1 on a pretty miserable day on  20m. Plenty of ear-grinding QRN and weak stations way down in the noise  floor - a perfect day to test the K1's newly-refined RX filters. In a word  - sweet! I was especially impressed at how little signal loss I experience  when I tightened the filters all the way down. The K1 is starting to sound  K2-like. Wayne confirms that he's already bagged serious K1-mojo-DX in the  evening hours. But this isn't surprising news is it?

The real reason for my visit was to check-out what Wayne was using for an  ATU - what sweet victory! He's become addicted to the KAT2 and I watched  him run a virtual KAT1 demo using the ATU in his K2. Now, there is no such  Elecraft product as a KAT1 - at least not yet! The Elecraft 'party line' is  there may never be one. But that won't stop me from lobbying. I figure that  after another 150 free-burrito lunches, Elecraft will surrender and simply  offer a KAT1 to mate with the K1. We'll see.

On the TX side, Elecraft's already pronounced the K1 capable of  well-exceeding the legal QRP limit on 40m - 15m. No word on 10m as of yet.  Clearly, Eric's engineering influence is really starting to show in the TX  arena - big power that you can roll down as needed. You'll love the K1's PA  heat sink scheme, especially if you've fretted over the complex K2-PA sink  scheme. The K1 PA sinks to the right side panel, in plain view, one screw -  total cake-walk! Good job W&E!

So when will the Field Test start? Well... it sounds like no wine before  it's time - but I'd say it's getting close to harvest time. Naturally,  there's the usual pushups: manual/illustrations, components/vendors to 
ramp-up and probably two board-turns before they go to final roll-out. And,  no - I didn't get to work a single QSO on the little guy - no time.  Perfectly OK. I was quite content to simply play with the KAT1 ATU ;)

OK, let's see... 150 burritos X $4.50 ea = WOW! I coulda' bought a Dentron  ;)

Stay tuned,
Conrad Weiss - NN6CW