HiTeam Elecraft and others on the list .

Well after the long wait #236 arrived 2weeks ago in the UK What can I say, the only real problem I had was with a faulty MAX 534
the DAC chip. A phone call to Eric put me in the right direction to trace the fault. Eric is sending me a replacement however this will be re directed back to Elecraft World HQ as I managed to obtain 2 replacements as samples !!!!! THANKS ERIC.

I have managed to set the BFO up to my liking but I started with the filter in the narrowest setting. I did this by "Spotting" the signal with the filter in the narrowest position with the internally generated tone. then switched to the next widest setting. This way I found that when narrowing the pass band down when actually using the receiver in battle there was no need to retune the rx to bring the signal back into the pass band. Between the widest and narrowest filter settings ie. 1.5 and 0.1 there is a little loss on the S meter of  about 1 S point. This method worked for me and I am most definitely tonally impaired.

Over the last 4 days I have been comparing the K2 with the other rigs I have, (Ten Tec Corsair 2 and Argonaut 2). The K2 rx perfomance in cw mode surpasses that in the Argo2 in as much as that the K2 seems much quieter and in a weak signal situations the signals on the K2 stand out impressively from the noise On 40M here in Europe the BCI  QRN can be terrible, over the last 4 nights
and during a contest on 40M the K2 was much better than the ARGO2  I was able to separate the signals very well and the audio was not muddled with as many as 4 strong signals coming through the pass band.

Comparison with the Corsair on rx was very good indeed (my Corsair has 16 poles of filtering), The K2 was not as good at night on 40M,but there was not that much in it. If I could just hear a signal on the Corsair it was there on the K2 on all bands. I know that the MDS on the Corsair is 0.16uV on 20M -10M.

Whilst knowing that these comparisons are subjective I have found over the years, that lab figures do not always represent how the rx will work in real life and have been dissappointed with some rigs.

Pound for pound dollar for dollar this radio has got to be a  bench mark in overall performace  and features!

Wayne and Eric and all at Team Elecraft many thanks for a great rig.

Rowland
G4APO  K2#236  GQRP 3520  G QRP MASTER 105.