[CQ-Contest] Contest Radios

[rt_clay at bellsouth.net]

>Good point.   I agree.   From my experience the K2 falls short on transmit 
>audio.
>
>
>From: "Samir Popaja" <Samir.Popaja at impact-europe.se>
>To: <cq-contest at contesting.com>
>Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Contest Radios
>Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 08:39:12 +0200
>
>OK.
>
>We all know that K2 is nice radio for cw contesting.
>
>How this radio is good for SSB contesting?
>-------------------------------------------------------

I use a pair of K2/100's. The problem with ssb tx audio compared to most other contest radios is that the K2 doesn't have a RF-level speech compressor, only one acting on the mic input (audio level). 

I don't do a lot of ssb contesting, but the following mods helped me:

1) Add rf chokes to the audio chain:

 http://www.ac6rm.net/mailarchive/html/elecraft-list/2004-07/msg00453.html

before this I had extreme problems with rf getting in the audio, especially when using a voice keyer (sound card interface).


2) Change the capacitors in the input mic filter to roll off the very low frequencies. This made the transmit audio sound much better, at least to me:

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~baker/K2_Overview.html  (see: Other SSB Modifications)


As I pointed out before, one annoyance with the K2 for cw contesting (so2r) that I still don't have a solution for is that after every band change, the RF power output is reset to zero. The power does not reach 100W until about 1 second (or more) after you start to transmit. The only solution is to press "tune" or send a string of dits after EVERY band change. 

This is enough to lose the first few letters of your call if you qsy and call someone right away. Particularly bad during the Sprint, where there isn't a second chance to call a station.

Tor
N4OGW