Pending the delivery of my Elecraft K1, I was browsing the Elecraft website when I found this link.
It turns out Rose is a lovely lady who makes (all by hand) beautiful Elecraft cases! Because it’s made by hand, she can sew your own call on the case. I’m a sucker for this kind of handcraft! So I ordered a case for my Elecraft K1 right away!
If you want such a beautiful case for your Elecraft, just send Rose an email!
Elecraft K1
After a few months of day-dreaming and watching YouTube, last monday I visit my friend Hans, PC8E to play a little with the build kit. Hans owns the complete Elecraft line: K1, KX1, K2, K3 with pan-adaptor and some other mini-module-kits. He got me convinced: I definitely want the K1!
I just ordered a K1 with the 4-band module and the internal battery adapter (I want to be able to use it portable of course) and the backlight kit for unbuild K1’s.
I’m anxious to see how long it will takes till the kit arrives. Maybe I’ll record a YouTube-video of assembling the kit since I’ve noticed there are no build video’s of a K1 around.
Now off to Learn CW Online to practice some more. I need to be able to run a cw-conversation when it’s time to test the kit 😉
Kit building all over again
As a small boy I seemed talented for working with electronics. My parents encourage this by buying me a Philips Electronics Box. I really loved it and build all circuits there were to build. Not long after that I got my first solder iron and start building little kits I bought of my allowance.
After all these years I always owned a solder iron but used it maybe once a year or so. These last months I’m really working hard on CW-practice. I’m not there yet but there is lot’s of progress. One of the cool things of CW is it’s high efficiency due to the high S/N-ratio. Therefor CW makes it possible to work great distances on HF with only very little power.
So no need necessarily for big transceivers for CW. And then suddenly a whole new world of the radio amateur hobby opens up: QRP!
Building kits for QRP CW is versatile and a lot cheaper en less complex to build compared to QRO. And there seems so much creativity and wide range of kits! From the fancy (and expensive) Elecraft K1 to the awesome kits from NorCal QRP club.
I think I’m about ordering a kit and pick up the solder iron to start building again! The fun and satisfaction of working with your own build equipment seems incredibly attractive!
Reporting back on any building here of course.