JT wrote: >The K1 was designed as a 2-band rig and I plan on keeping it >that way. I'm positive the 4-band filter board works fine as designed
The K1 was not compromised in any way by the introduction of the four-band filter board. I have K1 #175, and I originally built 40/20 and 30/15 boards in late 2000. The later availability of the four-band board MORE than DOUBLED the utility of my K1. It's highly highly recommended. I re-built one of my old two-band boards for 80/17. The K1 is NOT really designed to support very frequent filter board swaps. You won't really be wanting to do this often. >...but I'm not partial to all the component sharing. There are no real technical issues here. The four-band board design provides as good or BETTER performance on any band as was provided by a two-band board with the same band on it. >MCU Firmware is 1.09E and I'm now trying to determine if K1UPKT >has been applied to the rig That's still the latest version of FW. >KAT1 firmware is 1.10 and I'm guessing is a bit outdated. How big of >a deal is the latest firmware? The last KAT1 firmware is version 1.30, I think. I upgraded mine, but I can't tell much difference. >Also, how important is it to apply K1UPKT? Is it a necessary upgrade? In my opinion, the most important upgrades from that kit are: 1. VFO linearization. Just requires one 100k resistor (R19) on the front panel circuit. 2. Attenuator pop reduction. Just requires one 15 uH RF choke on the bottom of the RF board. I did NOT find it desirable to do the "RF Detector Switch" nor the "Transmit Offset Test Switch" mods. There is another mod to reduce QSK thump, if that is a problem, that is described at: http://www.elecraft.com/Apps/K1_qsk_app_note.htm This mod is NOT part of the K1UPKT. Also, the K1UPKT does not mention or install two components that are to be installed on Rev. E K1 RF boards to support 80m operation: C78 (22 uF) and RFC8 (100 uH). But these should be added to the Rev. D boards too. If you have the KNB1 noise blanker installed, it is important that it has been modified to add a .01 uF bypass cap from U1 pin 1 to ground, otherwise the KNB1 will sometimes generate the most gosh-awful noise in the receiver during QSK, at certain frequencies in the 20m band. I also think that the RF board AGC capacitor C31 results in much much better AGC performance when lowered from 2.2 uF to 1 uF (or even lower). The Rev. E boards can easily be configured so that the front panel phone connection can be used for MONO phones without the mono phone plug shorting out the audio. I had to figure out which traces to cut and bridge on my Rev. D RF board to do the same thing, and believe me, after the K1 is assembled, it is NOT obvious which traces should be cut and bridged to do this. 73, Mike / KK5F _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
