Well it only took 10 years but I finally did the "fine carrier balance" adjustment on my K2. I never did it when I built my K2 in 1999, since the "dead zone" in R1 on the ssb board seemed to be 0 during the coarse balance adjustment. In addition I've gotten several unsolicited compliments on my audio over the years. So what prompted me to finally do the adjustment?
About a year ago I installed the Elecraft "bandwidth modification kit", to the SSB board, mainly to get a few more hz view in digital modes (WSJT in particular). When I did the mod, I re did the coarse carrier balance and noted the same lack of a "dead zone" in R1. So I was satisfied all was well. But a few weeks ago I got a negative comment on the audio from one (out of 181 qso's) during the ARRL VHF sweepstakes. I noted it, but ascribed the comment to the $0.50 mic element in the homebrew boom mic I built just prior to the contest (a boom mic and a foot switch make life easier during a contest). But yesterday I worked K5D with ssb using my usual mic (a D-104) and he made a comment on the audio too (though he also said he or I was mistuned). Well that motivated some action on my part. It took about 20-30 minutes to dig my old SX-117 out of the bowels of my son's closet, and for the first time ever, performed the fine carrier balance on the K2 ssb board using the SX-117 as a monitor. I was surprised to find that I could easily suppress the carrier by an additional s-unit inside that "missing dead zone" on the pot. But self monitoring of my audio using the SX-117 before and after the balance adjustment, using both the boom mic and the D-104 made no difference in the audio. To my ear it sounds fine, with little if any distortion. Maybe the poor audio reports were just a fluke, from two stations operating in "contest mode", not looking to make any receiver adjustments at their end. Anyway, I learned something: the fine carrier balance adjustment actually can improve carrier supression, which may benefit me if I ever upgrade to a high power K2. And now after 10 years, all the alignment steps of the K2 have been completed! 73, Lenny W2BVH ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
