Paint by numbers radio kit

The arc of radio kits is waning.

Easy to work with parts are going out of production in deference to tiny, minuscule equivalents that are a machine’s dream.

Many wax and wane about the glory days of Heathkit, that American landmark that defined a small corner of 1960s American history. The mantle is passed, grabbed or offered and Elecraft catches it and define their own place in kit history. Better than Heathkit, similar build detail but simply a better performer.

Truth is, a high percentage of electronic kits end in tears. Good intent isn’t sufficient to win the day.

Somewhat like driving on a windy mountain road, success is a function of paying attention and staying between the white lines and so build details are a key success determinant.

I hadn’t really intended to go to this party as I’ve never really been a “morser”.

I did attend a different Elecraft party, by buying and building a K2 replete with a family of add-on modules. Hard work but the results still hold their own 20 years on and a life time of new technology to out do the little K2.

Last orders have been and gone. Kicking myself but now “happily” paying over the odds to someone that was quicker off the mark than me and I now have a K1 kit with a small family of add ons.

Remember Covid? Who doesn’t!!

Stuck at home and wondering what has happened to my travel centric life, I turn inward, pull out my K1 kit, power up the soldering iron and relax into a final journey. Screw this build up and no replacement is in sight.

Analog radios are essentially math machines. All those capacitors, inductors, transistors etc are simply crunching on RF signals, pulling out, suppress some, amplifying others to the point that something “intelligible” pops out a speaker or headphone. Analog radio designs are old dating back into the 1920s and 1930s. Different designs and approaches have been pioneered and some stood the test of time.

Eric and Wayne love one of those design approaches, termed “superheterodyne”. It’s in the K2, the K1 I’m about to tackle, the K3 and even the very recent KH-1. It’s a fine approach defined by copious parts count and great performance. The value of the designer is to align all the resistiors, capacitors, transistors, etc into something that is optimized for size, cost and performance. Think tubes of paint and imagine a painting by a five year old versus that by Cezzane. Both start with the same raw material but the end results are markedly different.

Buttons, I love buttons. I’ve long thought about this passion for buttons and knobs and irrefutably tie it to far too many visits to the Science Museum in Kensington, London as a “wee knipper” during the go-go 60s.

Eric and Wayne don’t just love super-heterodyne designs but modular super-hets. Filters are an essential part of any radio both to improve its performance but also to meet FCC requirements to be a good HF citizen and not create unnecessary interference.

As amateur we have access to many bands, shortwave and beyond. The K1 design separates bands into “insertable” filter boards that support 2 or 4 of a limited subset of shortwave bands. It’s a build time decision and my eBay special came with a 2 band filter board that I opt to build for 80m (a night time band) and 40m (a jack of all trades band).

Building the main board….

Possibly overkill but a wonderful peace of mind and potential time saver, I methodically test every and I mean every component before I solder it in. Resistors are checked that the value matches what is demanded, transistors are verified as handling might have zapped a part of it, joints are verified for connectivity and yes, I’ve found dud parts, I’ve found wonky joints and feel all the better for this obsessive attention to detail. Time is never abundant but this journey should be savored and made all the sweeter by a “safe” arrival.

Weeks turn to months and months into years. Under appreciated and under complete, a shoe box emerges with an almost complete ATU. Distracted and pulled away onto house projects, consigned the almost ATU to an ignominious plastic home.

Wire wrapping Dunkin’ Donut like miniature rings, installing a few more components and magically I’m done. Three years in the making and the sense of completing an incomplete project is an additional reward.

An unexpected QA member verifies what I have built, listens for tell tale relays clicking as a match is sort and a wink and a thumbs up convey this build journey hasn’t ended in tears.

Well done me!

Time well spent and a very enjoyable build.

It’s a wonderful little rig but technology has marched on and the KX2 in most all respects remains my “go to” radio for SOTA.

However, it’s a keeper and to borrow a line from Charlton Heston….“from my cold dead hands….”