Howdy K3' people: Got my factory-built KAT500 today. Despite the missing cable (paid for) E850463, I figured out how to run it manually. They did send along a strange 3ft RCA RG59 cable though. right now the cat's playing with it.
Getting an automatic AT, for me, was kinda just a laughing point. I quizzed Dave about it rather heavily. Me and Marconi weren't sure young Dave could be right on all counts since he hasn't seen the wire here. But I thought it would be fun to switch bands rapidly, and without my short clip-board and penciled columns of the current settings for the wonderful Palstar AT2K tuner. Well, I started at 160m and went thru 60m and finished at 10m. Didn't miss anything. There was the clattering expected; the metering reported wonderfully high SWR's as she tried to figure out how to match the 110' section of 450 fed with a few loops of coax at the shack end. I got to raise my eyebrows in that All-Too-Certain of ones-self that we get after operating on a few continents with wire and one of the combat tours I had a 1500 foot V-beam ... That was before most of your respective times though. So I was about to say "Ah HAH!" when the noise stopped. "Gave up, did ya??" .. The last number I saw on the K3 was something like 98:1 ... hahahahahahahahaha ... But it was quiet and now the K3 said !.1:1 "One-point-one to one?" I asked .. OK, I lost that one on 160 .. so on to make it fail somewhere else. By 30 meters I was having fun because the pragmatic side of me knew this was going to be wayyyy tooo KEWL ... "IF" she made it to ten. Somewhere in 280 feet of wire at 80 feet, there must be a rotten mis-match that the slim little beastie can't handle. Guess I was wrong. Kudos to Dave at Elecraft for steering me to the KAT500. K# is perched on a thin mat of that rubber-cloth ya get at Wal-Mart sewing area. Who knows, if I get a cable I think it will be automated. There is a "Computer Interface Cable" which has a 3.5mm one-end and USB the other. That's into the computer now but I have no idea who talks to it. K3-Utility didn't anyway. Nice piece of gear. In a week or two my 1200' wire goes up .. gotta have something for the diversity setup. Wonder if I can bamboozle the KAT500 on that one. Coax-balun to 600-ohm ladder to the wire .. heh heh heh heh If you don't have one and wonder if it will load into your stealth clothesline, there is a good chance it will. Afterall, I am loading some of the 80 foot oak trees. KAT500: Good for the shack! -- 73 KD7YZ Bob ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
