K1EV's Elecraft Material Page
(This page was last updated 02/28/04)
Back to Bill's Home Page

In June, 2001 my lovely wife presented me with an Elecraft K2 QRP transciever kit (S/N 2152) as a combination birthday, Father's day, aniversery present. Alright, she did get a few hints, but the execution was all hers. Along with the basic K2 came a number of the optional kits - noise blanker, audio filter, sideband module, 160 meter module, and automatic antenna tuner. Construction took several weeks of long days, but when I finally put the rig on the air, my QRO rig started gathering dust.

About 99% of my on-air time is spent working cw and about 99% of that is operating QRP. Therefore I thought it fitting that at least one page of this web site be devoted to Elecraft products and related projects. One of those projects has to do with increasing the output power of my K2.

Some time ago Kevin, KD5ONS started a cw net for Elecraft owners and others to meet. This group gets together on Sunday evenings, on 14050 +/- at 2300Z and on 7045 +/- at 0300Z. (Drop by some evening and say hello - Elecraft ownership is not required). There were times when propagation was not very favorable between my QTH in Connecticut and the rest of the country and the maximum output of the K2 (about 15 Watts) just didn't make it. Another reason to want a little more power was to support my sessions as a FISTS code buddy tutor.
Click on the links below to see the KPA/KAT project:

Just getting started

Had to spread out some

The work site-it just LOOKS messy

The KAT-100 board was built first

The KAT-100 in the EC-2

Another view of the KAT-100 in the EC-2

The KPA-100, just about done

KPA-100 ready for final check-out

The Elecraft Twins - ready to operate

I was able to pick up an unbuilt KAT100 high power antenna tuner kit and EC-2 enclosure from Mychael, AA3WF (aka The Toroid Guy), and my non-ham wife once again came through with the KPA100 amplifier and KIO-2 interface kit. A posting to the helpful reflector resulted in a flood of great advice on how to best proceed with building and integrating all the different pieces. Lyle, KK7P, has a great pictorial how-to on his web site and provided sage advice: 1) build the KPA and install it into the K2 to make sure it's working correctly, 2) then build the KAT100, mount that into the EC-2, and make sure it works with the K2/100, 3) remove the KPA100 from the K2, install the KIO-2 and make sure that interface works with the KAT100, and finally 4) put the KPA100 into the EC-2 with the KAT100 and enjoy the K-Twins. If you're contemplating this project check out his site. I intended to take pictures as I went along, but found I was so swept up with the construction that I neglected to document my progress very well. Below are a few shots taken during the several weeks spent on building and integrating. Only problems I had were cockpit smoke related to having numerous parameters reset when I upgraded to the latest available firmware! Lesson learned was to READ THE MANUAL!