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Front mounted

In a prevous post I gave account of my Elecraft AF1 mini module audio filter project.I have built other mini modules from Elecraft such as the DL1 dummy load, N-gen wide band noise generator and the XG-2 three band test receiver test oscillator. All of the kits went together very well and they all without exception came with very easy to understand instructions. I have put these kits to get use while building many of the Elecraft radio kits. These test devices can also be very useful around the shack to do many tests as you either build , test or trouble shoot many pieces of shack equipment. The only beef I have with all these kits is Elecraft does

Stand offs mounted

not offer enclosures for them. My DL1, N-gen and XG-2 are still on the bench without enclosures. This does not concern me to much as they are out of the way and in a safe place and out only during use. On the other hand the AF1 audio filter is going along side my KX1 in
many out door situations. It was a must to get this unit in a case. This brings me to Dave W8FGU he offers a very good solution to my AF1 case situation. Dave

Tab on rotary switch bent

offers clear Lexan enclosures for a variety of Elecraft products. Dave's site offers great pictures of the enclosures that he offers. This solved my problem of wanting to make sure the AF1 filter was protected as I transported it and used it out doors. I contacted Dave and ordered the product, I received emails on the status of my enclosure. It was promptly shipped and arrived in no time. The enclosure was very well packaged and I downloaded his PDF instructions as there are some very slight modifacations to be done to the

Bottom of enclosure

Battery mounted on bottom

AF1 for it to fit properly into the Lexan case. The 9 volt battery had to be mounted on the underside of the circuit board. That went very smoothly as Elecraft has provided for this and it is well laid out on the PCB.
The only other modification was the AF1's rotary switch had a tab which had to be bent down in a horizontal fashion.The case is very well made and along with the strength of the Lexan materiel makes the case well worth it. All edgings and corners were flush fitting, all the screw holes lined up with professionalism and attention to detail.

Finished product

A few weeks ago I was at the local book store with Julie she was getting her supply of photography periodicals. While there I came across a magazine that has intrested me but I never had purchased..Monitoring Times.  Monitoring Times is a mix of Amateur radio, Short Wave and scanner information. As  I was looking the magazine over I noticed they offered it via email each month as a full color PDF. I did not end up purchasing the magazine but at home I looked  up the details of what Monitoring Times calls their MTXpress version. What I found out was it's cheaper than the paper version, it has click-able links which I find are a great
add on and if  you want it's printable. Finally and best of all as soon as the magazine is released it's  in your email box waiting for you to read. I let a subscription lapse on a bi-monthly magazine that seemed to consistently arrive during the second month of it's release. It would be great if CQ and QST could take advantage of this technology. I did end up paying for a year subscription of MTXpress and it's great. It has

KBPF3 board

rekindled my interest in Short wave listening. So it's back to the Elecraft K3...funny how a lot of my post's seem to sneak back to Elecraft. They offer and I just purchased a board you instal in the radio that gives you general coverage from 500khz to 30mhz and then from 48mhz to 54mhz. So in a few weeks my short wave adventure will begin once again.

Well it's hard to believe that it's been one full year of blogging for me. Seems just a short time ago I was discovering blogging never thinking I would have an active blog. So what has happend over the last 12 months of blogging. I sure have expanded my horizons with ham radio! Areas such as WSPR, QRPp, types of portable antennas, fellow ham's taking ham radio outdoors and the list goes on. Im just amazed that folks want to read the stuff I post. I was not sure what to exspect with blogging and were my blog would end up heading but over this past year I have been having a blast. For someone who really does not say much this past year I was able to squeeze out 110 post's. Well here's to another year of blogging.........CHEERS.....

The setup along with the cheat sheet

After my outing on Saturday with my KX1 and newly built Elecraft AF1 I was frustrated the filtering was just not as sharp and clear as I was lead to believe. I also was  getting what I thought to be RF  into the AF1 from the KX1 and rendering it more or less useless. When I keyed the KX1 my ear buds made my CW just sound like mush . I was unable to know what I was sending,  I put the question out to the Elecraft reflector. There were two common answers to my question, the first was "am I using a counterpoise with the Miracle whip antenna" the other "try if all else fails putting capacitors between the

AF in and out on the AF1" Not having any capacitors at the time I did have a counterpoise that I have used with the Miracle whip in the past. I stopped using it as I was able to get a decent SWR without it.....WRONG.......I really need to take antenna 101 the ARRL used to offer it but no more....that is another blog post....So I clipped on my counterpoise and all was well with the AF1. As well it improves the effeminacy of the Miracle whip I am told as well. So it was off to the back deck counterpoise in hand to give the KX1 and AF1 a workout to see how it preforms against the stock filter in the KX1. I had viewed some Youtube AF1 video's

and they seemed to be doing much better than mine. It's not that I am short of QRN as there are 500KV hydro lines right behind me!! With the counterpoise on I could hear my transmitted CW crystal clear. The AF1 filtering still did not seem to be all that great.  It was only by chance that I noticed the filter on the KX1 was still set at about 300HZ. I backed it off all the way allowing the AF1 to do it's job, seems I was having the two filters in competition with each other. After this was done the AF1 was very very impressive and preformed like the Youtube video's I was watching in the past. At this point unfortunately I have no way of recording the KX1 with and without the AF1 filter so the blog world can hear the difference....those techno wiz bong skills I continue to work on.

Counterpoise alligator clipped

With RF solved able to use roll up which is smaller

Counterpoise

10 meters

It's a long weekend out this way so after a nice long walk thought I would see what is happening on the bands........NOTHING......I turned on PowerSDR just to get a broader scope of the bands and again....NOTHING.......I did double check to see if I was on the dummy load I have done that before!! So it was off to WSPR to see how the signal was doing. The bands were not as dead as I thought WSPR proved that otherwise. 20 meters was alive and well with WSPR signals and for the attic antenna things did not work out to bad. It was then time to live on the edge and head down to 10 meters and see what was happening down there. According the the WSPR map signals were bouncing around short distances in Europe but not much happening in North America.  Then it was off to 15 meters and there seemed to be nothing happening for anyone no matter where you were. Well this help pass some time and keep me out of trouble!

15 meters

20 meters

The weather has been great during the month of July....well for those of you like me who think 85 degrees along with humidity is great then it has been a great month. I wanted to try my new Elecraft AF1 filter in a contest/portable situation. This morning the IOTA and U.S counties QSO party was up and running. I always find that doing portable op's when big contests are on makes things very exciting. The only problem I had in the past was the Elecraft KX1 was not good at filtering out the busy bands. Thus brings me to the Elecraft AF1 filter!! The day began with me making

sure all was packed (Murphy decided to participate in those plans). It was off to Starbuck to have a coffee and get the laptop out (Starbucks has free wifi) and look up the contests that are on and get the exchange's they are using. I was going to be a "point giver" in as many contests as I could. So once at Starbucks Murphy kicked in.....I had all I needed for my portable operation but forgot my laptop!!!! Well the Iphone came to the rescue and I was able to get the contest info from there. So it was off to the park and I did find the perfect spot to setup at around 10 am. It was still cool but just to make sure this spot was under a large tree with

Elecraft AF1

lots of shade right beside the river.  It was time to take a picture of the setup. Got the camera out and it just would not take a picture...I charged  the battery last night....hmmm...upon further investigation I forgot to put a memory card for the camera.....another Murphy moment....Well the Iphone came to the rescue once again so the pic's in this post are done with my Iphone.  I camped out on 20 meters and it seemed to be more alive with the IOTA contest than the QSO party contest. The noise level was amazing at almost "0" . So how did the AF1 work out...I found the connecting cable between the KX1 and AF1 being not shielded  was picking up the RF from the

The park patrol

Miracle whip antenna at 1.2 watts. I am going to have to make up a shielded jumper cable to see if that makes a difference.  I was still able to use the AF1 and it really did help with busy spot on the band. I am going to have to play with it more at home sorting out adjustment issue's along with it picking up RF from the Miracle whip antenna. When I got home I did try the KX1 and  AF1 along with the DX-EE in the attic and there was no issues at all with RF getting into the unit.