Assembly took about 6 hours, including a painstaking inventory count of every #4 inside-tooth lock washer and whatnot. The 100W PA is still in the box, that will have to wait until I get a dummy load and can do the TX tests called for in the manual. No major problems with assembly, just a few minor things like the four connectors that mate the front panel assembly to the main RF board taking a lot of fidgeting before snapping together.
When I confirmed and updated my order with Lisa at Elecraft I left the General Coverage BPF off my list, so I've asked her to send one to me as soon as possible.
First impressions:
- DSP Noise Reduction and AFX (binaural audio and delay effects) make weak signals jump out of the background noise.
- Filtering very steep and with good rejection - tune 3 kHz away from S9+ SWBC carrier on 40m, dial bandwidth down to 2.5 kHz, and it vanishes without a hint of it ever being there.
- Ergonomics excellent, though I have to get used to the Vol/RF Gain knobs on the left side of the main tuning dial. I keep reaching to the right instinctively after years of using JRC and Kenwood transceivers.
(From 1978 WRTH)
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