Hey Jerry,

Allow me to jump in here with my compadre Gary and sing the virtues of
Elecraft.

First, by way of background. Elecraft was begun by two guys in
California; Wayne, N6KR, and Eric, WA6HHQ. They designed the Elecraft
K2 on the backs of Field Day logs and napkins and all manner of
things, as the ultimate Field Day rig. They came out with the radio
in, I believe, 1998, and have been adding new stuff ever since.

You should know that Elecraft rigs come to you in kit form with very
detailed manuals. Don't let that scare you, though. A fantastic
community has sprung up around Elecraft, and Elecraft even maintains a
list of kit builders, many of whom will build Elecraft rigs for cheap
or free. Besides their three HF transceivers (the flagship K2, the K1
two or four-band cw rig with plug-in band modules, and the
trail-friendly (and very cute!) KX1 three-band cw rig), Elecraft has
many useful accessories, such as VHF transverters for your K2, the
KRC2 band decoder and cw readout, QRP dummy load and balun (two kits),
a kit to help allign your receiver...lots of great stuff.

Anyway, you ask how these rigs compare to a high-end rig such as the
Kenwood TS-2000. I'll concentrate on the K2, since that's the top-end
offering, has the most features, and is probably what you'd be
interested in for most things. I own a K2/100 and a KX1 myself, and I
love them both!

Umm. On second thought, maybe I should continue this in the next message.
--
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV
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