Unfortunately, I was working from home that day. That meant, I had to curb my excitement to open it up right away. I set the box aside and dove into work. When the time to log off came, I went straight to the box. When I opened it was a little underwhelming. I had ordered the Edgewood package which included the carry case, the whip antenna, the CW paddle, the cover/log holder, a ball point pen and the built-in tuner. The box just contained individual pieces of these items wrapped up in bubble wrap. No fancy packaging or anything. If the money saved goes towards the development of radios, that is fine by me.
I played with the radio for an hour or so and put it through its paces. The included manual was well written and after my familiarization routine I felt reasonably comfortable taking it for the POTA activation the next day. The only complaint is that the printed manual is black and white, but refers to arrows in Red on a page with multiple arrows, but one can always refer to the online variant if there is any confusion...
The day of activation:
I decided to perform a pedestrian mobile activation while also recording it. I do not have any action cam or microphones. I just picked up the cheap and unused dashcam from my scrap bin and used a long shoelace to hang it from my neck. I used a USB power bank to power the camera through my activation. It may not amount to much, but one can at least get a feel for what it was like.
The video of the activation [nearly unedited and unscripted ] is available here. Warning this is about an hour long...
So here are my first impressions
The KH-1 is an impressive package packing a wealth of functionality into a small form-factor. Turning on the radio is via a small SPDT switch near the bottom on the left hand face of the radio. The switch does not seem to be beefy and thus does not feel very reassuring. Only time will tell if this switch will take the heavy use on the field. I like the KX-3 approach of pressing multiple buttons. I am not sure why Elecraft went this way for the KH-1.
I've liked Elecraft products for their attention to user interface. Despite having just 4 buttons and two knobs, they have done a wonderful job of getting to any radio controls quick and easy. Their usual philosophy of having long and short presses on each of the buttons and sensible grouping of their functions makes learning using the rig a breeze. I am confident after a few days of use, I may not even have to look at the bright [even under direct sunlight] display.
The design to stow away the built in paddle for carrying and flipping it over for field use is clever. However, the paddle still seems a little mushy to me. I can see one operating the paddles with the rig placed on a table or other surface with ease. But trying to use the paddles while walking and holding the rig in the other hand is a little tricky. I resorted to using lower CW speeds than usual.
The hard cover that comes with the Edgewood package, doubles as a log sheet holder. Elecraft provides a PDF template to print them out. I was skeptical about this at first. But on the field, this proved to be a fantastic design. I was able to keep logs and flip sheets of paper with ease. Further, the this cover or tray can be interchanged for left or right hand operation as desired. This clearly reflects the attention the detail that their engineers. The included 13ft counterpoise wire is also of excellent quality and will hold up to field conditions very well.
Everyone has opined about the weak internal speaker and the need to use a headphone for better copyability in real world conditions. However, as you will see in my video linked above, that built in speaker is adequate for normal outdoor conditions. But using an amplified speaker considerably increases the audio quality.
The built-in antenna is good for 15, 17 and 20m. The BNC connector must be used for other bands. I only tried the 20m band on this activation and found that the SWR was changing considerably as I was roaming around. I even spent a stint of about 15-20 mins not being able to get a good match. I eventually (duh!) figured out to play with the whip length and once I did that I got a consistent SWR even on the 20m band. About the only thing I would want for the antenna is some kind of a joint so that I can keep the antenna vertical, while I hold the receiver tilted away from me. I did try the BNC connector on my home OCF dipole and got good match with the internal tuner for 40m as well.
Another difficulty I encountered was that I was inadvertently changing the frequency on the VFO as I was operating the rig. This was entirely my fault. I did not read the manual fully. The rig has a VFO lock functionality exactly for these situations.
So for such an excellent package, it is hard to find faults. However, here are somethings that stand out for me
- Operating with gloved hands is going to be difficult with tiny buttons and switch
- No weather resistance is evident. I will hesitate to pull this radio out under damp, foggy or misty conditions
- With the logging tray enabled for right-handers, the use of headphones will require a tiny right angle adaptor if the headphones have straight jacks
- The CW key [despite their claim of being improved] is a little mushy
- Trying to grip the radio for long time makes it difficult. Elecraft mentions some mount points behind the radio. Perhaps a pop-socket like attachment will take the stress away from having to grip a tiny radio. This may NOT be a problem for people with smaller hands, but with large hands, you will most likely fatigue after holding it for a while.
