It was a very exciting day when I collected the K3 from Parcel Force, after paying a hefty VAT bill. Once home, at around 1800 I began to unpack and check the contents of the boxes. Of course once I had begun to assemble bits and pieces it was very difficult to stop myself from carrying on.
In preparation I had even bought a new anti-static mat, as I’ve never needed one before, but I wasn’t willing to take a chance on this build.
The K3 Arrived very well packed
Progress on the main board, filters installed etc.
You can see the roofing filters towards the left of centre. There are 3 fitted, the standard 2.7kHz one and then a 1.8kHz SSB and 400Hz CW filter. As the filters are fitted to the first IF at 8.215MHz the close in adjacent signal performance is rather good. The DSP can take any of the filters down to around 50Hz in software after switching in the 400Hz filter.
Fitting the internal ATU
Adding parts of the chassis.
The front panel prior to assembly.
It's looking like a radio
The sub-receiver board
The sub-receiver was the feature that sold me on the K3, and was a significant step up in ability over my previous HF radio. Such a useful feature, I am not sure I could go back to a single receiver now.
Internal cabling.
Finally I got to turn it on for calibration
I was particularly pleased when it powered on and ran through it’s self calibration routines without fault. After this stage the 100W PA and other units were fitted.
A rear panel view
Even from the rear the K3 is something to behold. A very simple panel layout, but one still full of connectors for all sorts of things. Who was it that called this game wireless?
The final piece!
At this point in time it was 0230 the next morning. 8 hours after starting the build I had finished, having only stopped for about 20 minutes for a bite to eat and a drink. At this point I decided to cut my losses and get some sleep. The next day was the first day of actual use for the K3.
That day was nearly 2 years ago and still the K3 is my primary HF radio, being used for NFD stations and also some portable operating on holidays around the UK.