Please post your questions and comments about Issue #3 here. The article is at this link. I will come back frequently and respond to your messages. If you have any ideas of good contacts for future "innovator" columns, alert me here! Dave
For anyone who is interested in this fellow and his company, their website is www.km3km.com, and the Facebook forum run by Steve Bennion, W7DJ, is located at https://www.facebook.com/groups/142293734462468.
Interesting analogy to the Mercury car. I have the Mercury IIIs and the AT and have been very happy with both products and look forward to seeing them grow and what they come out with next.
Hey Jim -- those are two great products. Thanks for the comment. By the way, on your website I see you have an interest in WSPR. Ever tried it out on a POTA mission, just to see what your portable antenna can do? (Issue #2, Trials and Errors).
Hey Dave, I did not try my Ultimate 3S (WSPR transmitter) yet on my PAC-12. but did just get back from activating from park K-7839 and with 20 watts SSB from my Xiegu G90 made a QSO to Hawaii and another to Alaska from Illinois. I run the Ultimate 3S on 40, 20 and 10 meters on an OCFD, I can also do 6 meters, but never had any spots there so turned it off.
Jim. we have remarkably similar portable stations. I use the Xiegu as well, and the PAC-12. Next time out I am comparing three wire antennas and writing an article about it. That was good luck to get Alaska and Hawaii on a portable outing from Illinois! I put my WSPR on my home station's OCF dipole and had such a busy map in just a few hours. Amazing how far you can get with one fifth of a watt. Dave
I enjoyed this piece. What always strikes me from our fellow hams is appreciation of small business in this hobby, but more than that, Kenny mentions the appreciation of freedoms that we have..be conscious of them. Thanks again Kenny, great success. de WI4MM ..
Thanks Mark, appreciate the positive comments. I agree . . . most of us appreciate and support the smaller companies, especially when they have quality products or improvements that could be made to our shacks. This firm is not unique in that regard. They make products that people seem to rave about. But the really unique nature of the company appears to me to be the zealous quality and care elements that Kenny himself puts into it (and his colleague Angel as well). He's so appreciative of what the country has done for him and he shows that every day. Dave
I also have both the IIIS and AT. They are super easy to use, work perfectly, and look amazing. I do have two questions. 1) Has there been any discussions to adding user-adjustable capacitance and inductance to the AT to allow the user to manually adjust each to "fine-tune" the tune of the AT? I have found that tuning at 40 watts and running at 650 watts digital can have slightly different SWR. 2) Can there be an option added to all products to remove the annoying power-up beeps from the internal speaker/alarm? Does Kenny have any idea how hard it is to sneak into the shack at night without waking up the XYL when powering up the equipment? lol
Ha! I agree with you on number 2 -- as a guy who LOVES to sneak in at night, the "R" sent by CW is a really loud tone and a dead giveaway to the husband and his whereabouts. I'll send your Q'S on to Kenny, and Jeremy I don't know what will happen. I'll come back to you here. Dave
Hi Jeremy, Kenny prefers design suggestions to go to his email, and I will send you that by your QRZ email address. If there's none posted, shoot me a note at my email there and I'll connect you directly to Mr. Martinez. With regards to the startup tone adjustment, I think he's heard that before and that may not be a big issue going forward. Regards, Dave W7DGJ
