What about this stuff from Amazon? It lets you make phone calls while soldering!
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The reviews say all you need to know. Dross.
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Part of the problem is people not knowing how to use lead free solder. It works well but does need a higher temperature. That stuff appears to be just tin (+ flux) which doesn’t help. I use decent stuff from Farnell that also has copper and silver in it. It’s more expensive but works much better. I mortgaged my house to buy a 250g reel but I do a lot of homebrew so it’s worth it. I have no wish to poison myself with lead.
In general I advise against buying stuff like this from Amazon or eBay as you generally have no idea what you are getting.
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Ian,
The Putikeeg paddle is fine.
I find it by far the best of the low to mid priced paddles. Get something else after your first1000 QSOs on it if you want something more up market.
.
PS. I double sided taped a piece of zinc coated steel sheet to my operating box and the key is immovable.
73
Ron
VK3AFW.
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The President of Ireland is the patron of the IRTS. I’ll write to him requesting formal written approval (sealed in wax of course) when/if the day comes I’m in a privileged enough position to buy a Begali. 
The Putikeeg works great for my mediocre skills etc! Still haven’t made my first CW QSO yet.
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Hi Ian,
If at some point you want to even design your own (wire) antennas - or at least see how they work, a good website is portable-antennas.com
73 Ed DD5LP
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Just out of interest I had a try this afternoon in my favourite park using 5w on my QMX and JPC PAC-12
I didn’t get to make any QSO’s but I did get spotted on RBN and was surprised to see just how far my little 5w QMX with Putikeeg key reached on 20m!
https://www.reversebeacon.net/main.php?rows=10&max_age=10,days&spotted_call=EI3LH&hide=
Looking forward to actually making a CW QSO for real some day. I keep trying but either get no replies or end up getting overwhelmed and can’t copy anything and give up.
Next time so. 
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Ended up getting the LowePro Hardside CS80. It’s a bit bigger than the CS40 and CS60 but it should do the job I’d imagine? Thanks for your video @MM0EFI on your Hama bag. I noted down the measurements you made, and the fact you have the Windcamp side arms and cover shield too (I purchased them on Aliexpress from Windcamp last week). It was a great help as I found loads of bags I would have bought onstead but they would have been a bit too small.
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/dp/B07G4GLQ2L
Had a look at that £10 one on eBau @MM0FMF and it looks great. Shipping and import taxes made it about the same price as a CS80 from Amazon Germany. I don’t have contacts in GI alas. We used to have an GI to EI forwarding service which was great but they closed down when Brexit kicked in.
I got a couple of cheapo PTT ‘covert’ mic/earpiece things too and had a go at making a mic for my incoming KX2. The mic records fine, but I might’ve bodged the PTT soldering (those wires are REALLY fine - also there are 4 wires, not 3, so I dunno…). Not sure how to test the PTT as it didn’t work in my Tidradio H8 or H3 or Quansheng. Do both pins need to be used to enable PTT e.g. if I put an untouched ‘covert’ mic/earpiece in to the HT, the PTT works.
Doesn’t matter if it’s bodged. I’ve a spare I can butcher, or just cut and redo the TRS on the currently bodged one. Good to give it a try and see though. Those mics are poor build quality on the inside, however the mic casing is pretty good and you don’t need to pry it as the case is held together by a single screw. The lapel clip is rivited in though so best left alone. Just a heads up in case anyone tries to make one too. Here’s the stuff I bought to make it:
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Just by way of an update, I received the KX2 today. Cripes! What a small footprint! I mean, I know this radio has a rep for being a bit on the micro side, but blimey! VERY impressive that it packs so much punch in such a small radio.
I am hoping to try and use this thing in anger later today with my beloved JPC PAC-12. Just a quick couple of SSB contacts if possible. Might spot myself later today on DX Watch if anyone is about for a voice contact? No CW as although this radio comes with the Elecraft CW Paddle, I’m not brave enough to try and i’ll only have a few minutes to set up and test this.
I had my suspitions the radio would be small when the CS80 case arrived yesterday. I thought I’d been ripped off and sent the wrong size case!
One other thing, I just tested with a 50W dummy load and an Anker PD power bank and it seems to work great. Outputs 12W to the radio when I press TX on the PTT. Not a fan of the hand mic, it’s a bit cheap looking, but will have to do. I tested my homemade Baofeng cut and shut mic, it says ERROR PTT on the KX2 display so I obviously messed up soldering somewhere. Oh well. I’ll look at it another day so.
Also, it does have an internal battery but I don’t think it has internal charging, so without the official charger that costs about €685,000 how do I charge this thing when the internal battery dies?
Serial number on the back is 00201 by the way. Assuming that this is a really early KX2? Any issues with those that I need to be aware of other than it’s a (I assume) low serial number?
Thanks all and hopefully I’ll make a couple contacts tonight. I could call CQ POTA but I don’t have the time for an activation today. I can’t wait to test this later on tonight, I hope it’s as good as it’s reputation that surrounds it!
73
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Make a charger, LM317, 2 transistors and some resistors. Else open wallet and spend mucho dinero. I know what I’d do and that’s what I did.
The link at the bottom of this post is what I built.
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Already done that getting the KX2, and still having therapy for it. 
£70-£80 for a charger is ridiculous. I’ll have a look at how you built yours and see can I give that a try. I checked the inner board of the KX2 and the PCB says REV.A on it. I’m hoping I’ve not been sold a load of old pony. Is the Rev A issue fixable? EDIT: Yes it is. Looks like mines been done, though hard to be 100% sure as really you are just looking for a washer… 
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Mine was made from junkbox components at zero cost apart from time.
The 317 gets warm at about 225mA charge current. The heatsink could be much smaller but that one was in the junkbox. Brown/Black are DC in and Red/Orange wires are the output tothe KX2 battery.
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I got my KX2 in 2017 and for many years I would remove the battery from the radio to charge it. Takes 2 seconds: loosen the thumb screws, carefully remove the back panel being careful not to put stress on the speaker wire, unplug the battery and remove.
For a charger, you can get dirt cheap 3s LiPo chargers on Amazon for a few bucks. The charging profile is the same as 3s LiON. For travel I was using one like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Blomiky-Charger-Airplane-Airsoft-Battery/dp/B082YZ2WRT/
It does require that you install a balance lead on your pack, which is easy to do and will ensure that the 3 18650 cells in your pack stay in balance. The BMS in the battery sold by Elecraft (made by Tenergy) does NOT do any cell balancing (it does high and low voltage cutoff only).
I did eventually get an internal charger and it has been very nice not removing the battery. I just plug it in to a 15V power supply and let it go overnight (it’s a very slow charger).
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Thanks so much folks for the help on the battery charger. I found in the ziploc bag the KX2 cables came in, some sort of USB key with a power connector on it that would fit in the KX2 power port. No idea what that is.
I did try a cheeky CQ call earlier but had very little time before the park gates were locked for the night and had to dismantle and pack my gear away and get out of there.
Soon as I started calling CQ some bright spark thought it would be brilliant fun to play a whopper buzzing noise over me to block me out. QSY’ed and had no joy so gave up.
Heard a few CQ calls in ES and one in Turkey but I was drowned out in the pile ups by people chucking out 928,416 GigaWatts on antennas taller than the Burj Kalifah.
Did notice that as cute and dinky as the KX2 is, there is certainly a learning curve with it in terms of general operating. A read of the PDF version of the manual is in order, certainly.
Looking forward to getting to know the KX2. It is very different to to my beloved FT-891 that’s for sure.
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Hi Ian,
I don’t think someone targeted your little signal; rather, you were unlucky, as some (possibly military) station equipment was scanning to find a usable frequency. There has been a lot of this on 20 and 40 metres over the last week.
73 Ed.
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Oh 100% agree. It was just the irony of it that’s all. 
To be honest I hadn’t a clue what I was doing as the radio was very alien to me. I just tried to get going on the basics. Frequency, listen, ask is it in use, listen, ask again, call CQ etc. Interesting it seems to be happening on the bands though. Takes all sorts I guess.
I’ve since had a little look at the quick start guide to learn what the buttons do as it’s all so different to the 891. I forgot my power bank too so assuming I just ran off the internal battery with no external power plugged in I was only running 5W and not 10W? I wasn’t sure how to confirm that.
Loads to learn though and such a dinky little radio. I can’t get over the size of it yet, even though I have a QMX. For an HF radio and all it’s features, the real estate it commands is bamboozling!
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Hi Ian, I run the KX2 of the internal battery all the time at 10 watts, it only drops to 5W when the battery falls below a certain level which from memory is10 volts .
Victor GI4ONL
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Unfortunately, Sotabeams does not currently ship to GI either…
On the paddles thing, you can contact Hannes direct and get a Palm Mini or Palm Micro from him, he still has some new old stock. I just recently got a Mini and Code Cube bundle, the mini because it is nice, and the code cube for practise (I need a lot of that) and to use with my Roosters.
I’ve had 2 KX2s and sold them, 1 Lab599 TX-500 and sold it, and 2 IC-705s and sold them. I’m an idiot who sees the grass as greener on the other side of the fence perpetually. However, for me the TX-500 just edged it, in terms of the pure ruggedness of it, but one of the KX2 and the TX-500 are the only ones I wish I still had. I’m using a QMX for portable now which is awesome in a whole different way.
Enjoy the rig, and maybe see you on air from GI some time.
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Is there anywhere they actually do ship to? 
You’d think to get a bit of NI, EU and RoW custom they’d get IOSS registered or just ship ex-VAT (unless there’s a sticking point with that EU legislation around a local registered name or something in the port of landing - something along those lines, I forget).
Bizarre.
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