Part II involves installing components for the synthesizer and receiver circuits (front half of the RF Board).  At the conclusion of this phase of the build, the individual stages are aligned and tested, and we have a working receiver on 40 meters!

Winding Toroids

Much of this phase of the build is simply stuffing the board with resistors and capacitors, although before this becomes too monotonous, you are challenged to winding toroids.  Winding is lots of fun.   It's about the closest I'll ever get to "sewing".    After winding my first couple of toroids, I was noticing that the enamel wire was "bulging" as it wound around the outside if the core.  I really wanted it to butt up against the core, and be as close a possible to the core on its outer circumference.  So, after a little bit of experimentation, I realized that, just before pulling the wire through the middle of the core, if you flatten the wire up against the outside edge of the core, then pull the wire through the center of the core, you will achieve windings which do not bulge out on the outside of the core. 

It seems, from traffic I've seen on the QRP and Elecraft listservers, that some people have a really tough time stripping toroid leads.   In the past, I used a lighter to burn the enamel off of the wire, and then I used a very fine file to clean up the wire.  Little did I know, there is a much easier way to do this!

At the suggestion of the K2 Owner's Manual, and after having read about in on the listservers, I decided to try the "blob" method of heat-stripping the leads.  Wow, it sure makes life much easier!  I found that using my fine 700 deg. F. tip on my Weller WTCPT worked sufficiently to burn up the insulation and tin the leads.  All it took was a little bit of patience, and a lot of cleaning the tip and making a new solder blob.  I understand that the process is made even easier with a wider tip and a higher temperature.  The wider tip will hold a larger blob of solder, and the higher temperature will burn up the insulation faster.  However, with a little patience, the lower temperature and smaller tip worked well.

Scary Lookin' L33

I like to read ahead in the build instructions ... it gives me something to look forward to, and I know what lies on the road ahead of me.  However, when I saw the instructions for constructing and mounting L33 (at the very end of Part II), I was a bit intimidated.   Granted, I had not thoroughly read all of the instructions, but just glanced them over.  I wondered how difficult L33 was going to be to wind, since an entire page in the Owner's Manual was devoted to the construction and installation of this one component.

Piece of cake!  I'd say the most difficult task was simply counting the number of initial turns on the T44-8 core.  The required 40 turns of #28 wire pretty much fills up the core, and makes "double-checking" your count difficult.  Even the excellent vision and dexterity of a 32 year old, I had to recount several times under a magnifying lamp to be sure I had exactly 40 turns.

A Completed Part II RF Board

And ... She Passes with Flying Colors

What a great feeling to receive signals on a radio I've worked on for a couple of months!