well, i picked the 10k for a couples reasons -

1. i wanted the least amount of current going thru the circuit, there is 10 different circuits that will be tested. Also the device will be powered by a 4 AA battery pack most of the time.

2. you can only put so much current thru an E-match before you have a violent reaction, , NFPA 1123 regulates me to 30ma.
But 30ma will kill some AA batts pretty quick.

I was thinking about using a 1k, but then i would want the device to be able to have some way of connecting each circuit one at a time for test and then grounding it while it's not tested, i was thinking of using a shift reg, or maybe even using 10 pins on the pic. I was thinking that this would help with not wasting battery power and maybe even keep th RF interference down from the MRF89XAM9A-I/RM transceiver.