As a rule for many reasons, if you do not use ANT 2 with an antenna
connected then by all means, put a dummy load on it. Even a 10W or 20W
rated load. It will save you much grief, frustration, and likely your
PA.
73
Bob, K4TAX
On 12/3/2018 7:54 PM, HB wrote:
Easy is good!!!
From: K1dj
Sent: Monday, December 3, 2018 2:06 PM
To: Hank
Cc: elecraft@mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3S will not load or tune on 160 M/SOLVED
Thanks all for the speedy and helpful replies! Wish I had run this by you
BEFORE the contest rather than after. I went back to the K3S and switched
through various bands down to 160, and discovered for reasons unknown, on this
band I had never used, the rig was set to “Ant 2.” Since I am using a KPA 500
and KAT 500, everything goes through Ant 1, and I had had no occasion to use
the Ant switch on the K3 itself for quite a while. Switched to Ant 1 on 160M,
and the inverted L tunes quickly and easily.
As they say here in Massachusetts, you guys are “wicked awesome!’
Rich
Anyway, switch to Ant 1 for 160M has apparently solved the problem!
Sent from my iPad
On Dec 3, 2018, at 12:58 PM, Hank <h...@optilink.us> wrote:
I have a "long" 80 meter dipole that I use for 160. It is too long for 80 but
not long enough for 160. At 70' above ground level, it's SWR is 3:1 on 160. My K3s
(internal tuner) matches it to 1.3:1 according to the radio's display. I did not have to
do anything special with the radio to make that work.
I do have a pretty good RF ground though. Before I could get any decent performance
on 80 (including decent SWR), I added to my RF grounding. Where the HF coax enters
the shack, the shield is pulled to ground (1' of #4 copper to an 8' copper clad
ground rod). That same grounding plate is also connected to another 8' ground rod
about 15' away which is right below the service entrance to the house. A piece of
#4 connects from that ground rod to the electric meter base. All of the #4 is
buried except at connections where I've used Pentrox for CU/CU connections. The
ground rod at my HF coax entrance also is tied to 2" wide copper strap that
runs into the shack to a copper bar (old -48vdc grounding bar from a phone switch)
and all of my equipment is tied to that bar. Under the shack where the copper strap
comes in, the CATV coax and CAT 3 telephone wiring are grounded to that
strap. The CATV coax has a little 4' ground rod right at the wall entrance
that is tied to the electric meter base also.
This also cured some issues on 80 meters running an RF amp where I could make
the phone ring and change channels on the TV when I keyed up! All of that is
fixed.
My $0.02 (and that's all it's worth :)
Hank
K4HYJ
-----Original Message-----
From: "Richard Hoffman, K1DJ via Elecraft" <elecraft@mailman.qth.net>
To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net
Date: 12/03/18 12:24
Subject: [Elecraft] K3S will not load or tune on 160 M
I put up my first 160 meter antenna last week in anticipation of participating
in last weekend's contest. I managed to get the antenna -- a slow slung
inverted L with a single raised radial as a compromise on my tiny 100 by 100
foot lot -- up in time. I then managed to get the antenna down to an SWR of 2
to 1 measured by a Rig Expert AA55 zoom analyzer, at the balun to which the
raised wire and radial are directly attached, and ythen got the same 2.0 SWR
reading at the shack end of a borrowed piece of about 50 feet of RG-213. [I
recognize that 2 to 1 is not perfect by any means, but it was certainly within
the range of my Elecraft equipment, I thought.]
But then my K3S simply refused to tune or load into the antenna, either
directly, using its internal ATU, or routed through my KPA-500 to a KAT-500
tuner. In both circumstances, the rig and/or tuner showed an SWR around 25 to
1, and tuned at best to around 16 to 1, resulting in no apparent RF output.
After trying to fix this in various ways, I gave up on the 160M contest and
turned to other pursuits, while seeking advice from several Elecraft-loving,
160M-using, friends.
It finally dawned on me this morning to connect the rig to my dummy load. The
result of attempting to tune and load the dummy load is exactly the same as it
was trying to use the new inverted-L: initial 25 to 1 SWR, tunes down only to
16.9 to 1.
The rig, amp, internal and external tuners, and dummy load work fine on 80M
through 6M. This is my first time trying them all on 160M.
QUESTION: Are there special configuration or other steps I need to take to
operate the K3S on 160 meters? Do these symptoms suggest any other problems
that you can help solve?
Please advise, and thanks!
73 -
Rich, K1DJScituate, MA
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