Well I did it again, My last set of finals just fried! I was using my manual tuner on 20m at 2W. I think what's happening is the power spike is overloading the finals at the end of each transmission. Now I no longer believe the KAT2 is responsible since it was out of circuit. I have not been able to find any faults in the KAT2. It just seemed a likely candidate because thats when the failures would occur. I've now proven that theory incorrect. I must have a fault in the LPF or PA sections. To date, I have not been successful in locating the problem. It is long overdue for me to swallow my pride and send the K2 in for service. I think what hurts the most is knowing that it will be something simple like a bad solder joint. I want to thank Don and the everyone else that has helped me to this point. In the 2 1/2 months i've owned this radio, I'm glad to say that at-least I did make one contact on the air!
73, Damon KC5CQW Damon - KC5CQW wrote: > > Below is some of the text that I sent to Gary. > Basically, if I use the KAT2 to tune my 40m attic dipole the PA finals > will short out. > I haven't tryied to tune any other antennas because I don't want to pay > for any more PA kits ($18.50 'ish each time I tune up). > Also, CW is un-usable above 80m and no CW output on 10m (SSB and "tune" > yield 8.5W) > > See text below... > > 73, Damon KC5CQW > > Copied text from support email: > > On 40m-10m when I release the CW key or mic PTT in CW mode, the moment it > is released I get a power spike resulting in a HiCur warning. > On 12m and 10m I have no output during key down; Only the power spike. (CW > only, SSB is fine) > If the tune button is activated, The radio will give about 11w Max on 12m > and 8.5w on 10m. > All other bands yield 12-15W max. > > > At the time of the last PA meltdown, I was able to tune my 40m dipole on > 80, 40 and 10m; It failed at 30m. > There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to when a failure will occur. It > has happened at different frequencies. > I am reluctant to use the KAT2 except in bypass from this point on. > I don't seem to have any problems with my MFJ-969 Versa Tuner II. > > During some KAT2 troubleshooting, I found that the voltage on pin 1 of U4 > was about 2.5VDC (3-4V spec at 5W) with a leg of R6 lifted. > Perhaps I'm not having a mechanical short on the LC board. Maybe the > SWR/Power bridge is sending the wrong data. > If I tune up on 10m into my dummy load, the K2 reports a 2.1:1 SWR. My > MFJ-969 read 1.05:1 > > The best I can tell, everything seems to be fine on the SSB modes. I can't > help but think however, if a problem in CW if occurring that I may have > some distortion on SSB. > > > ----- Damon Wascom KC5CQW Elecraft K2 #:6351 Build: 12/28/07-01/01/08 -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/K2-Transmitter-and-KAT2-failures-tp15883353p15921587.html Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com