Well, within minutes of my posting about the set power (as displayed by my newest K3) not squaring with what I was seeing on a LP-100A, Alpha 4510 and Bird wattmeters, I received a detailed email from Gary at Elecraft with step by step suggestions of things I should check. I had already done a TX gain calibration using the K3 Utility option to automatically go through and do the 5 and 50 watt calibrations and got a "successful" calibration message. Gary suggested I do the WMTR LP and HP calibration as well and to check the TXG VCE (as Julian also suggested in his reponse to my original post).
So, I did the full TX cal via the K2 Utility cal again (although I had done that before a couple of times). The WMTR cal was pretty much out of whack and needed quite an adjustment and the TXG VCE was defaulted at 0 but needed to be adjusted to -2.5 dB. After I did all this -- I went back and had the K3 hooked up to my 4510 and into a high quality 1500KW dummy load with a 1.1 SWR and checked power levels from virtually zip to 120 all within a normal accuracy of the meters and the coax and load effects. I double checked everything again using the LP-100A to validate the Alpha 4510 readings. All is good. I love my K3s and one of the big reasons is what happened today -- Elecraft's immediate (and I do mean immediate) response with specific things to check and do -- and a tip of the hat to this group and Julian, specifically, who quickly responded with help. As a member of some other radio groups from other manufacturers (overseas), I never saw or knew of them to respond to very real and very big problems with some models of their radios either on or off list or group. That is why I bought a second K3 -- not only I have been pleased with the K3 but the customer service is beyond expectation and nothing short of superb. And, I thank the members of this list whose posts I have read studiously for months before purchasing my first K3. 73, Greg K2UM ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
