[Elecraft] Problem with my K3
I need some advice. I had the K3 on this afternoon and tuned to the low end of 20M (about 14.001x). I had been going into and out of the shack with the radio in receive mode. I went into the shack and heard a continuous string of dots. I tried to tune the signal, only to realize that it was my sidetone (the watt meter in the SB200 was bouncing). I had to turn off the power supply to stop it. When I powered it back on, the ERR KEY message was displayed. I looked it up and saw that the key line must be active at power on. I disconnected the Bencher paddle, and the ERR message went away. It appears that the dot contact on the Bencher had changed enough to make it touch. I adjusted the paddle, and that problem went away. The problem now is that on 20M, keying the radio gives a HI SWR message and the SWR indicates 99.9:1. This is with either the 20M antenna or a dummy load. The other bands appear to be fine. I fear that I may have fried something in the 20M output circuit. Any suggestions? Help please! 73, Phil, NS7P __ 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
Re: [Elecraft] Problem with my K3
Obvious suggestion, but did you check antenna port assignment on 20M? Could you have inadvertently changed it from ANT1 to ANT2 or something on that order? Grant/NQ5T On Sep 18, 2010, at 5:33 PM, Phil and Christina wrote: The problem now is that on 20M, keying the radio gives a HI SWR message and the SWR indicates 99.9:1. This is with either the 20M antenna or a dummy load. The other bands appear to be fine. I fear that I may have fried something in the 20M output circuit. Any suggestions? Help please! __ 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
Re: [Elecraft] Problem with my K3
Hi all, Thank you for the suggestion about ANT2. I had inadvertently switched 20M over to the unterminated ANT2 connector. All is well now. Assuming I don't get written up for transmitting 20 or 30 minutes of 25 wpm dots at 14.001 MHz (hi). I had the Bencher contacts locked down tightly, but I guess I had the spacing too close for the paddle's tolerances (it was cool in the shack). 73, Phil, NS7P -Original Message- From: Tom Hammond [mailto:n...@embarqmail.com] Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 3:57 PM To: Phil and Christina Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Problem with my K3 Phil: Any chance you might have, by accident, switched to an empty ANT2...??? 73, Tom N0SS At 17:33 09/18/2010, you wrote: I need some advice. I had the K3 on this afternoon and tuned to the low end of 20M (about 14.001x). I had been going into and out of the shack with the radio in receive mode. I went into the shack and heard a continuous string of dots. I tried to tune the signal, only to realize that it was my sidetone (the watt meter in the SB200 was bouncing). I had to turn off the power supply to stop it. When I powered it back on, the ERR KEY message was displayed. I looked it up and saw that the key line must be active at power on. I disconnected the Bencher paddle, and the ERR message went away. It appears that the dot contact on the Bencher had changed enough to make it touch. I adjusted the paddle, and that problem went away. The problem now is that on 20M, keying the radio gives a HI SWR message and the SWR indicates 99.9:1. This is with either the 20M antenna or a dummy load. The other bands appear to be fine. I fear that I may have fried something in the 20M output circuit. Any suggestions? Help please! 73, Phil, NS7P __ 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 __ 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
Re: [Elecraft] Problem with my K3
A fairly common occurrence. Those of us with cats or small children get in the habit of clicking off the VOX any time we walk away from the radio. But it's not a bad idea for everyone. Kids are grown up now, still got the cat. 73 -- Carl WS7L Assuming I don't get written up for transmitting 20 or 30 minutes of 25 wpm dots at 14.001 MHz (hi). __ 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
Re: [Elecraft] Problem with my K3
Thanks again for all of the suggestions. The K3 came through fine. Just a bit of a red face for me. ;) I will still be on the net tomorrow. 73, Phil, NS7P -Original Message- From: Grant Youngman [mailto:n...@tx.rr.com] Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 4:11 PM To: Elecraft Reflector Cc: Phil and Christina Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Problem with my K3 Obvious suggestion, but did you check antenna port assignment on 20M? Could you have inadvertently changed it from ANT1 to ANT2 or something on that order? Grant/NQ5T On Sep 18, 2010, at 5:33 PM, Phil and Christina wrote: The problem now is that on 20M, keying the radio gives a HI SWR message and the SWR indicates 99.9:1. This is with either the 20M antenna or a dummy load. The other bands appear to be fine. I fear that I may have fried something in the 20M output circuit. Any suggestions? Help please! __ 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
Re: [Elecraft] Problem with my K3
Once a cleaning lady pushed a book against a microphone switch on a two meter rig, and it keyed up the 5 state Mt. Beacon, NY 146.97 repeater for nearly 20 hours before it was located with direction finding gear. What was amazing was that it didn't set the room on fire. The door to the shack was closed to the room as was its window, and when we went upstairs with the very red-faced ham and opened the door, the temp was easily 120 degrees inside. The 2 meter transmitter was a converted tube type mobile phone that ran nearly 100 watts to a ceramic transmitting tube. His friends found out about it because some of them heard us on an alternate wide coverage repeater chasing it down and showed up as we were leaving. Probably never lived it down. A friend in the Raleigh area with a good signal on 80 meters in the Sweepstakes, left the rig to get a snack, but forgot to turn off his auto-CQ which auto resumed. While in the kitchen he decided to take a nap. Lot of people answered his CQ but got no reply. He claims that he just sat back down to the rig a half hour later and started working people. It took a bunch of us in the local club to convince him that he had really done it. I'm still not sure he really believed us. Stuff happens. 73, Guy. On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 8:08 PM, Carl Clawson carlclaw...@verizon.netwrote: A fairly common occurrence. Those of us with cats or small children get in the habit of clicking off the VOX any time we walk away from the radio. But it's not a bad idea for everyone. Kids are grown up now, still got the cat. 73 -- Carl WS7L Assuming I don't get written up for transmitting 20 or 30 minutes of 25 wpm dots at 14.001 MHz (hi). __ 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 __ 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
Re: [Elecraft] Problem with my K3
Indeed, stuff happens. But it's a sobering reminder that Hams are responsible for securing transmitters so they cannot be operated by an unlicensed individual, much less put in transmit mode accidentally. For most of us, having the shack inside our home eliminates unlicensed operators, but the accidental transmission is just as bad. AFAIK, the FCC doesn't levy huge fines easily to such people, recognizing that accidents can happen, but it's still a very serious violation of the FCC rules. Careless is never an excuse. Part of the design of any Ham station *must* be a positive way of disabling the transmitter(s) when the licensee is not present. Ron AC7AC -Original Message- Once a cleaning lady pushed a book against a microphone switch on a two meter rig, and it keyed up the 5 state Mt. Beacon, NY 146.97 repeater for nearly 20 hours before it was located with direction finding gear. What was amazing was that it didn't set the room on fire. The door to the shack was closed to the room as was its window, and when we went upstairs with the very red-faced ham and opened the door, the temp was easily 120 degrees inside. The 2 meter transmitter was a converted tube type mobile phone that ran nearly 100 watts to a ceramic transmitting tube. His friends found out about it because some of them heard us on an alternate wide coverage repeater chasing it down and showed up as we were leaving. Probably never lived it down. A friend in the Raleigh area with a good signal on 80 meters in the Sweepstakes, left the rig to get a snack, but forgot to turn off his auto-CQ which auto resumed. While in the kitchen he decided to take a nap. Lot of people answered his CQ but got no reply. He claims that he just sat back down to the rig a half hour later and started working people. It took a bunch of us in the local club to convince him that he had really done it. I'm still not sure he really believed us. Stuff happens. 73, Guy. __ 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
