[ADXA] 9 volts, 24 countries

[Nick Kennedy]

Well, that's amazing. I worked 40 countries and I sure wasn't QRP or
battery powered. When I see that gas gauge on DXHeat pointing toward the
'E', I figure: Not a good day for QRP.

Heard a few Arkies in there - ZN, SJ, N5EE up here in NWA. My best daytime
band was 15, oddly enough.

After a "masked visit" from our daughter and family on Sunday I thought I'd
try working a few more. But my K3 conked out! First, the K3 paddle input
had no effect. Then it came back but the display said "ERR 12V" and it
switched to 5 W. After that it said "CHK BREAKER" so I figured, I'm done.
I'll have to send this complex beast back to Elecraft.  Maybe tell them to
keep it and send me a K-4.

But later I decided to take the lid off and have a look. The breaker in the
100 W PA has push-on automotive type connectors (lugs). I pulled them off
and checked continuity and the breaker was fine and not tripped. With one
of the two lugs, the insulation around the crimp area was brittle and
cracked off when I grabbed it with a needle nose. I looked and the
conductor entering the barrel had black residue and there was also residue
on an adjacent toroid. So I checked resistance through that connection and
it was over 10 ohms. Ha!

I replaced the lug and got back in business. It brought back something I
learned in my many years in nuclear power: Everything fails.  Even when
quality control is excellent. Not every individual item of course, but
every type of component. And they sometimes fail in new and surprising
ways.

So I'm proud to have fixed my K3 myself but also glad that it puts out
useful error messages when something goes wrong.

73-

Nick, WA5BDU




On Sun, Feb 21, 2021 at 10:12 PM Dennis Schaefer <dennisw5rz at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I decided to try another “9 volt battery” effort in the ARRL CW DX contest
> with my little red rig - the LNR MTR-4b v2.  I grabbed a 9V battery off the
> desk that had been used for something else but measured a bit over 9
> volts.  I operated about 2 hours.  Power at the beginning was 1.2 watts and
> by the end, voltage was 7.7 and power output was 700 milliwatts.  I stayed
> mainly on 20 meters and found that many DX stations answered me on the
> first call. Some required several calls and a very few couldn’t copy me at
> all.  I was surprised that it worked so well since I was down an average of
> 30 db from a kw station.
>
> I worked 50 stations, 47 on 20 meters, and 3 on 40.  I had 23 multipliers
> on 20 meters and 3 on 40.  I think one on 40 was not duplicated on 20, so
> that was actually 24 countries worked and that didn’t count the US or
> Canada.
>
> The little MTR-4b v2 is an amazing rig.  With 12 volts, it will output 5
> watts, CW only.  It has a built-in voltmeter, SWR meter, and wattmeter.
> It’s not like operating a “big rig” but it is just a little bigger than a
> pack of cards.  I’ll be taking it out to the park when the weather gets a
> little better.
>
> 73,
> Dennis
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