[Elecraft] Re: K2 Instability on Transmit

[Tom Hammond NØSS]

John:

>K3 #139 performed **almost** perfectly during the FOC Marathon this
>weekend.

You have a "K3"... damn! I thought ALL Of the FT's would get it, not just a 
'chosen few'...!!! <G>

>The rig was interfaced to TR Log via the KIO2 and the combination
>was amazing. The power of TR Log (freeware version) surprised me.

Had I known you were gonna use TRLog, I'd have sent you a Full-Blown (e.g. 
current) release to try out!

>Now for the problem... Twice during the contest (which I operated about 12
>hours) the frequency display on the K2 would begin to dither, in random
>fashion, while transmitting CW. The dithering was fortunately confined to the
>right of the frequency readout decimal point as I recall. Also, the sound of
>the sidetone became choppy when this happened and several stations commented
>on the drifting. In one case, simply disengaging RIT corrected the problem;
>in the other, powering on/off twice was necessary.  The K2 ran cool the whole
>time so I don't think heat is an issue. With contest style operation, T/R
>change-over cycles are short/rapid/frequent which might be challenging to
>internal timing.

Hmmm... I operated 20+ hours in the CW SS and never experienced any 
problems... any chance it might have been RF-inflicted?

>I also notice that occasionally, when RIT is engaged, the transmit
>frequency does not always display when transmitting on this K2 (the display
>stays on the RIT freq). This has happened often since the rig was put into
>service July of 99, but I don't know if the transmit freq actually "jumps" or
>if it's just the display. No one has ever made note of it on the air.

This is NORMAL (e.g. firmware-related)... I think all of us who run RIT 
with ANY logging program find the same thing occuring.

>Although this problem resulted in only seconds of inconvenience over
>hours of otherwise flawless contest operation, I am concerned that it might
>get worse and hopeful there is a known cause and solution.Your advice would
>be appreciated. Has anyone else reported such a problem?

Tom