[Elecraft] K2 # 2845 alive! (however, some questions left...)

[Piet Meindertsma]

After building and testing my K2 (with K160RX, KSB2, KNB2, KAT2, KAF2,
and KIO2) my K2 is finished (well... some room to experiment with
mods...). It was great fun building and testing the radio, everything
worked immediately (well.... with some questions, see below).

In the process of building and testing however, a few questions came
up:
 - why is there a PA Bias Set potmeter (R60) in the power amplifier? (I
only saw instructions to set the potmeter fully counter clockwise.)
 - after building the KAT2 some strange things happened during testing
and alignment:
    - I set the rf output powerto 5 watt (as instructed).
    - when connecting my dummy (with power meter) to the "old" antenna
connector, the output was 5 watt
    - when connecting the same dummy to Antenna 1 of the ATU, the power
reduced to 2.x Watt (did I really lose 3 Watt in the ATU???)
    - after thoroughly verifying the ATU (and rewinding T1 in the SWR
bridge) I found no errors, but the problem remained.
    - the voltage measured on pin 1 of U4 was 3.85 Volt (so within the
specified 3 to 4 Volts range)
    - after disconnecting J8, the output power measured 5 Watt again
    - with the ATU fully connected, the actual power reduced (2.x
Watt), although the display on the K2 indicated an increase in the power
level.
    - when I turned R1 about 60 degrees counter clockwise, all of a
sudden I measured 5 Watt out and K2's display indicated 5 Watt as well
   After the last discovery. the ATU was quickly aligned and now works
very well.
   Checking the ATU took a few hours and consultation of a fellow K2
builder, so I wonder if my problem was just an incident or whether more
builders have seen this problem (if so, then a remark in the manual
could help future builders).

What next.... (building the K2 was quite addictive, so I am already
looking for a next project).

73 de piet meindertsma

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